Final Fantasy XIII: “Biggest Swindle in Gaming History”
- Categories: Games, News
- Date: Jan 9, 2010 18:42 JST
- Tags: China, Final Fantasy, Production Controversy, PS3, RPG, Square Enix, Xbox 360
Divisive RPG Final Fantasy XIII has received its most damning print review to date, being awarded a pathetic 40% by an overseas rag evidently free of the need to toady up to Square’s advertising department. The game is a “swindle” and a “joke” it is said, and many who have played the game will likely sympathise with the criticisms made.
The game received the following score:
System: 1/10 “Such a crude system barely warrants being called an RPG at all.”
Scenario: 2/10 “An epic tear jerker.”
Graphics: 9/10 “Top marks here.”
Sound: 7/10 “Mostly quality.”
Enthusiasm: 1/10 “As if you could play this for 100 hours! I could put up with 8.”
Total: 4/10 “To think it got this bad…”
Criticisms include:
The game is complete linearity until the open areas near the end. You can’t even backtrack.
Of all the RPGs I’ve played in recent years, this is the first which has been so linear that it’s little more than riding an amusement park ride.
I had heard the opinion that “It’s amazing once you get to Chapter 11,” but why should you spend 20 or 30 hours on a game to get to the only enjoyable part? Just how do they intend to make me play this? Do they think I’m some kind of masochist?
He goes on to deride the gameplay for having become a button mashing puzzle game with no real strategy or RPG elements and a plethora of annoying features, saying the game as a whole is little more than a “digital novel” of sorts.
For such a game to approach 2 million copies sold must be due solely to the strength of the Final Fantasy brand, he opines, calling it in closing the “biggest swindle in gaming history” and the “biggest joke of 2009.”
The review, in Chinese:
Final Fantasy has never been so divisive and polarising; even Square Enix’s CEO seems somewhat sheepish about the title… Hardly the reception the supposed crowning masterpiece of the series should be receiving?
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First comment!
Also, this is gonna suck for Americans when this game comes out here, seeing as how everyone is anticipating it so much.
no comment
Well at least one experienced rpg player doing the review.
there is distinct difference between hong kongese, taiwanese and chinese!
>Hong Kong, Taiwan, China... different...
I lol'd...
They're all Chinese, there's nothing wrong with that.
However, Taiwan does not belong to China.
The review is from hong kong, says on the article $649hk
Artefact i think we got it by now. YOU DON'T WANT US TO BUY FF XIII!!!
Taiwan does belong to China, sorry to break it to you. Perhaps you should put your patriotism down and actually go back there and see the situation. Time to switch to traditional mandarin.
Learn your geography. Taiwan is NOT part of China (although China still claim that it is).
Republic of China and People's Republic of China are not the same. I don't think you understand the situation in Republic of China (Taiwan). BTW if you're rooting for PRC, please learn the fact that they write Simplified Chinese.
All nations in the world recognise officially Taiwan is part of China (whether they would like to or not is another question) The UN also recognises this.
You can't really take a Chinese reviewer seriously. Though, I don't plan on buying the game, myself.
I'd take a chinese reviewer more seriously than most american reviewers.
That is so true. At least chinese reviewers aren't afraid to let it rip on Japanese games that are honestly bad.
yeah that's reasonable because the chinese don't have an unreasonable hate for the japanese.... oh wait most of them do. I won't go into details but anyone who has lived there for any amount of time can testify to that.
That aside reviews in general are less usefull than most people think. I personally have loved every FF game I have ever played and that is enough to give this one a chance.
that's the reason why it sold nearly two million copies...
Hardly unreasonable
wow look at that!! just like the reviewer said...
"For such a game to approach 2 million copies sold must be due solely to the strength of the Final Fantasy brand"
@19:25
that is either a HK or TaiWan review, and i have to say there has been hatred towards Japanese, but it has been faded... it seems young generation chinese embrace japanese rather than despise, if u really have lived there for a period of time, u wud not have said that. Not to say I trust the review, cause i generally dont, because story gameplay linear or not linear are just opinions. The only thing that i trust in that review are graphics and audio, which had a high rating. So I am gonna buy this game when it comes out in UK and judge it for myself.
It IS because the Chinese have a dislike towards the Japanese that their reviews can be so brutally honest, unlike fat white otaku who wish they were Japanese and always suck up to them.
What nonsense are you guys spouting?
Most of the games out there are Japanese, don't say Chinese reviewers play games and yet bear hatred towards Japanese games, because that doesn't make any sense at all...
Just imagine you being a Chinese gamer.
Even so IF you're right about racism, they wouldn't bash any game that's just Japanese.
And to give you another advantage, IF it's true that they bash every Japanese game, it doesn't take away the fact that they bash this game harder than the other Japanese games.
Actually Chinese gamers would be far closer to Japanese gamers when it comes to appreciating Japanese games because most themes and ideas are drawn from asian mythology, imagery and sensibilities.
Whereas western gamers (esp from the US) have their own way of viewing games based on their upbringing and literature.
Also doesn't hurt the fact that Chinese and Japanese live a stone's throw away and most Chinese ports of Japanese games are released far sooner than in the west, not to mention that Japanese is a popular second language in Taiwan and to a lesser extent HK, and that anime and drama are aired on national TV as normal programs instead of being stuffed in an "ethnic" slot...list goes on.
21:06
So you discount everything but audio and visual because it has a high mark? That sounds rather.. fanboyish of you. Why don't you try looking at other game reviews and discount all the other with low marks too. I am sure you'll have a verdict similar to Famitsu.
just because americans enjoy many japanese games, it doesnt mean we are otakus or wannabe japanese. also there are many japanese games that got shitty scores here. just look at many jrpgs or anime games. this is just ONE chinese review. that doesnt mean the whole country is bashing. bashing a video game because of racism is down right ridiculous
bunch of idiots
Having been in China a lot, I can attest that many hate Japan. However, they don't care at all about Japanese merchandise, so their opinions on Japanese games and anime/manga are fair
Most of you posting have not played the game. I have and the review does hold true. It really does take 10 chapters of running in a "straight line" to get some freedom in chapter 11, then right after that you go back to running into a straight line for 12-13. There are no towns, no airship but frankly that is fine because there is NO WHERE to go anyway. The story itself isn't even that interesting. The graphics are really pretty though.
FF 13 is fucking bad you FF fan boy faggots.
That review's from a Hong Kong gaming magazine, and HK gamers tend to buy the genuine stuff rather than pirated ones, so don't automatically slander the review just because it's written in Chinese, mate.
You can take any chinese serious, seriously.
The Chinese have very good reasons to hate japanese people. And most do, quite furiously.
What hitler did to the jews is a joke compared what the japanese did in china.
wat hitler did to the jews is a joke, period.
something a lot of people have a misunderstanding... for the unreasonable hate against Japanese, as a person from Hong Kong speaking fluent Cantonese and English, i can tell u it's not in the gaming population. Most of it stays in the GRANDPA generation who actually fought in WW2 against the Japanese. The next 2 generations are strangely confused with their own identity between being a "true" Chinese/British or hating either/or both of them, while trying to embrace everything the world has to offer.
We Hong kong pps here are TOO lost to actually collectively hate anyone, as well as too cocky from previous successes to truly love and admire anything else.
now about the believability of this article, for SURE they're not paid, and it never was an issue cuz there's around 20+ game mags in Hk for sale. The competition is just too high for anyone in the right minds to write sth after paid, not to mention if there will be any company being stupid enough to pay one since game mags rn't trusted in general in HK anyway since we're used to trying it "full demos" at a cheap price.(yes i AM talking bout pirated copies)
with ps3 games, esp. single player, we'll likely share and trade off fairly soon after we're done as a work around.
But the article does have a point: Y play a game that u don't even get ur basics until 8hrs into it?(and nowhere in this article did he say he ONLY played 8hrs.)
Tho 100hrs+ of game play is common for jrpgs, never has it been that it shouldn't be FUN until several hrs into the game, or almost up until the 1/3 mark.
sidenote:The 649HKD is referring to the retail price of the game not the mag. and that's around 85USD,which is no wonder y it's worth the bash, when games are generally at the 360HKD-520HKD in general.
Annon above ^^^^ If I could +rep you I would!
"The Chinese have very good reasons to hate japanese people. And most do, quite furiously."
I am Chinese, and I don't hate the Japanese any more than I hate anyone else. Likewise, I do not know a single Chinese person that I have interacted with who "furiously" hates Japanese. Even the older generation from what I gather hardly care about them, as we have other issues to worry about. To give a proper perspective, my family is from Beijing.
Please stop this silly racial hate mongering by saying people from one country hates another, especially when there is absolutely no proof that what you say is true.
Lets see how Versus XIII and Agito XIII do
For me(now at least), I don't care about the XIII "set". I won't deny that I want Vanille/etc doujins. Sakaguchi pretty much killed FF/Squaresoft anyway. Anything stamped with Enix has left me uninterested so far.
I prefer FF when it was still made by SquareSoft...
You mean Sakaguchi's absence?
I mean, the guy was the producer of the series' sole entry that was any relevant at all in gaming's history, its limelight. Not that his continued input helped it keep its foothold there or anything (because it didn't), but to say he killed the series and the company... LOL WAT, et cetera.
Lost Odyssey was the last true FF game.
I'm not sure how much you can trust this though.
The only reason you're seeing this single review that's been dug up from god knows where is because it's been a whole 12 hours since this site moaned or had a pathetic attention seeking whine about either Final Fantasy or Haruhi.
If they didn't it seams they'd just expire from pure retardation.
yet you're here now in this site. way to take a stand there.
You obviously love this site so much that you don't want to have an account associated with it.
It also pretty pointless talking about this site with people who don't use it, eg, 98% of people on every other site.
We are anon. We are associated with everything. Why should we deprive this site of our presence by creating an account? Face it, most people around here are in for the disturbing news, the ero galleries and the epic endless anon trolling.
There's no sancon without anon.
So it's just the endless "Legion" prattle again? Brilliant, it's like actually being on 4chan.
Those are the only things the site offers though but they're good things. This site also tends to get all the new releases fastest due to 2ch lurking.
However, I'm complaining about shit that isn't news. "FF13 sux" "E8, lol"
Fantastic stuff, the first two dozen times.
lol so true anon!
amen to that
Actually, knowing how most game reviewing in the states is nothing but lip service anyway, it'll get a 9/10, with all of it's flaws being deemed unimportant since it looks pretty.
Expect for it to be just like in Japan; game review rags praise it/ fans fricken hate it.
Well, if it's so linear and predictable, it'll be an easy 1000 points for the xbox version.
The chance that this will be badly received by RPG fans seems high to me. I was told by a cousin in Japan that likes more or less the same games I do, that this game is terribly bad in terms of actually letting you try different things.
As a FF fan, I think I'll avoid this one completely on the grounds that there are several interesting games coming and the recession is not lifting soon...
I also want an HDTV...