Sad Soul Review (Final Fantasy 13 Review)

Hello again, it's Rpg Soul. I've decided to format my reviews to doing a good game then bad then good again to maintain my sanity after ranting about a bad game like Tales of Xillia. After the nostalgia soul series where I reviewed Vanguard Bandits in a relatively good light, I'll be reviewing Final Fantasy 13...Okay, as a fan of Jrpgs and Rpgs in general I was very excited for the first Final Fantasy to hit the ps3 and xbox360...it is the worst Final Fantasy game I have ever played. And I played Final Fantasy Legends! Let's dive into it then...

Plot: I don't know what the fuck was going on in the plot. It starts with the main character Lightning trying to save her sister Serah from turning into a crystal...because she was a l'cie...*googles the plot for a reminder because what the fuck?* okay so she was picked by a fal'Cie for some mission and gets turned because...Oh god this is so hard. Anyway she meets a buncha people I think...to save her sister.

Opinion: What the fuck! the plot in FF13 makes Final Fantasy Tactic's political subplots feel like a Nancy Drew novel. I kinda just played it for the sake of hype and could not make heads or tail of the story. It was a clusterfuck to me. 0/5 Soul



Setting: The game is set in a modern sci-fi world and I have to admit it looks absolutely beautiful! Every single area looks so well done and polished. (it's a shame you can't explore it fully but more on that later) And at the time of its release, nothing could compare. 5/5 Soul

From Left: Sazch, Vanille (top) Hope (bottom...lol) Lightning, Snow, Serah and Fang.

Characters: Ho boy, this is where the fun starts. The characters are horrible and badly written! Some have questionable design as well. I'll be giving my opinion on each character like I did for Xillia...for bitching purposes.

Sazch: Sazch would have been an amazing character had it not been for his questionably racist character design and certain character traits. They've shown that they can make amazingly badass black characters (eg Barret) so I have no idea how this happened. He has this amazing scene with Vanille half way through that made him my favorite character in the series...then again he didn't have much competition. He fights with guns and has a chocobo living in his hair...because...not even gonna go there.

Vanille: Vanille is the narrator of the entire story and considering I didn't understand the story, not a very good one. She's bubbly and outgoing and I like her character design, people don't like her very much but I do. She and Sazch are the only two I am able to tolerate. She fights with a fugly acme-ish giant slingshot...yea...

Hope: I 'hope' you've picked up from my previous reviews that I don't like a lot of the child characters in Jrpgs. It's hard to pull off and most of the time they can come off annoying and unlikeable...Hope is the living personification of this. It's not to say I don't like child characters, MOMO from Xenosaga is one of my all time favorite characters but Hope does it so wrong. He's whiny and annoying and while he does go through some character development, the damage has been done.

Serah: Hardly in this game except for some over romanticized flashbacks. Not going to bother. Next.

Fang: Vanille cousin and slash lover, very protective over Vanille. Honestly I don't remember her very much so I'm going to move on to...

Snow:...The worst character in the game. My god who thought it would be a good idea to make Snow the way he was. Headstrong with almost no redeemable qualities. He's also very ignorant and a little too happy-go lucky for someone who lost his fiancé in such an unfair way. Spends half the game seperated from the group because he runs into things stupidly. 

Lightning: One word to describe Lightning...Boring! They were trying to make a female version of Cloud and they weren't subtle about it. Well, they failed. She was paper thin as a character and sooooooo Boring! As cool as Cloud from Final Fantasy 7 was, he had interesting arcs and humanizing moments. Remember when Cloud cross dressed to enter a brothel? Good times...

2/5 Soul




Gameplay: Wow okay this is where shit really hits the fan. Gameplay is not the appropriate word for what I'm about to review, it's more like things you do in between cutscenes. If the game was any more linear, you'd have to put train tracks on it. 

Gone are the days of exploration and adventure, in this game you're only allowed to move forward through instances. You want to go shopping or explore a town and talk to NPCs? sorry don't have that. Where are the iconic inns to recover HP? Oh nevermind, you recover after every battle. What the fuck? How did Final Fantasy become this pile of horse dung?

The battles don't fair well either. There is no tactic to them anymore, you have no need for item management when each monster drops 100x potions. It's just pretty lights and graphics. Oh but what about the iconic Final Fantasy summon beasts? Oh they turn into vehicles now that you can't ride because there is no need in a game full of corridors? Fuck you.

0/5 Soul


Overall: Fuck this shit of a 'video game' and an even sadder excuse for a flagship Final Fantasy game. Outside of the jaw dropping visuals, this game has no Soul! It was made on no wits and all hype. Fuck this game, it has 1/5 Soul. There was no heart put into this game, no passion and certainly no soul. Why make a 'game' at all Square Enix? Just make another Final Fantasy CGI movie.


Keep up with me as I review Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland next!

Nostalgia Soul Series : Vanguard Bandits (1998)

Vanguard Bandits was a game my brother and I played a lot as kids. It had amazing Japanese mechs coupled with branching storylines and colourful characters. So I was surprised to grow up and find out not a lot of people got to play this amazing gem of a game. For the Nostalgia Soul series, I'll discussing everything but the graphics except to note if it stood the test of time and instead of an overall section, it will have 'Does it still hold up' section. Now let's get started!

Plot: The plot to vanguard bandits is a tale of politics and badass mechas! You meet Bastion who lives in seclusion with his father Savaro and in the first scene we see Bastion and his father fighting off bad guys in Mechs called ATACs. They fend them off and meet two girls named Ione and Reyna who join their adventures against the evil Empire. 

Now here's where it gets interesting. During points in the game, if certain criterias or choices are made the game branches off the main storyline into a completely new one with completely different party members, fights, choices and storylines.


Opinion: Vanguard bandits has an amazing amount of replayability for a game made in the late 90s. The first few times I played it as a kid, I only ever went through the main storyline only to accidentally stumble upon one of the other branches replaying it as a teen. Each story line differs considerably from the other and friends you made in one, might try to kill you in another. 4/5 Soul




Setting: The setting for vanguard bandits is weird in a way. Here you have all these amazing fighting robots, and then they fight in a very medieval setting. It's explained that the robots are excavated from ruins of old but other than the robots and ruins, there are no signs of modern technology or even remnants of them.  2/5 Soul




Character(s): I'm not going to talk about each and every character the way I did with my Tales of Xillia review because there are too many to count spanning all the different storylines, so I'll stick to the main character and how he interacts with the rest of the massive cast.

Bastion is a typical mid 90s Shounen anime character, he's hot headed but kind and grows in different ways depending on the branch you pick. The characters that surround him never feel one dimentional aside from a select few like the Loli character who's there to be cute and pilot a massive ugly robot. There's also this amazing princess character who pilots this gigantic blue heirloom ATAC.  4/5 Soul


Gameplay: This game incorporates tactical RPGs ala Final Fantasy Tactics and a dating sim. After every fight you're able to shop in the town you're currently in and interact with each character to improve their impression towards you which may or may not have an effect in the story and their growth. The tactical rpg genre is a dying genre with modern games opting for more fast paced combat and gameplay but if you're nostalgic for the genre, give it a go. 3/5 Soul

How does it hold up? Vanguard bandits is a fun game but I can't sit here and lie to you and say my judgment is not marred by nostalgia because it is. But then again it's the point of the series. My advice is pick it up if you're feeling nostalgic for the genre but have already played and replayed Final Fantasy Tactics a million times and need something new (old). 3/5 Soul

Join me next time when I review Final Fantasy 13!