The final cutscene(s?) are indeed higher quality than the rest of the game and are simply jawdropping to look at.  That being said, the only way I can recommend FFXIII is by playing it with virtually all of the characters muted.  To the team's credit, it can't be easy to paint with a brush big enough to appeal to the east and the west.  It's notable that they even attempt something along that scale, so you have to give them props for that.  But I just felt embarrassed whenever I had to listen to anything any of the characters said.   I don't see how there can be another Final Fantasy game unless they make the games dramatically more abstract.  Everything in 13 feels incredibly forced and tone deaf.  I never thought I would be saying this, but it would be nice if they took a few pages from Nintendo's playbook and scaled back most of the specifics. Keep the art style, amp that up, but strip out the literal bullshit that bogs Final Fantasy down.  I've completed the game and I couldn't tell you the difference between a fal'cie and a l'cie because it's just an obstacle standing between me and the brilliant combat system, beautiful visuals, and trippy creature designs.    
 
I'm willing to bet that the most powerful moment in Final Fantasy XIII for most people is the final shot when everthing is totally silent and frozen.  A Final Fantasy without talking? Count me in. 

 
Agreed. I'd pay 300 bucks for a modern console JRPG that utilized text boxes and fairly unarticulate avatars. The Japanese make significantly better interactive stage plays than they make interactive movies, especially when they try (and horribly fail) to "westernize" these movies.
 
 
"The Last Story" will feature an acted-out script and it will be the game's weakest point. Everyone knows it. Yet still the gaming crowd insists on VA and bad, cheesy cinematography.

Grats on finishing it :)
 
I disagree with the idea of muting the characters, and personally liked their voices and the majority of the dialogue, but to each their own. I do agree that there was a lot of technical term tossing and without that datalog thing, I would have been left completely in the dark on what a l'cie was or pretty much what the heck was going on at any given moment.

" Grats on finishing it :)  I disagree with the idea of muting the characters, and personally liked their voices and the majority of the dialogue, but to each their own.  "

" @Symphony said:

" Grats on finishing it :)  I disagree with the idea of muting the characters, and personally liked their voices and the majority of the dialogue, but to each their own.  "

Indeed, the voice acting and dialogue was quite excellent for the most part. "

Zenaxzd, what the fucking hell is wrong with you? 
 

I PLAY XIII NEARLY EVERY DAY AND AM ENJOYING MYSELF.

yea I'm 30 hours in, and the dialogue is pretty cheesy.  Then again I just finished FF6 while playing 13 and the dialogue wasn't too much different.  I think its just because we have to literally hear them talk.  When its just text boxes its a little more forgiving.  You kind of visualize the characters in your head so they seem cooler.   I won't make any broad generalizations that JRPG writers are horrible.  They just never changed, RPGs have always been filled with "As long as you have Hope, love, and friendship we can never lose!"  I feel as though the players who were fans of this series just grew up.  Now some of them want more mature writing, and others want to just keep it classic.  Sometimes 20 minutes of dialogue isn't as powerful, or moving as silence.

I think the cheesiness is part of the charm, myself.

yea, exactly.  Some people like that.  The series has always been like that, FF13 is no different.

I think dialog like this is inevitable for JRPGs.  Also I'd have to say in my opinion, FFXIII and Lost Odyssey probably has the least amount of cheesy dialog compared to recent rpgs (Eternal Sonata, Tales of Vesperia, Infinite Undiscovery, Last Remnant, Blue Dragon, etc) but it doesn't really bother me.  
 
Normalpants, are you going to do any post game stuff like finish off the missions? I honestly found the game became better for me as I'm doing the missions, trying to five star them, and get all my weapons and accessories upgraded. I don't know, there is something about it in this game, it really makes me like it a lot more than if I had just played the game and stopped right after I had killed the final boss.

" I think the cheesiness is part of the charm, myself. "

 (Spoilers)
As I described to my friend who started XIII recently, and has no idea whats going on.  I felt the story as a whole was really really good.  If I were to summarize it to someone they would say that it sounds amazing.  But the way they slowly introduced the story in the game itself is a grind.  I feel like the characters don't know where they are heading.  In Grand pulse before fighting the Primark for the second time, he showed up at the end of a broken bridge over water.  What would have happened if he didn't?  All 6 members just standing at the end of a bridge looking around.  They want to remove their brands somehow and not fulfill their focus to destroy cocoon, but Grand Pulse is pretty big and they just kind of wander.

Got to agree with the original post.  I am totally digging FFXIII's battle system, and for the most part, the visuals are stunning.  But, one of the things that is really crippling the traditional JRPG in the modern era is the writing and voice acting.  It seems almost a shame that Square Enix would pour so many resources into crafting good gameplay and high-end visuals, yet skimp on proper localization and voice acting.  Heck, even Nolan North couldn't make the script palatable.  A lot of the dialogue is redundant, and the conversations have an odd pacing that really makes it obvious that every actor recorded their lines solo.  There is no volume modulation, so every little grunt and groan is just as audible as the main dialogue, and during one of the earlier scenes with Vanille and Hope, it was just two minutes of sighs and groans... it sounded like an adult film.  It's just not up to snuff in an age where story and voicework are approaching the quality you'd find in mainstream entertainment.

" The voices aren't bad at all.  I was afraid they'd be much worse.  The dialogue, for the most part though , is pretty bad.  The whole story's premise is uninspiring imo.  LO was so much better, better written, and so much more poignant.  I cared about those characters a lot.  These... not so much, at least not yet(10 hrs in).  The battle system is fun and develops nicely.  Prolly the strength of the game I'm guessing. "

"Normalpants, are you going to do any post game stuff like finish off the missions?"

"  (Spoilers)As I described to my friend who started XIII recently, and has no idea whats going on.  I felt the story as a whole was really really good.  If I were to summarize it to someone they would say that it sounds amazing.  But the way they slowly introduced the story in the game itself is a grind.  I feel like the characters don't know where they are heading.  In Grand pulse before fighting the Primark for the second time, he showed up at the end of a broken bridge over water.  What would have happened if he didn't?  All 6 members just standing at the end of a bridge looking around.  They want to remove their brands somehow and not fulfill their focus to destroy cocoon, but Grand Pulse is pretty big and they just kind of wander. "

It was probably written by someone who reads a lot of SHONEN JUMP manga's. That's why we get this nonsense. Also their sentence structure is backwards to ours.

Barthandelus's dialogue--at all times--was more or less entirely unbearable. It was one of the most forced performances I've ever had the displeasure of sitting through.
 
Overall, the dub wasn't bad at all--it's on par with the Japanese version for the most part, but nothing is going to save a script that stale in either language. It's generally pretty solid at the beginning, but you end up in these failed moments of melodrama toward the end that are a bit cringe-worthy. I've been saying for ages that voice acting has killed the modern RPG, because there's just so much more you can do with 10 minutes of text and only relevant character actions being played out on-screen than there is with 10 minutes of voiced and fully animated cut-scenes (for an RPG, that is; other genres generally do well with cinematic elements).

That is the point though, the characters don't know where they are heading, they don't know what they are doing.  All they know is that they don't want to complete their focus and they want to find some way to remove the brand.  They are wandering around Gran Pulse trying to figure out what the hell they are going to do (if anything).  If the Boss hadn't shown up at the end of chapter 12 (I think that was the chapter) they would have just continued searching for clues/answers. "

Those are all surface details.  Maybe it's just the way the story is conveyed, but I didn't get the sense that any of those plot points connected to anything that would lend the narrative weight or make it a universal story worth telling.  It's pretty rare that a game's story connects with players in ways that transcend trivial details and one-dimensional characters.  I guess I just expected Final Fantasy to offer a tale that normal  people could digest and not just gamers. 

 
In the interest of full disclosure, I guess it's important to note that this is the first Final Fantasy game I have completed, but I've dabbled in the DS remakes and Final Fantasy X.   I didn't think those games had anything great to say either, but I suspected my perception would change if I had played more of or completed them.   
 
The game part of Final Fantasy XIII still rocks my face off, it just sucks that you have to slog through a metric fuckton of poop to get to the amazing bits. 

 (Spoilers)
I just feel like nothing is happening.  If the characters removed their brands, or jumped off a ledge it wouldn't make a difference.  I read so much about all this character development, but its just development between the characters themselves.  I don't know any of their pasts, or maybe people that know them.  Someone said before on another forum that the world feels hollow.  All we meet is Hope's dad?  Does snow have a family? What about Sahz's family, is his wife dead?  He just carries around guns for the hell of it.    Wasn't Lightning part of the guardian Corps, we meet one person in a flashback from that.  Like i said before it feels like not much is happening. 

"  (Spoilers)I just feel like nothing is happening.  If the characters removed their brands, or jumped off a ledge it wouldn't make a difference.  I read so much about all this character development, but its just development between the characters themselves.  I don't know any of their pasts, or maybe people that know them.  Someone said before on another forum that the world feels hollow.  All we meet is Hope's dad?  Does snow have a family? What about Sahz's family, is his wife dead?  He just carries around guns for the hell of it.    Wasn't Lightning part of the guardian Corps, we meet one person in a flashback from that.  Like i said before it feels like not much is happening.  "

Yea I can see what you mean. Good point that everything else going on really is irrelevant.  I guess I'm just used to old school RPGs where everything and everyone is involved, and pointless events can happen that doesn't relate to the main storyline.  And yes I do want change in my games also, whether for good or bad.  If square wants to take this approach, and it ends up bringing in even more of an audience then more power to them.  Its not like their old games are vanishing off my shelf, could just always pop them in whenever. 

I've completed the game and I couldn't tell you the difference between a fal'cie and a l'cie because it's just an obstacle standing between me and the brilliant combat system, beautiful visuals, and trippy creature designs.

I also want text boxes, 2d sprites, and no cutscenes. This way I don't have to listen or really look at any of the characters.

"Yea I can see what you mean. Good point that everything else going on really is irrelevant.  I guess I'm just used to old school RPGs where everything and everyone is involved, and pointless events can happen that doesn't relate to the main storyline.  And yes I do want change in my games also, whether for good or bad.  If square wants to take this approach, and it ends up bringing in even more of an audience then more power to them.  Its not like their old games are vanishing off my shelf, could just always pop them in whenever.  "

"I think the cheesiness is part of the charm, myself. "

A lot of it is East vs. West storytelling dynamics. Much of the way dialogue comes about is very Japanese, and a lot of Americans really hate it. Most of the stories that get major love in this area are those games (Uncharted 2, Mass Effect) that are keenly focused on Western Sensibilities. I won't say that the dialogue was bad in FFXIII, just different. For truly BAD dialogue, play Sacred 2. It's practically the Citizen Kane for bad VA in a recent RPG (whether intentional or not)

" @thehuntsmen5434 said:

"Yea I can see what you mean. Good point that everything else going on really is irrelevant.  I guess I'm just used to old school RPGs where everything and everyone is involved, and pointless events can happen that doesn't relate to the main storyline.  And yes I do want change in my games also, whether for good or bad.  If square wants to take this approach, and it ends up bringing in even more of an audience then more power to them.  Its not like their old games are vanishing off my shelf, could just always pop them in whenever.  "

 FFXIII is the first JRPG that has truly hooked me, and that is definetly not due to the story or characters.  I hope Square sees to what extent these things have become obstacles for what seems to be a growing portion of gamers and strips away the bullshit to focus on things that actually make the game fun.   "

" @normalpants:  It might be a matter of taste but if you are looking for a more traditional FF game, you might want to play Lost Odyssey. I really liked it. I did see it in your games list but since you havent gotten any achievements in it I assumed you did not play it. "

" A lot of it is East vs. West storytelling dynamics. Much of the way dialogue comes about is very Japanese, and a lot of Americans really hate it. Most of the stories that get major love in this area are those games (Uncharted 2, Mass Effect) that are keenly focused on Western Sensibilities. I won't say that the dialogue was bad in FFXIII, just different. For truly BAD dialogue, play Sacred 2. It's practically the Citizen Kane for bad VA in a recent RPG (whether intentional or not) "