Final Fantasy 13 and Elements Story Telling in Gaming

   The Final Fantasy series has always been praised for its engaging worlds and the stories it creates within. Each Final Fantasy is very different from the previous one and engages the player into a different universe. The effectiveness of the series’ story telling comes from traditional storytelling tools and through using gameplay to have the player develop background and attachment to the characters of the story. Final Fantasy 13, while an amazing title, falls short both in storytelling and in game play, leaving me asking “why exactly am I still playing this?” Here I explain elements of storytelling and the tools of engaging game play to explain and clarify that feeling in your heart: Why is Final Fantasy 13 simply falling short to your Final Fantasy expectations?

The playable cast of FF13

Final Fantasy 13 is critically missing an element of storytelling
You know a good story when you hear one: you find it worth telling again. You know a good movie when you see it: you recommend it to a friend. In almost all forms of storytelling across any medium, a story almost always does the following in its first act:



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Act 1 Story Structure
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Inciting incident: What happens in the first few minutes of a story makes the rest possible. The listener is quickly told what the story is about.

Overture: The medium tells you the world the story takes place in.
This is our universe and world which we need to understand in order to understand the conflict our characters face in that world fully.

Kicker: A hint of the coming conflict in the meat of the story.

Double Kickers:  Another hint that is going to build the conflict of the story.

Rhythm:   A repeated motif or piece of dialogue. Its repetition lets the viewer understand change in a character or progression in story.

Plot point 1:
Conflict has occurred and must now play out. This is called the At Sea moment, and there is no turning back. The character is lost in a new strange place. The game gets momentum and we understand what our characters need to do. In Final Fantasy 13 this occurs when our characters become marked and are now fugitives.
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   Final Fantasy 13 opens up with an inciting incident, but does not give us proper overture or kickers. It makes the player question what is going on in the story. It isn’t until later in the game when the conflict becomes more clear and we begin to understand our character’s motivation. But without much more than a hint of motivation, what keeps us pulling through the first 9 hours of the game? The story tries too hard to keep a shroud of mystery over the characters by telling the story in reverse through cut scenes, and as a result, players suffer confusion due to lack of clarity about the world we are in. Because of this, the beginning of the game is often under-appreciated.

Gaming is different from movies and television 

because of it's interactive element. A story telling 

game needs to use that element to make proper use 

of its medium

Gameplay experiences can help tell the story and provide an experience

What makes game story telling different from any other medium is the player’s ability to make decisions that affect the story, or at least give the illusion of affecting the story. This allows the player to make connections with a character that other mediums cannot.  An engaging gameplay experience keeps the player playing and focused on the story of the game. In a Role-Playing Game you take the role of a specific group of characters and see the world through their eyes; there is a sense of attachment when you see your character grow and succeed in their world as you learn more about them. This sense of attachment can also make story plot points more intense. Infamously, Aeris is killed in Final Fantasy 7, but would it be remembered in the same fashion if she was not a playable character? When gameplay is affected by a story beat, the player is more likely to be affected emotionally by the incident.


In Final Fantasy 13, we are given control over one character at a time while the other two characters battle automatically. Because of Final Fantasy 13’s quick combat pacing, this was necessary because otherwise the player would not have enough time to make all of their decisions, similar to Final Fantasy 12. Unfortunately, this takes us away from our characters and puts a wall between the player and the characters. We don’t have true control over our characters, rather we dictate actions to them.
During each battle, we are given the ability to auto battle, which lets the game’s artificial intelligence pick the best course of action. The only decision the player really needs to make develops in the latter half of the game, a combat feature called paragon shift. And after each battle, your characters are fully healed and revived, leaving no consequences to taking damage or losing a character, unless the entire party is defeated. Not caring if your characters become damaged or even killed leads to a massive sense of detachment. The player is left feeling like the game can play itself better then they can.

Paragon Shifting is the most important decision you 

will make in battle

Gameplay is not developing the storytelling experience here. Ultimately, that is what gamers are used to and why negative reaction to the game was common. We play Final Fantasy for the story, and its gameplay prevents it from developing traditionally. Shouldn’t a player be able to take the role of a character in a role-playing game?  The players are left with the feeling that they are not playing a game but rather watching a movie. And if we are to accept we are watching a movie rather than playing a game, then why does Final Fantasy 13 not have an overture like all movies do?



Conclusion:


   Final Fantasy 13’s storytelling is affected by having an extremely poor overture. Most players do not understand the world and circumstance they are in until late in the game. It’s like watching a movie during Act 2. Do you know what is going on? It is true a player can read the log notes in the menu for a clear explanation, but a story-telling video game has the tools to show me and provide an experience. Why should the player have to pause and read text logs to understand what should be freely provided? The game play system of Final Fantasy 13 takes away from the story telling experience through how it discourages player attachment to the characters, circumstance and the world.  When a game’s point is to tell a story, it needs to find a marriage between elements of traditional storytelling and make use of the tools it had to enhance the story telling experience.


Edited by: Brian Mc Kay