As a lifelong fan of Final Fantasy, I give every game in the franchise a chance if I can get my hands on it. That included games that didn’t receive as much praise as others and even ended up being criticized for the style or gameplay direction it took. However, I think it’s time to give Final Fantasy 13 another chance and see that it’s an underrated gem that didn’t deserve the criticism it received.

Final Fantasy 13‘s main story focuses on a group of characters who are brought together because of a purge happening on Cocoon, which is supposed to send residents who were in an area believed to be exposed to a Pulse Fal’Cie to Pulse. Sanctum, the government of Cocoon, views Pulse as an evil place and that coming in contact with anything from Pulse is enough for the government to see the affected people as tainted, which leads to them finding a way to remove those people from Cocoon. This time, a group of characters decides to fight against Sanctum.

Final Fantasy 13’s Linear Beginning Makes Sense

The Setting Requires It

The opening design of FF13 is not that different from the first part of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, where the characters are in a position that makes them hated by the ruling party of the location where they start. In FF7, that’s Midgar, but in FF13, it’s Cocoon. I remember reading a lot of complaints about players not getting far into the game because they didn’t like how linear it felt during the first section on Cocoon. However, the setting for that section basically requires that the design is relatively linear.

While on Cocoon, the characters that make up your party are being hunted by soldiers because Sanctum believes Pulse has tainted them, and they want to prevent that infection from spreading to the rest of Cocoon. Therefore, it makes sense that you’re incredibly limited as to where you can go because there’s a manhunt happening, and you’re at the top of the wanted list. Aside from making sense of the narrative, the linear opening is a tutorial on playing the game, so it has multiple purposes.

Final Fantasy 13 Doesn’t Stay Linear

Leaving Cocoon Opens The World

Even though FF13 starts out with a linear design for its maps, it doesn’t stay that way for the entire game, much less the entire trilogy. Once you arrive at Pulse, the world opens up. As for the other two games in the trilogy, they start with a much more open feeling to their maps as well. They aren’t open-world games, but you do feel like you have more room for exploration and aren’t just running down straight paths.

The style and protagonist change in Final Fantasy 13-2, which makes it somewhat less open world compared to the second half of FF13. I don’t mind that it’s not a completely open world in the subsequent games because you travel to different areas frequently, and it would be difficult to design a map that contains all of those areas and manage to connect them, especially when you consider that there’s a lot of time traveling going on. So, the world design feels fitting for the narrative, and it’s not too linear, but also not fully open.

With 3 Games, There’s A Lot of Content To Enjoy

Hours Spent With Lightning And Serah

Of course, how long it takes to complete a game can vary greatly depending on the player and how you approach content. If you stop to do side quests, it’ll take longer to complete the game than if you just power through the main story. On average, the entire trilogy takes about 110 hours to complete if you only focus on the main story. If you want to complete all the content that’s available in each game, then the trilogy will take you about 150 hours to complete instead.

It might not be the game in the franchise that could take you the longest time to complete all the content, given the MMO nature of Final Fantasy 14, but having over a hundred hours of content isn’t bad at all. You have time to become invested in Lightning’s journey and Serah’s journey, along with the stories of other characters you come across. Plus, the combat is done in a way where you can get assistance from the design of the system if it’s too tough or take it into your own hands if you want to get creative.

FF13’s Graphics & Gameplay Hold Up Today

It’s Still Beautiful

Final Fantasy 13 was first released in 2009, but the graphics and gameplay still hold up by modern standards. As a franchise, Final Fantasy has always been ahead of its time when it comes to graphics, which led to the games always looking as good as they could on the hardware running them. Additionally, since it was already 2009 when the game was released, the controls are still somewhat familiar if you compare them to modern games. Of course, the rest of the trilogy improves on both graphics and gameplay, considering that they were released afterward.

On top of the graphics and gameplay, FF13 as a trilogy has the benefit of being highly accessible now, thanks to digital platforms like Steam offering PC ports for each game. Ports might not always play as well as the system the game was made to primarily run on, but these ports aren’t bad. I didn’t run into many issues playing them, especially after I adjusted my settings to suit my computer. Plus, if you aren’t sure about giving FF13 another chance, the games go on sale during Steam sales sometimes, so you can buy them at pretty low prices.

While Final Fantasy 13 received a lot of criticism when it was released, it’s not as bad as some players make it seem. The biggest complaint was the linear style of the opening, but it doesn’t stay linear, and the story makes it reasonable for that section. I don’t expect this trilogy to be as loved as some other entries in the franchise, like Final Fantasy 7, but I do think that it’s worth giving Final Fantasy 13 another try.