Square Enix decided that it is confession time as they gave their insights of the development process of Final Fantasy XIII.

Development didn’t go too smoothly
There were problems from the get-go as the team “lack of a shared vision”. Not only that, they were also slow in the development of their own game engine called the Crystal Tool. Without it done, the specs could not be finalized and therefore development was slowed down (e.g. assets could not be created).

International player tests came in way too late
The team was not able to implement most of the feedbacks into the game. Only after pushing out the demo did development became smoother as they had a proper working part of the game as reference. You can visit this website and read the excerpts for the developer’s exact words.

Also, did not receive too high praises in the western market
A couple of them but the more popular ones are the linearity and the story was too long-winded, making the game really boring. I can understand all that, but I still find the game quite an enjoyable journey. It took me around a good couple of months to just finish the main story, and then another one or two months to complete the side quests and such.

Comments

I dived headfirst into the game as a non-RPG player and also this is only my second Final Fantasy game (first being FFVIII).

Not a fan of RPGs is because of two reasons:

• Level grinding
• Battle system.

Level grinding, I was told, is a key feature in an RPG. It feels like a chore and does not help in story progression. In FFXIII grinding was pretty much required only if you are aiming for the platinum trophy, so you can fully enjoy the story and the world that Square Enix has created without any distractions other than the monsters that you encounter.

The battle system in FFXIII felt like it was made just for me. I don’t really enjoy turn based or grid systems because I am more of an action guy. I don’t want to waste time thinking about the different spells to cast for individual characters. The battles in FFXIII on the other hand is in real-time and I was only needed to concentrate on one character (the leader). Because of this, there will always be action on screen and I felt this is exactly the reason why I am so hooked onto battle scenes in Final Fantasy; characters constantly pulling off cool and crazy moves simultaneously.

I guess the game was coincidentally suitable for me. However if you ask me if FFXIII needed improvement? I would say definitely yes, but it is far from being a bad game.

Source(s): Kotaku | GameSetWatch