"Hallway XIII"
tbh 13 was actually really damn good and a breath of fresh air as far as lore and worldbuilding and even a large portion of the writing and acting goes (if you can look past a LOT of sickeningly hopeful dialogue told with more cheese than a certain cake factory)
its biggest problem was simply that...it was, truly, Hallway XIII
hard to get immersed in this great world when it's apparently one big straight line
frankly this is how most of the entire 13 trilogy goes, i think -- mostly solid worldbuilding and lore bogged down by either shit gameplay or writing/acting that either leans onto disgustingly sweet and "power of friendship and love" or laughably edgy (see: 95% of everything that comes out of caius' mouth) sucking the player right out of any immersion that might've been there
13-1: general premise of good/bad "gods" and their human slaves, the supergod that just wants to die so all of them can see MEGAgod again, mostly decent social commentary throughout, and literally every scene barthandelus is chewing the hell out of
13-2: the "last human" angle and a moderate chunk of noel's backstory is appropriately tragic and not unbearably so, the former mcguffin-in-distress serah taking center stage as a capable woman was a pleasant changeup, and lightning in that armor was some nice eyecandy and no i have zero shame in admitting it because both she and the armor itself are equally attractive, chocolina was genuinely funny in her ditziness at least for a little while before she and her overplayed sex appeal (seriously what was with that, i spent the first game loving the adorable little smartass bird that lived in an afro, that same bird being human and hot confuses my penis and i don't like that one bit) got grating and annoying
13-3/LR: some good looks into "what humanity might be like when it's on the verge of literal extinction", particularly with snow who flipped from overly optimistic to overly depressed in a believable fashion, good ol' RELIGION BE CRAY YO, and doing the "go kill god because he's an asshole" thing way better than 10 did because this time god's not mindless and actually has reasons for being a shit that make sense from the stance of a deity, and bhunivelze has the single greatest design in the FF series change my mind
IX seemed childish to me and as a fan of both VII and VIII I couldn't feel engaged by it at all.
i'll be honest with you, zang -- give 9 another shot if you think you can get past its blatant references and mashups of "basically every FF that came before it"
we all generally play FF for its story, and 9's will rip your guts right out once you're done with it
it's IMO one of the better examples of diverse character studies through the series and will always recommend it to people on that front alone, but in the end if it isn't for you then it isn't for you (still can't suggest hard enough to give it another shake, though)
They had a flying castle in the original Final Fantasy
Fair enough, I never played the first FF all the way through.
be glad you never made it to warmech's playground
be glad, you lucky son of a bitch