You can use Saboteurs to weaken the enemy with surprisingly effective status ailments while drawing enemy fire with a defensive Sentinel. For instance, you can have a melee-focused Commando work with a magic-wielding Ravager, backed up by a healing Medic in order to provide a mixed offense and defense. The Paradigm System allows characters to change classes mid-battle, and each class works with the other one to create a variety of battle strategies. To its credit, the battle system does a few things right. That’s when the game isn’t introducing epic FMV cutscenes that contain no narrative value whatsoever, just because Square Enix’s art department felt like publicly masturbating. Instead, most of the game is given over to having the characters whine about how hopeless their situation is every thirty minutes. However, not enough time is devoted to the exploration of these themes. The central theme of inescapable destiny, interspersed with hints of racial prejudice and propaganda, could have been something excellent. Characters go on huge emotional spiels that mean nothing because the game doesn’t want to waste time making that emotion mean anything, and huge amounts of dramatic FMV are wasted because Square Enix didn’t pace the game properly and build to the game’s many climactic moments properly. Villains and allies are introduced and then forgotten by the in the space of a few minutes. Their hatred of various characters, and their empathy toward others, mean nothing to the player. The characters talk about saving their world as if it’s important, but to the player, Cocoon’s just a series of random locations awkwardly mashed together. Why should the player care about saving Cocoon, when Cocoon isn’t fleshed out in any way? With only the occasional glimpse at Cocoon’s society and culture, we have no motivation for saving it. There’s no depth to anything or anyone, and as a result, the player has no reason to be involved. The worst crime committed by Final Fantasy XIII‘s narrative, however, is the total lack of impetus provided to care.
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