Final Fantasy vs Tales (Then and Now)

At the Present

If anything, XIII and XIII-2 core gameplay was about streamlining many of the features prominent in Final Fantasy and trying to make it more accessible while modernizing it. While the thought is appreciated, the execution was largely a failure. The customization lacked the depth of its previous installments, the story failed to invite any emotional spark, and the overuse of cinematics was tiresome. Final Fantasy XIII and XIII-2, despite its association with the critically acclaimed franchise, weren’t really Final Fantasy games. While they shared elements of being presented of a grand journey, the games were largely a deconstruction of what made the series so great. 
 
Xillia and Xillia 2 on the other hand had experienced great change while remaining its identity. Xillia streamlined its customization features by adding in the Lilial Orb. The depth of choosing how to build your character with certain stats exist, but the player can make it less complicated by letting the game choose how to go about rounding out your character. In Xillia 2, they game does something similar as well. The narrative focused more on the characters and tried to portray them uniquely. This was further developed with each character receiving individual arcs to focus on them giving the game a much more cohesive narrative structure. In addition to this, players can increase their relationship with characters which affect their growth and how they affect the combat system. Xillia and Xillia 2 tried to incorporate systems and features that all worked with each other and relied on each other’s existence rather than distancing it apart. 
 
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The Tales franchise is simply better than the Final Fantasy franchise as of this moment. The former relied on doing what it knew best while trying to evolve while the later attempted to retain its identity even though it was doing something entirely different. This conflict of interest rather than merging of ideas makes Xillia and Xillia 2 far better titles than its rival counterparts. It isn’t exactly that Xillia and Xillia 2 are excellent games but moreso XIII and XIII-2 have fallen greatly. 
 
Simon Chun is a freelance writer for GameZone and specializes in RPGs. Follow his twitter @kayos90
Compared to Xillia, Final Fantasy XIII’s story pales in comparison due to pacing problems, lack of cohesion, and a fairly lackluster cast. Almost forgetting its roots and what made Final Fantasy great, the narrative in XIII is a complete disaster. Some of the characters in XIII fall under an anime trope or are poorly written. Snow is a “hero” that blindly charges in without thinking, Lightning is an emotionless and stoic leader, and Vanille is an annoying teenager that acts cheery all the time. These characters don’t have much depth to them and develop ever rarely. In fact, these flat characters remain largely the same from beginning to end making the journey with them a less than worthwhile adventure. The plot is a linear and disheveled mess as the many plot twists aren’t particularly foreshadowed but are shocking because you didn’t know what was going on or the game withheld information from you. In addition, the intricate makings of the narrative are hidden away in datalogs which you can read in the game’s encyclopedia. All of this comes together in a messy way. The plot felt like it didn’t particularly mesh with the character’s individual troubles and things happened just to move things along. 
 
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The plot in Xillia felt like it mattered because of how compelling it was. The game went out of its way to make connections with the player and try to create situations where the players felt involved in the game’s narrative. This bond doesn’t exist in XIII, rather it tries to imitate that “epic journey” feel from the previous installments and fails to do so. Xillia’s story is great on its own but it’s also heightened when compared to XIII.
 
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If XIII’s story was a disaster then XIII-2’s story is the apocalypse. There is nothing coherent about XIII-2’s plot. Time travel is handled poorly, characters have cheesy if not terrible dialogue, and the overarching story felt pointless. XIII-2 shames the franchise as its riddled with bad writing. Xillia 2 on the other hand takes Xillia’s existing story and expands upon it in new and interesting ways. The returning characters’ backstories and growth are further explored such as Leia’s journey of being a reporter and Alvin’s dark past. In addition, the new cast members work well with the existing ones. It’s a tightly knit narrative with very loose elements that make it fall apart. 
 
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The gameplay is also different and Xillia’s customization system feels more meaningful than XIII. Using the Lilial Orb system players are able to gain new powers in how they choose similarly to the Sphere Grid System from Final Fantasy X. It allows players to experiment and give freedom in customizing characters. XIII uses the Crystarium system, which is similar to Lilial Orb, but is much more linear which doesn’t offer freedom of experimentation. It’s an extremely limiting system that doesn’t allow players to really choose how to progress their individual characters. This system carries over to XIII-2 as well making it even worse and redundant. 
 
XIII was an extremely linear experience making it often times feel like an interactive cinema rather than an actual game. Exploration was practically non-existent and maps consisted of long lines. There wasn’t much to do in the game other than fight, watch a cutscene, and explore – or what could be explored. It’s clear that the game was less about game and more about actual watching. This direction was changed in XIII-2, however, the sequel remained largely the same as its predecessor with only minor changes to address fan outcries. 
 
 
 
The Final Fantasy series has been around much longer than the Tales series and as a result the graphical and visual style of the franchise has always been influenced by its original roots. Using a sprite-based character model and an overhead perspective, Final Fantasy was more or less focused on creating something simplistic. Whereas Tales wished to create a much more detailed visual style, especially in battle, Final Fantasy was concerned more with visual consistency using very simplistic models throughout the entirety of the game. These pixelated, polygonal characters didn’t have complex wears that could be represented and instead used various colors to define them. Of course as the franchise moved from one system to the next the visual style changed to make use of the hardware’s capabilities.
 
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The most defining change for the franchise was the move from the Super Nintendo to the PlayStation. Rather than using 2-D character designs, the cast was now animated in full 3-D. There were distinguishable pieces of clothing and armor on each character and detail was some of the finest it had ever seen. While the character designs resembled anime, the implementation into 3-D gave them a distinct style akin to Japanese anime culture but rather than a cartoon, it was rendered into something different altogether. This 3-D anime and realistic style carried over into the next two generation of consoles as Final Fantasy became a visual powerhouse. 
 
In short, Final Fantasy had Tales trumped across the spectrum. 

The Shift….

Square-Enix and Namco Bandai’s latest endeavor in their respective franchise took a turn marking something new. Final Fantasy XIII and Tales of Xillia resemble each other more than thought possible and unsurprisingly, both received sequel treatments. These four titles shifted the balance of power, to put it dramatically.
 
Tales of Xillia still involves its heavy character driven story with a plot that isn’t too epic or complicated such as Final Fantasy. However, Tales of Xillia takes a drastic step forward in trying to create a much deeper and involved character amidst the various problems that is presented in the game. These multi-faceted characters with varying motivations and the underlying shades of gray that is constantly emphasized throughout the game’s narrative stands as a testament to one of the stronger narratives in the franchise. 
 
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Tales of Xillia isn’t just about trying to save the world or tell a journey about some halflings traveling to a mountain to defeat a great evil. Rather, it’s about a journey of life trying to depict how one must cope with their problems to mature into an adult. This sounds familiar compared to previous titles but the realistic reactions that characters portray is what sells Xillia. The plot in Xillia hasn’t fallen in quality. Rather, over the years the Tales games – save for Tales of Graces – have become more polished in narrative trying to tell a deeper and much more thoughtful story that gleams into the various meanings of life.
 

A Beginning Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy fared much better than its rival series due to the intricate narratives it told, the various ways of play through systems revolving around the combat, and its unparalleled visual production values. While it could be said that the loyalty or nostalgia is why the Final Fantasy franchise is so beloved, the games are no pushovers even in today’s times. What’s more is that the experience that comes from playing them, most notably the beautifully woven stories, is something that even captivates gamers of all ages. 
 
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Just like the Tales franchise, the games relied on a mythical and fantastical setting prior to the existence of technology (or at least a lack of access). Using nature as a focal point and the connection that it held with Crystals, powerful sources of energy, nearly every Final Fantasy revolved around using the Crystals to save the world from whatever damning evil was threatening it. Crystals were almost a quintessential element in creating the narrative for the franchise as each title involved some thematic message concerning these jewels. 
 
Unlike Tales games which focused heavily on character interaction and their individual developments, Final Fantasy varied in the narrative style sometimes focusing on being a parody, a modern journey of a hero to save the world, or preventing an ancient evil from returning. Regardless of what it was, one phrase comes to mind when describing the overarching narrative of most of the Final Fantasy titles: epic journey. These stories involved traveling the world in pursuit of accomplishing tasks to avert some sort of disaster or vanquishing an evil. Each challenge that the heroes undertook only made the journey harder but it would strengthen their resolve to bring peace back to the world. 
 
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However, the excellence of the game’s story doesn’t mean that the cast in each game wasn’t memorable. In fact, the heroes are memorable due to their distinguishing characteristics, trauma, or feats achieved. For instance, Galuf’s sacrifice in Final Fantasy V is one of the most memorable moments in the game and greatly contributed to being one of the recognizable members in the large cast of characters in the Final Fantasy mythos. These characters didn’t exist just for the sake of saving the world but were largely motivated by their desire to save the world and uncover the secrets that it hid. Being dumb plot points wasn’t what they were. These characters carved an emotional experience due to the amazing dynamic and chemistry that each cast held in each game by their realism or eccentric behaviors.
 
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Beyond its heroes, perhaps the villains were even more memorable and amazing. Some of the series’, or even genre’s, defining villains come from Final Fantasy. Kefka and Sephiroth are some of the notable villains in the industry today. The former was just an insane whackjob that closely resembled the Joker, except he was a power hungry jester seeking pure destruction. The latter was a traumatized war hero that took a 180 when his past and his origin was revealed resulting in his descent into madness. These villains are not only cool but are remembered as fantastic villains for the dynamic, chilling, and personality oozing performances they put on throughout the entirety of the game. 
 
While not as great as the narrative, the combat in Final Fantasy is still revered as some of the best in the genre even though it is a turn-based game. Despite its boring and relatively passive facade, the franchise houses a myriad of customization features that work to enhance and bolster the battles into an engaging experience. Final Fantasy V brought a deep job system allowing any of the party members to be any type of fighter whether it be a white mage, monk, black mage, warrior, ninja, and more. Not only this but characters could learn abilities and traits of the jobs allowing people to mix and match the various abilities of each jobs. Final Fantasy VII introduced Materia, a glowing orb that housed abilities. Each orb contained a different ability and by equipping these abilities on characters they were able to access them in battle. The job system that was in the fifth installment was expanded upon and diversified to give birth to what exists in Final Fantasy VII, albeit differently. Depth is an understatement when describing the way one can fiddle with combat and customization options in Final Fantasy
 
The Tales and Final Fantasy franchises have been around for over a decade and are some of the leading series in the JRPG genre. The Final Fantasy games have always done better than the Tales games whether it be in review scores or in sales. Many considered Final Fantasy as the best JRPG series and regarded Tales as an inferior series, though still highly regarded. Even so, quality experiences were synonymous with both franchise and they have experienced a vast number of changes over the years and with each entry the series headed towards a new direction. 
 
With the turn of the generation Final Fantasy XIII and XIII-2 moved towards an even more futuristic setting compared to its predecessors. Tales of Xillia and Xillia 2 also headed towards this direction abandoning the more fantastical and natural settings focusing more on technology. While the setting isn’t particularly important, they are an indicator of change. These four titles exemplify the new direction of the franchise but most importantly heralds a new message: Tales is better than Final Fantasy.

The Tales as they began…

The Tales franchise have been around for 16 years, and counting, in Japan with a title nearly every 2-3 years. Earlier games such as Tales of Phantasia and Destiny took place in more rural and nature-themed areas with a medieval or pre-technological eras for a more fantastical and mythical setting. While the plot wasn’t something grand it wasn’t something that was atrocious either. than the Tales franchise focused more on its characters and how its cast interacted with each other. Each plot point served to further develop them into a well-crafted and refined character by the game’s end. This focus is shared among the various entries in the franchise and hasn’t changed yet. Each cast in every game is enjoyable to some degree and bring something new, despite adhering to certain anime tropes. 
 
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Customization of individual characters was always important to the franchise as well. Titles such as Tales of the Abyss focused on using growth plates to focus on certain stats while Tales of Graces f implemented a large table of titles that offered various skills or stat boosts. These various executions of how to customize each character were a testament that the team cared about delivering a solid RPG experience. While it’s difficult to judge whether one game had a better customization system than the other it’s fair to say that they all contributed to a game that was worth playing through multiple times. 
 
Combat was the focal point of the series standing next to narrative for the franchise. Although every Tales games use a linear plane for its combat the series has expanded upon it creating multiple variations. Abyss introduced a free roam feature allowing players to break away from the 2-D plane and Graces introduced a circular form of movement focusing on strafing to create new opportunities to attack. At its core characters attack enemies on a linear plane resembling a fighting game but rather than relying on frames or a combination of combos that one has to memorize combat in Tales relies much more on free-form series of attacks. These attacks known as Artes defined the series as each contained some special attribute and a level of flash that was satisfying when pulling them off in a flurry of attacks in the midst of battle. It was clear that Tales offered a new breed of action in JRPGs and even today there aren’t many games that rival the combat systems offered in each entry of the franchise.
 
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Perhaps the most easily distinguishable attribute of the Tales franchise when compared to Final Fantasy is its visual style. The graphics and the art style undertook an anime style heavily influenced by shows that were airing at the time. Even the characters adhered to the anime tropes and stereotypes and if anything the art style is a testament of that. Rather than realistic models the franchise focused more on giving the games a colorful and vibrant world filled with characters that wore outlandish clothes. Even as the franchise progressed from Tales of Destiny to Tales of Xillia, many of the characters’ wears rarely consist of what people today wear. However, this doesn’t mean it’s terrible; rather Tales charm comes from that it’s different and traces its roots to Japanese anime culture for better or worse.