Support NeoGAF

[HeelPower]

People dislike Hope because he comes across as a whiny kid. His grudge towards snow is also very poorly developped and as such i was unable to take it (or Hope) seriously.

Hope hated snow because he is the most salient and available target to blame for his mother's death.This is availability heuristic in action.Snow ,other than the sanctum, is most tightly related to Nora's death.Instead of blaming the sanctum, the real cuplrit and a much more difficult target to exact revenge on, hope blames snow for his mom's death.

In addition to this snow isn't exactly free of guilt either.He kept egging civilians to fight his hopeless fight against the sanctum by giving them toys and encouraging them to fight with his stupid band.

Nora makes a poor decision and joins the fight out of a strong drive to protect her son.People make fun of "moms are tough" but in fact any mother would take up a gun to protect her son in a war zone with not too many options available.

Snow indiscriminately involves civilians in his fight,never takes time to plan his actions and eventually this leads to the death of many innocents around him.Nora feels pressured to protect her son.Hope jumps on snow after witnessing the entire situation.(partially right to do so)

Hope gravtitates towards lightning because she displays strong dislike towards snow(this ties in to the snow-light-serah arc which I won't explain here)

I am fucking tired of people criticizing the hope/snow conflict(and many points about FFXIII's story) when they barely take any time to seriously analyze.

Sure the execution is a bit too melodramatic at times ,but the writing and character motivations are perfectly understandable.

 

[KojiKnight]

Sure the execution is a bit too melodramatic at times ,but the writing and character motivations are perfectly understandable.[/B]

Understandable does not mean good or well executed, which is what most people are arguing.

 

[Wilsongt]

Hope is my second favorite character and has the best character theme, especially in 13-2. Come at me, haters.

 

[HeelPower]

Understandable does not mean good or well executed, which is what most people are arguing.

No...most people are saying "this is bullshit and makes no sense...no character development etc etc..."

 

[Zafir]

Hope is my second favorite character and has the best character theme, especially in 13-2. Come at me, haters.

I can at least agree to that. I really like his theme in XIII.

 

[Hikami]

Hope is my second favorite character and has the best character theme, especially in 13-2. Come at me, haters.

I wish I could replace his XIII character model with XIII-2's

 

[Peff]

Except the alternative to her getting killed and everyone else being saved is... everyone dies instead. If it weren't for Snow's group everyone on the train would have been sent to Pulse (actually shot down but before reaching it but they don't know that) which is certain death for a group of normal people. So, no, there's nothing justifed about all the endless "HNGGG SNOW I HATE Youbutiwillonlymumbleaboutit" or Lightning giving him a knife after he tells her (wat).

 

[Setsuna]

Except the alternative to her getting killed and everyone else being saved is... everyone dies instead. If it weren't for Snow's group everyone on the train would have been sent to Pulse (actually shot down but before reaching it but they don't know that) which is certain death for a group of normal people. So, no, there's nothing justifed about all the endless "HNGGG SNOW I HATE Youbutiwillonlymumbleaboutit" or Lightning giving him a knife after he tells her (wat).

She gave him the knife because he needed confidence to survive. Lightning didnt find out about the whole snow situation until much later in the game, but by then things were to hectic to do anything about

 

[HeelPower]

Except the alternative to her getting killed and everyone else being saved is... everyone dies instead. If it weren't for Snow's group everyone on the train would have been sent to Pulse (actually shot down but before reaching it but they don't know that) which is certain death for a group of normal people.

yeah..

So you expect Hope, a 14 year old, to think rationally after going through a PTSD inducing situation ?

Psychologically speaking, people are rarely perfectly rational thinkers in such situations as one in the hanging edge.Especially 14 year old people who saw their own mother slip off under snow's nose.

 

[Grief.exe]

Does anybody know if this has any credence? Really want to play this and debating installing Windows on my Mac but won't bother if there's a possibility of it coming to Mac/Linux.

FFXIII to Mac & Linux? (Look under Added Depots) Didn't see that one coming.

Square removed those depots entirely when the game was launched, their initial existence is possibly a mistake or they has something else planned.

 

[MUnited83]

Does anybody know if this has any credence? Really want to play this and debating installing Windows on my Mac but won't bother if there's a possibility of it coming to Mac/Linux.

Yes, the site is legit. Of course, it doesn't tell how far they are on the ports so it may take a while.

 

[PairOfFilthySocks]

The story in this game is indefensible. It doesn't just stumble at every hurdle, it gets its underwear caught in an excruciatingly painful wedgie at every jump.

Every. Single. Storytelling. Beat. Is completely borked. Except for Sazh, but Square don't seem to give a fuck about good storytelling or characterization, judging by how the sequels pretty much seemed to forget he existed. I'm running through the game now, and the choice of starting the game where they start it is completely baffling. The flashbacks don't work at all, and only serve to highlight and painfully sparse the story is throughout the endless hours of corridor wandering. The reliance of the writers on the datalog to allow players to figure out what the hell is going on is easily the biggest sin. Jesus, at least let people know what the hell Pulse and Cocoon within the first fifteen minutes. Awful writing.

With that said, the combat in the game is devilishly addictive and fun to experiment with (once it opens up, that is). And goddamn does it look gorgeous at 1080p.

 

[Holykael1]

Hmm.. I always understood that Cocoon was the giant ball in the sky, it's so obvious visually that it's a goddamn Cocoon like seriously... and that Pulse was naturally the world outside of the ball(judging from the way the characters talked about Pulse related things as if it were Alien to their "Cocoon" planet).. In fact it is something you can easily infer from the intro alone. God forbid if the video game assumes people have intelligence and simple deduction skills!

 

[fluffydelusions]

Finally beat Barthandelus. Hate that fight

 

[Peff]

She gave him the knife because he needed confidence to survive. Lightning didnt find out about the whole snow situation until much later in the game, but by then things were to hectic to do anything about

She gives him the knife, then finds out a few minutes later.

yeah..

So you expect Hope, a 14 year old, to think rationally after going through a PTSD inducing situation ?

Psychologically speaking, people are rarely perfectly rational thinkers in such situations as one in the hanging edge.Especially 14 year old people who saw their own mother slip off under snow's nose.

Yeah, the game with the peppy schoolgirl giggling and skipping around a battlefield is the best place to include a PTSD subplot. Which, again, even if it were the case, he actually does try to kill him, over the most literal "you fight or you WILL die" situation possible. That's a bit beyond "not thinking rationally" and more into psychopath territory.

 

[HeelPower]

the most literal "you fight or you WILL die" situation possible. That's a bit beyond "not thinking rationally" and more into psychopath territory.

except that's not what happened.

People who avoided the fight and tried to escape survived.(such as hope himself)

Those who went to fight a warship and a mecha-behemoth died...snow pushed them into an impossible fight.He himself admits that.

 

[PairOfFilthySocks]

Hmm.. I always understood that Cocoon was the giant ball in the sky, it's so obvious visually that it's a goddamn Cocoon like seriously... and that Pulse was naturally the world outside of the ball(judging from the way the characters talked about Pulse related things).. In fact it is something you can easily infer from the intro alone. God forbid if the video game assumes people have intelligence!

Are you referring to the attract trailer that plays before the main menu, or the actual intro? Because the actual intro opens with a shot of the sky, mind-bogglingly without any sign of Pulse, which would've gone quite a ways towards cluing audiences into the nature of the two planets. But the writers appear completely unaware of the entire concept of show-don't-tell, and the result is the complete mess of an opening we get. But it is cute of you to accuse people who don't think they should have to do homework before watching an original story of being stupid.

 

[Holykael1]

Are you referring to the attract trailer that plays before the main menu, or the actual intro? Because the actual intro opens with a shot of the sky, mind-bogglingly without any sign of Pulse, which would've gone quite a ways towards cluing audiences into the nature of the two planets. But the writers appear completely unaware of the entire concept of show-don't-tell, and the result is the complete mess of an opening we get. But it is cute of you to accuse people who don't think they should have to do homework before watching an original story of being stupid.

Hm.. what?? I used evidence provided in the game.. Even if you ignore the CGI intro that plays before you start a game, they do show you Cocoon like you mentioned, Oh I wonder what that ball in the sky with a silky looking white thing surrounding must be. Hey, these people living inside this giant ball in the sky are talking about Pulse thingy as if it were outside their ball.. If something is in the sky, I wonder if a surface exists, if something is in the sky I wonder if whatever contains that sky is another planet.

Mind you, I'm not calling anyone stupid.. I'm simply saying that every human should be able to draw out these conclusions, if it didn't happen it's because they weren't paying proper attention I would argue, this is as simple as linking words to images as a child.

 

[ShinobiFist]

yeah..

So you expect Hope, a 14 year old, to think rationally after going through a PTSD inducing situation ?

Psychologically speaking, people are rarely perfectly rational thinkers in such situations as one in the hanging edge.Especially 14 year old people who saw their own mother slip off under snow's nose.

This, well said. I think the voice acting(which is good)is what gets people. Is whiny sounding, but what you expect from a teen who loss his mother to sound like? Like Marcus from Gears Of War..., nope, lol. I like Hope, and I'm going through the play-trough with Lightning now, and she is a tough cookie, but also gives the kid a break but still being Lightning. I like how she made him take lead of the party on Canopy Wardwalks in the Grapa Whitewoods. And when they took a break

Spoiler

And he says mommy while napping..I felt that. And Lightning face and respond..Wow.

Kind of funny that the part I just mentioned is what I recorded for Youtube at 4K downsample testing the mod.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0LtVa_aaPI

Youtube and its damn compression

 

[Peff]

except that's not what happened.

People who avoided the fight and tried to escape survived.(such as hope himself)

Those who went to fight a warship and a mecha-behemoth died...snow pushed them into an impossible fight.He himself admits that.

If Snow and friends said "eh, fuck it", there'd be no fights or escaping to begin with. Instead every single person in a train would get shot in the face.

 

[Rats Off To Ya]

Finally beat Barthandelus. Hate that fight

"The true FFXIII starts here."

 

[ryan0991]

Hope hated snow because he is the most salient and available target to blame for his mother's death.This is availability heuristic in action.Snow ,other than the sanctum, is most tightly related to Nora's death.Instead of blaming the sanctum, the real cuplrit and a much more difficult target to exact revenge on, hope blames snow for his mom's death.

In addition to this snow isn't exactly free of guilt either.He kept egging civilians to fight his hopeless fight against the sanctum by giving them toys and encouraging them to fight with his stupid band.

Nora makes a poor decision and joins the fight out of a strong drive to protect her son.People make fun of "moms are tough" but in fact any mother would take up a gun to protect her son in a war zone with not too many options available.

Snow indiscriminately involves civilians in his fight,never takes time to plan his actions and eventually this leads to the death of many innocents around him.Nora feels pressured to protect her son.Hope jumps on snow after witnessing the entire situation.(partially right to do so)

Hope gravtitates towards lightning because she displays strong dislike towards snow(this ties in to the snow-light-serah arc which I won't explain here)

I am fucking tired of people criticizing the hope/snow conflict(and many points about FFXIII's story) when they barely take any time to seriously analyze.

Sure the execution is a bit too melodramatic at times ,but the writing and character motivations are perfectly understandable.

"Seriously analyzing it" is what led me to hate it. And I've already stated in detail why I hate it. I feel that it is very poorly written and is a black eye on the entire story. There is absolutely nothing understandable about Hope trying to murder Snow in cold blood. And it honestly scares me that people think it's "understandable". Especially when, at absolute worst, Snow's blame was indirect. And the whole "but he was grieving doesn't excuse it". Hope was mere moments away from murdering a man in cold blood and the game barely even acknowledges it for what it was. Something like that should weigh very heavily on Hope's conscious and trying to deal with that should have been what triggers his Eidolon (for some reason it triggers in an seemingly random fit of angst). Instead he goes along his merry way like he didn't do anything wrong. As I said, bad writing.

Snow never asked the civilians to join the fight. And as I said, they were going to be purged anyway. Snow carries exactly none of the blame for Nora's death.

Lightning is also wrong to dislike Snow as much as she did. There's simply no good reason for it.

 

[jose1]

Has anyone tried to play this on a haswell laptop with integrated graphics? Mine has a core i5 4200M/intel hd4600. I know the CPU should be up to the task, but I'm not sure about the GPU. I'm wondering if it will at least run 30fps at 720P.

 

[PairOfFilthySocks]

Hm.. what?? I used evidence provided in the game.. Even if you ignore the CGI intro that plays before you start a game, they do show you Cocoon like you mentioned, Oh I wonder what that ball in the sky with a silky looking white thing surrounding must be. Hey, these people living inside this giant ball in the sky are talking about Pulse thingy as if it were outside their ball.. If something is in the sky, I wonder if a surface exists, if something is in the sky I wonder if whatever contains that sky is another planet.

Look, when your game focuses on two planets in close proximity to one another that differ wildly in their nature, then you desperately need to show that to your audience as soon as possible. Please point out where in the opening the nature of the two planets is made clear.

For a scenario as 'out-there' as this, you need to get across a lot of vital information to audiences as quickly as possible. You don't do that by having characters speak vaguely about terms that are completely incomprehensible (they really should've just gone with gods and angels for fal'Cie and l'Cie since they suck this hard at this). You don't do that by hiding that vital information away in datalogs for people to read.

Generally, for a medium that is as visual as this one, the best way to go about communicating this world-building information to the viewer is to communicate it visually. FF13 fails at this, and it fails hard.

It's a pretty remarkable fuck-up when players new to the game still aren't anywhere close to being able to understand what kind of a world they are playing in. What's even more remarkable is that this disaster of non-exposition is brought to us by the company that managed to clue people in on just what kind of world they were in in the space of about 5 minutes of starting another game(Final Fantasy 7).

Your supposed truthful depiction of your original logical train of thought is impressive, but I'm going to have to remain skeptical that a quick shot of an odd looking sky followed by characters talking about some place they don't want to be 15 minutes later would naturally lead you to assume they're referring to a massive neighboring planet.

Edit: For crying out loud, I just looked at a cut-scene that takes place near the beginning where the cocoon pope is 'thanking' the victims of the purge. He refers to Pulse as "The World below!" In a location where the severity of the depth beneath where the action is happening - as well as the height above - is emphasized! In whose right goddamn mind is this not completely baffling to a newcomer to the story?! This is amateur hour writing, I can't believe people defend this, I genuinely can't.

 

[Whogie]

Has anyone tried to play this on a haswell laptop with integrated graphics? Mine has a core i5 4200M/intel hd4600. I know the CPU should be up to the task, but I'm not sure about the GPU. I'm wondering if it will at least run 30fps at 720P.

I played a bit on my Macbook's Ivy Bridge HD 4000. Playable with no big problems, but it could get pretty framey.

 

[ShinobiFist]

Has anyone tried to play this on a haswell laptop with integrated graphics? Mine has a core i5 4200M/intel hd4600. I know the CPU should be up to the task, but I'm not sure about the GPU. I'm wondering if it will at least run 30fps at 720P.

You should have no problem actually.

 

[ryan0991]

I like how she made him take lead of the party on Canopy Wardwalks in the Grapa Whitewoods.

Hope volunteered to take the lead. A small correction, but an important one.

 

[LuuKyK]

I love how this game still beats a lot of games released this year, graphically. It simply looks amazing.

 

[Nevadatan]

I love how this game still beats a lot of games released this year, graphically. It simply looks amazing.

agreed, the in-game cutscenes and the scenery are simply breathtaking
btw i push ESC again. which moron decided that using ESC to close the game would be an excellent idea?

 

[iosefe]

agreed, the in-game cutscenes and the scenery are simply breathtaking
btw i push ESC again. which moron decided that using ESC to close the game would be an excellent idea?

 

[Holykael1]

Look, when your game focuses on two planets in close proximity to one another that differ wildly in their nature, then you desperately need to show that to your audience as soon as possible. Please point out where in the opening the nature of the two planets is made clear.

For a scenario as 'out-there' as this, you need to get across a lot of vital information to audiences as quickly as possible. You don't do that by having characters speak vaguely about terms that are completely incomprehensible (they really should've just gone with gods and angels for fal'Cie and l'Cie since they suck this hard at this). You don't do that by hiding that vital information away in datalogs for people to read.

Generally, for a medium that is as visual as this one, the best way to go about communicating this world-building information to the viewer is to communicate it visually. FF13 fails at this, and it fails hard.

It's a pretty remarkable fuck-up when players new to the game still aren't anywhere close to being able to understand what kind of a world they are playing in. What's even more remarkable is that this disaster of non-exposition is brought to us by the company that managed to clue people in on just what kind of world they were in in the space of about 5 minutes of starting another game(Final Fantasy 7).

Your supposed truthful depiction of your original logical train of thought is impressive, but I'm going to have to remain skeptical that a quick shot of an odd looking sky followed by characters talking about some place they don't want to be 15 minutes later would naturally lead you to assume they're referring to a massive neighboring planet.

Edit: For crying out loud, I just looked at a cut-scene that takes place near the beginning where the cocoon pope is 'thanking' the victims of the purge. He refers to Pulse as "The World below!" In a location where the severity of the depth beneath where the action is happening - as well as the height above - is emphasized! In whose right goddamn mind is this not completely baffling to a newcomer to the story?! This is amateur hour writing, I can't believe people defend this, I genuinely can't.

I can agree on the fact that the game does a shit job at general indepth worldbuilding through the actual game(sans datalog basically) but I still won't concede that the initial concepts of Cocoon, Pulse, F'alcie and L'cie weren't made clear enough through the first moments of the game. In any case, at this point there is nothing left to discuss, let's agree to disagree-

 

[Mohasus]

agreed, the in-game cutscenes and the scenery are simply breathtaking
btw i push ESC again. which moron decided that using ESC to close the game would be an excellent idea?

Play it in borderless window. For some reason when running in windowed mode, there is a confirmation before exiting the game.

 

[PshycoNinja]

I love how this game still beats a lot of games released this year, graphically. It simply looks amazing.

I know this is gonna surprise you, but I completely disagree.

 

[wolfhowwl]

Saw this on the Steam forums.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=325252118

 

[HeelPower]

Hope was mere moments away from murdering a man in cold blood and the game barely even acknowledges it for what it was. Something like that should weigh very heavily on Hope's conscious and trying to deal with that should have been what triggers his Eidolon (for some reason it triggers in an seemingly random fit of angst). Instead he goes along his merry way like he didn't do anything wrong. As I said, bad writing.

I do agree with this totally.A perfect situation would've been Hope's Eidolon gets triggered and snow fights alongside him.Instead they insert this robot boss for whatever reason.

Lightning is also wrong to dislike Snow as much as she did. There's simply no good reason for it.

I think she was being overprotective and felt that snow intruded upon her tiny family.She is serah's mother and sister at the same time.

She also dislike's snow's anti-government antics with his band.She is guardian corps after all.She always felt incompatible with snow and repulsed by him when serah turned to crystal.

She later realizes how she was irrational ,anger driven and apologizes to snow anyway.

If Snow and friends said "eh, fuck it", there'd be no fights or
escaping to begin with. Instead every single person in a train would get shot in the face.

That's what lightning tries to make him understand and he does understand eventually.

 

[garath]

I can agree on the fact that the game does a shit job at general indepth worldbuilding through the actual game(sans datalog basically) but I still won't concede that the initial concepts of Cocoon, Pulse, F'alcie and L'cie weren't made clear enough through the first moments of the game. In any case, at this point there is nothing left to discuss, let's agree to disagree-

I don't want to throw any fuel on the fire but I am playing through the game for the first time ever and I have no bloody clue what is going on. It is literally nonsense at this point and I am trying really really hard to grasp the world. Cocoon, l'cie, f'alcie and pulse mean absolutely nothing to me The only thing I'm not doing is reading the datalogs because I hate stopping playing a game to read lore. I've gotten more from the loading screen recaps when you load a save game than the actual game itself. fortunately I play in very small chunks of time so I get a lot of recaps. Its helping.

 

[HeelPower]

This, well said. I think the voice acting(which is good)is what gets people. Is whiny sounding, but what you expect from a teen who loss his mother to sound like? Like Marcus from Gears Of War..., nope, lol. I like Hope, and I'm going through the play-trough with Lightning now, and she is a tough cookie, but also gives the kid a break but still being Lightning. I like how she made him take lead of the party on Canopy Wardwalks in the Grapa Whitewoods. And when they took a break

Spoiler

And he says mommy while napping..I felt that. And Lightning face and respond..Wow.

Kind of funny that the part I just mentioned is what I recorded for Youtube at 4K downsample testing the mod.

yeah..I agree with you.

I do like the lightning hope dynamics quite in this particular scene a bit.

I know this is gonna surprise you, but I completely disagree.

game looks amazing with high res mod.Its an incredible achievement for a game that is 5 years old at this point.

No one's asking you to like the game ,but at least give it credit where its due.

The game speaks for itself anyway.There is no point arguing about this.

 

[LuuKyK]

Btw, the Sunleth Waterscape section + its music never gets old. Lord, I love this part of the game so much.

I know this is gonna surprise you, but I completely disagree.

It really doesnt come as a surprise at all.

 

[KojiKnight]

And now the long wait for the much better XIII-2.... Hopefully SE will include all of the DLC with the base game and not make me repurchase it just to get Sasz.

 

[Lain]

except that's not what happened.

People who avoided the fight and tried to escape survived.(such as hope himself)

Those who went to fight a warship and a mecha-behemoth died...snow pushed them into an impossible fight.He himself admits that.

Snow didn't force anyone to fight. The people there begged Snow to let them fight. Hope had no right to blame Snow for his mom's death. Hope should have blamed himself for his mom's death, since when Snow is offering the last gun, Hope as the coward he is pulls back.
At most you could say that Hope tries to pile on Snow his own self-guilt and misplaced hatred for who is the real cause of her death (the military).

 

[cafemomo]

And now the long wait for the much better XIII-2.... Hopefully SE will include all of the DLC with the base game and not make me repurchase it just to get Sasz.

Meh just watch they only include Serah costume DLCs

 

[iosefe]

Meh just watch they only include Serah costume DLCs

if it means we get the White Mage outfit, i'm ok with that

 

[PshycoNinja]

game looks amazing with high res mod.Its an incredible achievement for a game that is 5 years old at this point.

No one's asking you to like the game ,but at least give it credit where its due.

The game speaks for itself anyway.There is no point arguing about this.

Don't twist my words. I was disagreeing with the notion that the game is better looking than games that came out and will come out this year. That's an absurd comment to make. It's good looking for a game from it's time but let's not get ridiculous with the claims.

Hell Type-0 HD looks better than it.

 

[iosefe]

Don't twist my words. I was disagreeing with the notion that the game is better looking than games that came out and will come out this year. That's an absurd comment to make. It's good looking for a game from it's time but let's not get ridiculous with the claims.

i'm sure you can agree it's on par then, if not over.

all these screens for FF13 looks REALLY good

 

[LuuKyK]

Don't twist my words. I was disagreeing with the notion that the game is better looking than games that came out and will come out this year. That's an absurd comment to make. It's good looking for a game from it's time but let's not get ridiculous with the claims.



Hell Type-0 HD looks better than it.

Sorry, but you are the one twisting my words. I didn't say it looked better than all the games coming out this year, I said it looked better than "games coming out this year". Just a bit of reading comprehension would tell you that there is no way in that phrase I could mean every game that came out in 2014 looks worse than FF XIII. I mean, obviously most of the current gen games look better than a game that came out 5 years ago, how daft would one need to be to believe otherwise? As always you are reading things the way you want them to read and not the way it was intended to mean. I honestly don't know whats your problem.

 

[sqwarlock]

I can get to 60 fps with 4k, 4xMSAA, Coverage Sampling, and shadows set to 4, but it's not consistent enough for me to enjoy it. Looks like I'm locking to 30 in favor of better IQ. Which I guess is ok since my framerate fluctuates just as much at 4k as it does at 1080p.

 

[Zafir]

Hell Type-0 HD looks better than it.

Lol, I'm sorry, but no way. That screenshot doesn't even look close to being better than XIII. Models are significantly worse, the textures are significantly worse...I mean just look at those buildings...

 

[nOoblet16]

I don't want to throw any fuel on the fire but I am playing through the game for the first time ever and I have no bloody clue what is going on. It is literally nonsense at this point and I am trying really really hard to grasp the world. Cocoon, l'cie, f'alcie and pulse mean absolutely nothing to me The only thing I'm not doing is reading the datalogs because I hate stopping playing a game to read lore. I've gotten more from the loading screen recaps when you load a save game than the actual game itself. fortunately I play in very small chunks of time so I get a lot of recaps. Its helping.

I never get this complaint, most games have made up names that never get explained really from the get go when the terms are introduced to you the first time. Especially JRPGs, FFXIII has like just 4-5 of made up names.

Cocoon - An artificial world where people live on the inside, literally like a cocoon
Pulse - The natural world down under
Fal'cie - Beings created by God who are responsible for different things such as providing sunlight, food, protecting people or the world. They have free will but their actions are bound to their purpose
L'cie - Humans who are tasked by the Fal'cie for a purpose, they get magical powers and if they don't complete their purpose (focus) they become mindless rock/zombie thing called Cieth.


All of it is explained through in game dialogue at least once and then again in Datalog.

 

[Cerity]

Something that should be noted imo is how the english translation paints Lightining more gung-ho/unfeeling than she is in the japanese version. e.g. When she gives the knife to Hope, she says something along the line of "It's a charm" in the japanese audio but in the english translation/subtitles she says "I'll want that back".

For the most part the game conveys the tone of what they're saying well but thats about what the translation manages. If you look at the lines out of context, there's straigtup a lot of errors.

 

[diaspora]

Type-0 HD? Are you joking? You use that screenshot too smh...

Something that should be noted imo is how the english translation paints Lightining more gung-ho/unfeeling than she is in the japanese version. e.g. When she gives the knife to Hope, she says something along the line of "It's a charm" in the japanese audio but in the english translation/subtitles she says "I'll want that back".

For the most part the game conveys the tone of what they're saying well but thats about what the translation manages. If you look at the lines out of context, there's straigtup a lot of errors.

The english sounds significantly better.