Final Fantasy XIII Demands That We Fight For What Matters
It's been fifteen years, and Final Fantasy XIII's legacy is mired in a void of division. Final Fantasy continues to define and redefine itself by its past, showcasing swords and sorcery as it sells us images of rebellion and triumphant adventure. Final Fantasy XIII, despite its strengths, is defined by its weaknesses.
A closer look reveals a game more deserving of praise, especially on its thematic fronts.
The 2010s experienced a rousing, disturbing trend of anti-Asian sentiment in gaming. "Japanaphobic" talking heads in games journalism doubled down on the superiority of Western titles while aggressively criticizing Japan's creative offerings. Mainstream critics like Adam Sessler frequently maligned titles such as Xenosaga or Boku No Natsuyasumi, and the creative director of Assassin's Creed 3 went on a tangent describing how "many Japanese games are released where their stories are literally gibberish," citing the absurdity of Bayonetta and saying he preferred Gears of War.
This passive-aggressive attitude towards Asian games has lessened, but not completely receded. The trend reared its head once more in the release year of Elden Ring when many journalists and developers took to social media to proclaim their displeasure at its mountains of praise.
Final Fantasy XIII's positives have, mostly, remained unchanged over time: its graphics, presentation, and attention to detail are satisfying, filled with a Moebius-esque artistry and a vibrant, colorful futurism.
This stint of xenophobia and the conservative sentiments surrounding it certainly affected Final Fantasy XIII. It wasn't what fans were looking for at the time—while Final Fantasy XIII looked like a return to the past, with its grousing protagonist and science fiction setting, it was instead pointing toward an uncertain future.
Final Fantasy XIII's positives have, mostly, remained unchanged over time: its graphics, presentation, and attention to detail are satisfying, filled with a Moebius-esque artistry and a vibrant, colorful futurism. Its soundtrack boasts some of Final Fantasy's most favorited contemporary scores, and the battle system—unusual, and hampered by hours of tutorials—has been reappraised for its surprising depth and uniqueness.
What has been overshadowed by the many arguments about the game's shortfalls is a narrative buried beneath melodrama, but whose excavation has so much to teach us about fascism, control, propaganda, and genocide.
This Land Is Your Land
Final Fantasy XIII begins with the Purge, a "form of forced displacement and social cleansing" whereby the Sanctum, a religious technocracy, expunges any individuals it believes have been influenced by the scourge of Pulse.
This world is firmly divided into the separate, unequal states of Cocoon and Pulse, physical nations separated by beliefs, technology, and formidable "gods" called fal'Cie. Although Cocoon's own Sanctum is fully directed by their fascistic system-god, the Purge is a regular occurrence in upper society, removing the tainted and displacing them on lower Pulse, even if this means the removal of their citizenry.
To the millions who call Cocoon home, the lowerworld of Pulse represents a constant source of fear. Suspected association with Pulse means stigmatization as an enemy of the state and all mankind—even for born and raised citizens of Cocoon.
The recent discovery of a fal'Cie from Pulse near the city of Bodhum caused widespread civil unrest. After placing the city's entire population under quarantine due to the possibility of contamination, the Sanctum then announced its intent to forcibly relocate the affected to Pulse in an emergency measure dubbed by authorities as the Purge.
Final Fantasy XIII Datalog: Cocoon Society
The Sanctum's propaganda and fear-mongering are so steeped in normalized society that entire towns could be Purged — if a Pulse fal'Cie appears in a township, the people of Cocoon will cry out for their expulsion, regardless if they are citizens, tourists, or family.
Deportees are forced to wear restraint garments and are then loaded onto "Purge trains" where they are taken to locations to be offloaded onto Pulse. Resistance is futile and deadly: Sazh and Vanille are forced to watch as an entire crowd is gunned down because one restrained individual attempts to run away. The initial unification of the party in Final Fantasy XIII is not due to some grand ideation or attempt at revolution—it is simply because, for various reasons, each is set to be Purged.
Bulls On Parade
"For the world is Hell, and men are on the one hand the tormented souls and on the other the devils in it."
Arthur Schopenhauer
One of Final Fantasy XIII's ancillary works, Final Fantasy XIII-2 Fragments Before, confirms a bloodier, colder truth behind the Sanctum Purge. The Sanctum's xenophobic, political stance is a thin veneer for their truer goal of eradication. The entire deportation to Cocoon's Hanging Edge was only a ruse whereby the fal'Cie Anima was an excuse—the true nature of the deportation is a covert order by PSICOM, the Sanctum's paramilitary unit, to slaughter the victims within the area under the banner of a political exile.
The theocratic technocracy of Cocoon in Final Fantasy XIII is the sort of cyberpunk staple that outwardly seems absurd and fictional until you begin to make educated comparisons to real-world examples. The most obvious is the ongoing Gazan genocide. While this slaughter has recently made the headlines since October 2023, it's a maddening situation that has resulted in decades of warfare, death, and destruction by the ethno-religious State of Israel.
Humanity shares the world. Unfortunately, the evils of empire, colonization, religious extremism, and nationalism poison the waters of our camaraderie. Those in power are always looking for an excuse to flaunt that power, othering their enemies by labeling them as illegal, alien, or subhuman. As of this writing, President Trump has decided that America—the largest military benefactor of Israel's ongoing genocide against the Palestinians—will turn Palestine into a "Waterfront property" for Israel, displacing over a million native residents and cementing decades of pain and suffering with an end that is as galling as it is absurd. Their "Purge" has been effective—and Israel has made it clear that under every guise, the Zionist state fully dismisses the personhood and statehood of Palestine.
I am not asking you to make crass comparisons between real-world events and fictional stories. I'm telling you to open your eyes and become radicalized by the stories you claim to love.
Every Final Fantasy title made within the last few decades not only favors insurrection and resistance but frames the narrative call to action by a geopolitical or religious event.
Separating Final Fantasy from its political and social inspirations is an absurdity propagated by the most insufferably illiterate members of the gaming subgroup. Final Fantasy VII is a thirty-year-old presentation of the positive aspects of militant resistance and political insurrection, and every Final Fantasy game beginning with the second has had some iteration of conflict between the subjugated and the oppressor.
Although Final Fantasy's presentation of these allusions is never subtle, the hoi polloi sweatily clutching their controllers are baffled by its overt themes, swearing off the impact in favor of swords and sorcery. Every Final Fantasy title made within the last few decades not only favors insurrection and resistance but frames the narrative call to action by a geopolitical or religious event: AVALANCHE destroying one of the Mako reactors, SeeD cadets waging commercial paramilitary war against nations, the colonization of Dalmasca, the Ala Mhigan resistance against the Garlean Empire, Niflheim destroying Insomnia. Final Fantasy XIII's stakes might be more personal but no less impactful.
Final Fantasy XIII's story-first approach may have subverted the expectations of gamers who could not correlate the examples with their real-world events. It is embarrassing to be part of a collective that frequently ignores the violent excess of the state but utilizes meaningless terms like "woke" against impactful, necessary fiction.
Terrorists or Freedom Fighters
The sequel to Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIII-2, takes an interesting approach to resetting the narrative themes of the original game by manipulating time itself. While the characters do their best to "fix" what was wronged, certain tragedies cannot be avoided.
The Final Fantasy series is no stranger to political upheaval, revolution, or warfare, and our parties are typically composed of a smattering of proletariat rising against kings, popes, and autocrats.
Upon visiting the Lamentable Rest portion of the Bresha Ruins, the players encounter a cemetery that bears an epitaph devoted to the many victims of the Purge. At the end of Final Fantasy XIII, Lightning and company learn the truth about the Purge itself, that its orchestration was at the hand of the Cocoon's transparently evil leader Dysley, who established the arrival of the Pulse Vestige according to his genocidal agenda: ensuring that massive casualties might summon the fal'Cie's original Maker back into the physical world.
"Sanctum logic. They conjured up the Purge to eliminate a threat. I mean—why carry the danger all the way to Pulse? Why not just stamp it out here? Execution masquerading as exile. That's all the Purge ever was." -Lightning Farron, Final Fantasy XIII
This agenda reads as the type of typical cosmic fair peppered throughout JRPG stories, but it cuts close to the real-world mark. Throughout history, world leaders have utilized political opportunities to expand their borders or colonize weaker, defenseless nations. America has used its considerable power to weaken the democracies of other countries, doing everything from manipulating elections to utilizing outright warfare to force results that would favor the United States and its hunger for foreign resources. The Final Fantasy series is no stranger to political upheaval, revolution, or warfare, and our parties are typically composed of a smattering of proletariat rising against kings, popes, and autocrats.
In Final Fantasy VIII, this standard is challenged upon learning that the "terrorists" known as the Forest Owls are a simplistic resistance group in Timber whose generational history was borne from the people's desire to shirk the yoke of Galbadia. While they label themselves a resistance group, their efforts label them terrorists and enemies of the state. Despite their thin numbers, they are an actual worry for the Galbadian empire.
"Our resistance, 'The Forest Owls', will be forever known in the pages of Timber's independence! Exciting, huh?"
Zone, Final Fantasy VIII
Americans have become too used to our placid, tedious lives. No revolution will be won via smartphone and social media; still, we collectively assuage our desires for change by opinionating our way through the deluge of cruelty and fascism, believing that by showering ourselves with the correct stances we can place ourselves on the right side of history while our comrades burn.
Though they are just stories and only video games, an awakening occurs when you open your mind to the lessons present in Final Fantasy, and what it takes to become a "hero" in the face of unrelenting totalitarianism.
Place and Perspective
As mentioned earlier, there is little reason to bring up Final Fantasy XIII's mechanical flaws in relation to its narrative strengths. They have been exhaustingly detailed over the last fifteen years; like many of the other more controversial Final Fantasy titles, loud fans will not hesitate to tell you exactly what they think of the game when it is brought up in conversation.
Final Fantasy XIII's crimes are marred by its protracted and bumpy development; the resulting game is due to the profound efforts of a team that refused to give up on the end product. Like Final Fantasy XV, XIII should have been doomed simply because of developmental short-sightedness and an obsession with the wrong details.
"The story’s fast-paced, forward-moving style was key, so I think the current format worked well. Instead of incorporating exploratory elements for a more slow-paced experience, we opted to prioritize speed and momentum for this title."
Yoshinori Kitasi, Final Fantasy XIII Ultimania
Perhaps what forces one to care about the events in XIII is not the characters themselves but what is inferred by this living, breathing world. The details that Square got right were the ones that bring Pulse and Cocoon to life—and like any JRPG, the player's desire to "save the world" stems from their immersion in that fictional space.
"I can say that FFX is my "youth" in one word, but the FFXIII series left me exhausted and out of breath, so it's a work that I have very complicated feelings about."
Daisuke Watanabe
The story of Pulse and Cocoon is foiled by its reliance on overfamiliar melodrama and overly emotional characters, while the lore and worldbuilding are relegated to "Datalogs" buried in menus. The average JRPG player does not need to be coddled, but considering the breakneck pace and forward momentum of Final Fantasy XIII's plot, it would have served the title to pull back its hyperfocus and directly answer a few questions about the fal'Cie, the l'Cie, and the history of Pulse.
The game's early plot revolves entirely around the days leading up to the Purge, and how each character suffers under the hanging sword of paramilitary law and absurdist fate. "Fate" becomes the recurring theme as the characters work around the demands of their l'Cie Focus, and the true goals of the game's haphazard villains become lost in an assortment of names and concepts that are spread out unevenly through the game's hours of control.
Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Lightning Returns dip into more contemporary Square surrealism, and in my return to the original game, I was surprised to find a (mostly) grounded narrative about refugees escaping the ever-present threat of tyranny. Final Fantasy XIII does not allow the player to stop, for good and for ill, and this breathlessness is comprised of the constant dangers in a world that despises you.
Americans have become used to a society ruled by fear, supported by a populace whose bread and circus purviews are immediately and harshly reined in by foundational laws and violent enforcement.
Finding the Time to Fight
A consistent (and frustrating) criticism of JRPG characters is that they can be too taciturn, whiny, or ineffectual. And while the characters may seem childish in the first dozen or so hours, all of Final Fantasy XIII's main party members have satisfying arcs filled with betrayals, lessons learned, and satisfying ennui.
The characters are messy, flawed, and broken. Final Fantasy XIII's reluctant heroism is a far cry from recent titles' insistence on placing importance on birthright and individualism. Final Fantasy XIII immediately rejects these notions, forcing (mostly) ordinary people into the shackles of fate and determinism, taking potshots at the very ideas of heroism and societal duty. While its early hours are filled with repetitive, directionless arguments about acknowledging or breaking fate, the cast inevitably forges their path, even when the result feels overly familiar.
Many players, such as myself, find solace in Final Fantasy because it allows us to enact fantasies of glorified rebellion and revolution in the face of our patterns and tedium.
Players who balked at Final Fantasy XIII's structure fifteen years ago might feel less thorny about it today, amid a sea of cookie-cutter open-world concepts. The game's linearity does feel mechanical (do yourself a favor and turn off the game's poorly designed minimap), though it feeds into the forward momentum of the story's steadily increasing stakes.
We are asked to find the time to fight. Many players, such as myself, find solace in Final Fantasy because it allows us to enact fantasies of glorified rebellion and revolution in the face of our patterns and tedium. Final Fantasy XIII is a pastiche of half-formed ideas, but it doesn't take much thought to meet its concepts and characters halfway. Instead of letting it lie, the Lightning Saga forged onward, tackling concepts of communalism and reconstruction in the face of great tragedy.
Final Fantasy XIII-2 is less about personal responsibility and more about rebuilding. While the game's villain is much more understandable and tragic, the real enemy in XIII-2 is the past, and how the tyrannical mistakes of the previous government and societal morays lanced a united hope for the future. This hope is further dismantled by the events in Lightning Returns, where we are forced to contend with a society that has reached its final stages of absurdity, locked into static, tired trends. The rise and fall of repetition create us as a people—it's not how we deal with times of bounty, but how we can pull ourselves together during the struggle.
These are confusing, painful, straining times. Most of us are in an endless loop of absorption versus negation. Do I wake up and read all the bad news, or do I selfishly ignore the suffering of the world for my mental health? How do I balance my empathy with my endurance?
I long for the answer. My brittle advice does not extend far beyond "play more video games." All I can say is, when it comes to times of extreme xenophobia, fascism, cruelty, apathy, religious extremism, and mind-numbing nationalism, hold strong. There's a reason games like Final Fantasy XIII mean so much to you and me — and that funny feeling is only the start of great change.