It was an enormous surprise when XIII was suddenly "remastered" a while ago. This French shooter based on a comic book series was certainly nostalgic to some, but didn't make much of an impression in the wider market. XIII failed to meet sales expectations and a promised sequel never materialized. Since its story ended on a terrible cliffhanger, this left what few fans it had with a sour aftertaste. But hey, it's been years now and the remake is worse than anyone could have expected. Let's see if the original was an underappreciated gem after all.
So yes, XIII is based on a French-Belgian comic book series. The game's intro sets the stage for a thrilling story, as we witness the assassination of the American president. We then take control of an amnesiac man who has just washed up on a beach. A guy who literally can't catch a break, because a minute later we're already being hunted by mysterious armed goons. We have no clue who are are, but it's obvious someone wants us dead. Also, the FBI is after us because we (probably) did the assassination. Oops.
Without spoiling anything, it soon becomes clear that there's some conspiracy at play here. What its objective is and how we tie into it remain unknown, so that's what we have to find out. Thus begins a journey to track down what few leads we have and find trustworthy allies. Or just anyone that isn't openly trying to kill us will do. During this mission we're occasionally beset upon by hazy flashbacks, which gradually fill out the many holes in our past.
It's a very involving story that does a good job of presenting you interesting questions to deliberate upon. It's a winding tale of conspiracy, betrayals, and twists, where you never feel quite confident about how things are going to pan out. Is this a genuine moment of relative safety or are "they" trying to get you to lower your guard. This suspense pays off immensely when you finally start unearthing the villains. It feels immensely powerful to finally become the hunter after spending the early levels being so confused and on the run.
Another major selling point were the game's visuals. It's not just based on a comic book, they also tried to capture a comic-like look. This is a colorful game with a nice, cel-shaded artstyle to it. They also love to use panels to convey extra information or just for added effect. Like if you headshot someone, you get dramatic close-up of that in a separate panel. Or if a sniper moves into position to gun you down, an animated panel opens up to show that. In a way it spoils the surprise of an ambush, but it's neat and very on brand.
Unfortunately, the presentation has aged a fair bit since 2003. You'll of course notice the resolution and texture quality, that's what you take for granted with old games. The voice performances, however, are particularly unflattering. Some actors fare well, others sound dispassionate, directionless, or just plain awkward. This includes our protagonist. At first I thought he sounded weird as a result of the amnesia, but no, he just mumbles his way through the entire storyline. He'll be ziplining over chasms while blasting people with machine guns, only for the actor to sound like he got woken up at 3AM to do the voice lines.
The gameplay of XIII is a little hard to pin down. On its surface, its a first-person shooter plain and simple. You work your way through levels, gunning down enemies while expanding your arsenal of weapons. You got grenades, alt-fire modes, and armor to protect yourself with. If your health ever takes a hit, you can use medkits from your inventory to carry on. Normal stuff.
Except there are various gimmicks that occasionally take over completely. There's a grapple hook you can use to navigate around obstacles. You can take hostages so enemies won't shoot you as readily, depending on whether they care or not. There's a full-fledged stealth system by which you crawl through vents, lockpick doors, and bonk people on the head with ashtrays. In fact, a significant portion of the levels outright demand you go about them stealthily. If any alarm is raised it's back to the checkpoint for you.
While this certainly makes for variety, I do feel that XIII thrives the most when it's just a shooter. You get your usual array of weapons; pistols, shotgun, assault rifles, and a few special ones. These all feel nice and powerful. Even using the throwing knives or basic pistol from level 1 will still serve you well towards the end of the game. When I finally got my hands on the automatic rifles I figured it'd be over for the other weapons, but no. My entire inventory remained relevant up to the end of the game.
The enemies themselves put up a good fight. They are satisfying to gun down, but can do the same to you if you're out of position. Your health goes down fast if you're left standing in the open or get ambushed while reloading. This encourages a more careful approach, like utilizing cover, stealth, or even just retreating when a fight goes south. I had quite a few "oh shit..." moments throughout the campaign and the flustered action that follows from those made for amusing highlights.
My only complaint is that the controls are a touch finicky. You switch weapons with the scrollbar, which is very sensitive. The slightest nudge would have my character swap weapons and that's not ideal in the midst of a firefight. Especially if I was using the last weapon slot, so switching from there meant I was left with empty hands. You can also use the number keys, but their default mappings are strange. They don't actually match up with their order when you're scrolling through and some weapons don't have any mapping at all.
Items aren't mapped at all either. You have to press F to switch between items, which then replace whatever weapon you were holding. There is no reason why you wouldn't let the player use the item and then switch back to their last-held weapon. Nobody needs to use the full medkit twice in a row. Other items like the lockpick and grapple hook could just be mapped to E, which is used for all other context-sensitive interactions. After all, there's nothing else you could do with a grapple point or locked door. Outside of 1 gimmicky exception, this menu has no reason to exist.
Stealth is another matter entirely though. It works, but only barely so. The AI manages to be way too intelligent while also being frighteningly oblivious. If stealth fails and you end up gunning a few people down, you can still carry on with stealth after they're dead. Nobody reacts to gunfire or their screams. I am not talking about enemies the next area over, it's also those in the same exact space as where you just triggered an all-out fight. You reload your assault rifle after just turning 2 guys into swiss cheese, then crawl 20 feet over to stealth kill their remaining mates.
On the flipside, if something does alert them then they instantly become fully aware of your exact position. I was sneaking through a warehouse at one point, far above ground level. I shot one dude earlier, but was now far away from where I did that. When somebody then stumbled unto his corpse, every enemy in that room instantly began shooting at me. It's not unexpected for a straightforward FPS that happens to allow a bit of stealth, but that's not what XIII is. It has entire levels where you're not allowed to be detected. Sometimes going so far as to not give you any weapons or even allow you to kill enemies at all. It needed way more polish to make that satisfying to play through. As it stands these levels can get very annoying, depending on their checkpoints and leniency.
Revisiting XIII was a lot of fun. Its gameplay largely holds up and it has a great story & artstyle to match. The stealth segments are dubious though not so bad as to be a serious dealbreaker. That does leave the cliffhanger ending. XIII does end on what feels like a major victory, but with a critical question left unanswered that comes back to haunt you in the final seconds of the game. This was meant to be followed up on in a sequel, which we never really got. There were some mobile games and then the poorly-received remake 17 years later.
Yea, that sucks. There's clearly unrealized potential left on the table that the developers wanted to do more with. Even so, I didn't mind the ending too much. Its a nice, unexpected twist that I didn't see coming. And even if it never got the follow-up it needed, that doesn't sour the rest of this unique game for me.
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