In 12 years, Square Enix never managed to create an acceptable-quality port of the three games, and they probably wouldn’t have bothered with it.

During the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 era, Japanese developers and publishers ported countless games from consoles to PC. However, players often had to settle for subpar releases that were never optimized to take advantage of the more powerful hardware available. Even the ports of the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy required community patches to improve their quality as PC ports. Thanks to a new patch, these three forgotten games are now as close as possible to proper, modern ports. Over the weekend, KartinX released a comprehensive patch called FF13NovaFix that fixes critical issues in all three games of the trilogy through simple file replacement. These include automatic keyboard/controller switching, fast controller reconnection, XInput vibration, and correct character animations at high frame rates. One of FF13NovaFix’s main goals is to free the trilogy from the original ports’ frame rate and resolution limitations.

The patch provides proper support for VSync, refresh rate, triple buffering, and frame rate limiting. It also corrects UI clipping and alignment at resolutions above 720p. Additionally, it introduces faster UI rendering and anisotropic filtering without affecting the pixel art or UI textures in Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy XIII-2. The patch includes high-FPS optimizations for simulation timing, root motion, chain updates, and model initialization in Final Fantasy XIII-2. It also removes the forced VSync restriction in Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. It also restores removed features, such as offline Snapshot mode, Schemata, and the ability to rename the white chocobo.

The Final Fantasy XIII trilogy has long had a bad reputation due to the extreme linearity of the first game and certain story elements. However, all three games are now fully enjoyable thanks to incredible combat mechanics that represent some of the best iterations of the series’ ATB combat system. In particular, the combat system in Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII seems like an early version of the combat system in the Final Fantasy VII Remake series.

Hopefully, this mod will also impact the PC version of Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth. The game’s director, Naoki Hamaguchi, has stated that they will pay closer attention to detail with this port than they did with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Numerous issues with that game required mods for fixes, including flat lighting and stuttering.

Source: WCCFTech, Nexus Mods