Gamer Review - Final Fantasy XIII

Some of you may have become Final Fantasy fans right from the first installment. Others may have not, until Final Fantasy VII, or perhaps not until X came out for the Playstation 2. Whenever you became a fan, I am sure your excitement was just the same when Final Fantasy XIII was announced. It had a lot of promise, so did it live up to the hype?

Gameplay

Just as told by many, this game is linear. There is no way around this, and no way to try to make it sound any other way. Some say that once you get in the later chapters of the game, the game opens up. Yeah, the maps are bigger but it's still linear to the very end.

But this is exactly why I liked this game so much! I hate getting lost and having to look up game walkthroughs to realize I had to go into the basement, in a room to talk to the guy behind a plant. I would rather play a game from start to finish and become engrossed in the scenery, the story, and the battle system. This game provides that. If you are looking for a game like Fallout 3, Oblivion, or an MMORPG this won't be for you. But if you like Final Fantasy X, and how linear the map was (that had an arrow showing your destination) then give this game a try.

Graphics

The graphics is definitely where the game shines. I played the Xbox 360 version, which was suppose to have not as good of graphics as the Playstation 3 version of the game. Despite that, I thought the graphics were the best I have seen. The transition from game play to the cutscenes is immaculate. There is still a slight difference in quality between the two, but it has closed in to be almost the same quality.

What I appreciated in the graphics as well is the facial expressions of each character. Everything is finely detailed. I only wish I could have appreciated these graphics a bit more, with a better camera and a slightly more open world. I don't mean I want the game to be less linear, but I would have liked to see more scenery.

Music and Sounds

Unlike other Final Fantasy games, Nobuo Uematsu did not do the music for Final Fantasy XIII. You will not hear the classic Victory Fanfare. Do not wait for it. It won't happen. You will however hear a remix of the Chocobo Theme with lyrics. This is kind of a fun twist, but different.

As for the rest of the music, I thought what was there was very well done. My favorite music would have to be the Battle Theme. But I felt as if there was little variation in the music. Yes, there is a full on soundtrack, but for some reason I felt like I was hearing the same five songs through the whole game. I was hoping for more unique and individual tracks throughout the game. Maybe it was there, but it didn't feel that way.

The sound effects in the game were superb and worth mentioning. The voice acting, with the script that they were given was also well done. There were pretty cheesy lines, but the direction and execution with those lines was good. I would have liked to have had the Japanese voice tracks as an option, however. There are times where I would like to switch to the original actors and read subtitles versus hearing the English actors. Neither Xbox or PS3 version has this in the U.S release.

Battle System

This is a hit or miss with some people. A lot of people claim they feel like all they are doing is "Attack, Attack, Attack." Which is true, at first. But later in the game when Paradigms and new roles are introduced, the game takes a turn in tactics.

Paradigms are when you select combination of roles for your party : Commando, Ravager, Sentinel, Synergist, Saboteur and Medic. Each Paradigm combination works well for different scenarios. If an enemy is about to do a large attack, you must switch to Sentinel (the tank role) for the damage to be absorbed or your party could be wiped.

Stagger is another thing that is new in Final Fantasy XIII. When Stagger is reached, you can unleash a large portion of damage. And at times, some enemies cannot be damaged at all, until stagger is reached. You must use Paradigm Shift and use the correct combination of your party at the right time to do enough to the enemy, to hit Stagger. This is why, "Attack, Attack, Attack" isn't going to work the entire game. And using the same Paradigm the whole game for every mob, is not going to work either. There is a lot of tactics involved in this game. Your party leader can never die, or it is game over. This adds a little twist to the tactics. It is fast paced, but it becomes easy to learn and is actually a lot of fun.

There are also summons in here, which aren't used as often as in other Final Fantasy games. These are called Eidolons. Only one Eidolon is assigned per party member, and cannot be switched. They do serve purpose when you're in a bind. And as long as your party leader is alive, by summoning an Eidolon your entire party returns to health.

The battle system was one of my favorite parts of this game. There are so many different parts of it that I haven't even touched on, (which explains why the game has so many tutorials). I didn't mind enemy encounters, which is not often the case for me.

Story

The story wasn't bad, but it wasn't ground breaking for me. I am not sure what it was about Final Fantasy XIII, but I had a hard time caring about all the characters. Some of them, I honestly felt like didn't even need to be introduced to the game at all and played little importance.

There were times I felt like they were given random lines, just for the player to remember they still were tagging along.

When the game began, and they described the Purge and all the discrimination against the l'Cie I thought the story was going to be fantastic. But after a while, I felt like the characters were talking about problems of the world but there was very little being shown. Its one of those classic writing tips to good story telling : show the audience, don't tell us. Final Fantasy XIII did a lot of telling. The characters talked about stuff, they got lost and found themselves in inconvenient locations, but after the first few hours of the game there was little showing.

Because of this, I didn't really feel close to the story. After fifty hours of gameplay I predicted I'd be crying buckets of tears at the end and talking about it for ages later. It wasn't the case.

It's a good story, and there's a lot to be told, but something just felt missing. It did get confusing at times too, which is okay. There was an area in the menu that recapped events and explained everything as you went along.

Enjoyment Level

In the end, the enjoyment level of the game is really where it counts right? Well, after finishing the game from start to finish (beating the final boss and watching the ending) I completely enjoyed this game. It was easy to just pick up for a short period of time, but easy to get caught up in playing for hours. I completed it in over fifty hours, and that is without doing any side missions. If you do all the side missions, expect to almost double that time.

I can't think of many (if any) moments in the game where I was not having fun. There were times when the game got really hard, and I had to change my tactics multiple times to push through, but it didn't stop me. I did really like this game, despite its flaws. And I highly recommend it for any RPG gamer out there. The game IS linear, and some of the dialog I think is kinda bad, but it doesn't make the overall experience not worth while.

Recommended.