Final Fantasy XIII Review
by MasterShake
Background:
I love Final Fantasy. My top 3 in the series are Part IV (Part II on the SNES), Part VII (PS1), and Part VI (Part III on SNES). My favorite things about it have always been the story, the music, characters, and most of all the sense of exploration. But with the announcement of Final Fantasy XIII one of the vital components of the game was rumored to be gone- the open world exploration. Having just finished the game I must say that is unfortunately true to a big extent, but whats still there and whats new absolutely made me fall in love with this game.
Story:
The story is your typical JRPG morality tale about a rag tag group of friends that overcome daunting odds. This is a much more grown up angle than (thank god) part X which played out like a bad teen romance. In this game, xenophobia and overcoming fate are the main themes. Two worlds literally collide, and though there are personal struggles the focus of the story is much grander in scale and thus much more awesome. Battalions of military forces, complete with Juggernaut Airship fleets and soldiers, are hunting you down at every turn. When they aren't after you, you are being attacked by the creatures in the wild. I won't ruin the story here, but from my own personal experience I actually gave a crap about the characters by the end of the game in a way I haven't since part VIII. They actually felt like old friends at that point.
Graphics:
As you can tell from the previews, the graphics in a word are stunning. From technology infused interior locations to sweeping caverns of crystal and wide open grasslands, everything flows together nicely. The character animations in battle are fluid. And for the first time, when you or an enemy dodge an attack you actually see the dodge move. I played the Xbox 360 version and my only complaint is that the otherwise gorgeous cut scenes had a bit of compression issues.
Gameplay:
The early hours of the game (your first 8-10) are a slow progression that is setting you up for the big learning curve the games awesome battle system throws at you. The fighting setup is simple to learn, but difficult to master (especially in the final stretch of the game). Its the Active Time Battle system (similar to parts VI-X) with a twist. You can only have 3 characters at a time. Each character is assigned 3 specialties (or jobs) like Commando, Medic, and Synergist. The twist is you can change up this job for each character at any time using a Paradigm shift. When you do this, you can change your team from a Commando (damage dealer) Medic (healer) and Synergist (buffer) to a whole new configuration. The reason this is vital is that even regular enemies can have hundreds of thousands of hit points. They also have a stagger gauge, and the better your Paradigm shifts the more quickly the gauge fills up. Once staggered, you inflict critical damage until the gauge timer resets. This period is awesome as you are able to juggle the enemy in the air and just absolutely destroy them. Once you have and enemy figured out, your fight time can go for several minutes to 30 seconds. You only control the leader of the group during the fight, but your allies perform flawlessy for the most part.
Towards the end of the game, each of the six characters in the game gains access to all 6 job types. You can also set up your own paradigm list for battle (up to seven different types) so the combinations are really open ended. By the end of your journey, you are setting up your party and paradigms on the fly very quickly.
Unfortunately, the early battles seem like you are on autopilot. The true awesome nature of the fighting system is not realized until about 2/3 of the way through the first part of the game.
You only get 2 types of items to equip- weapons and accesories. The cool thing is though is that each of these are upgradeble and customizable. For example the character Lightning (my favorite) has a gunblade. I mostly used her as a damge dealer, but you will find gunblades suited to defense, healing, and other jobs. Since I wanted mostly damage, I was able to use a gunblade I found early on and just upgrade it to an omega level weapon. I think its neat that if you like the look or use of a weapon or accessory you can just upgrade it and it can be your end game weapon as well.
And yes, the gameplay is very linear. You are always moving forward, but this also makes the action crisp and the story move at a nice pace. All of the shops are at save points, and there are only a few nooks and crannies to look for hidden treasure (but they are there).
But in chapter 11 (of 13) something jarring happens. The whole world opens up into an area called Gran Pulse which feels like the size of a continent. There are a string of 50-60 missions to take on here before moving on to level up your character and basically turn into a god. As you look out among this huge nature preserve of some of the toughest enemies in the game (including King Behemoths, Adamantoise, giant Cactar, and other creatures from Final Fantasy lore) you can start your level grinding and item acquisition. The missions will lead you to rare creatures with great spoils (EXP Egg, anyone??) and also kick your ass. When you first start out you may have as little as 1,200 hp and feel like an ant among giants. But after you grind for several hours you feel like you can take on anything. It really takes me back to flying around in an airship looking for the toughest beasts, except now you only have your feet or a chocobo to seek them out. Its still basically the same thing and I find comfort in that. Though I do miss having my own airship.
Final Thoughts:
I've never played a game that put me on such an emotional roller coaster. On the first disc, I must admit I was wondering what I had gotten myself into. Then just before the first disc ended the game opened up a bit and kept me going. By disc two I was hooked, and when I saw Gran Pulse on Disc 3 I was sold. Even after you beat the game, you can take your super powered characters back to Gran Pulse and keep doing the upper tier missions and leveling up your characters/weapons for achievements. My biggest complaint besides the linear aspects is the music. Aside from a cool Chocobo theme remix at an amusement park, there was nothing memorable. Just some orchestral stuff and techno music with wierd chants.
As a lifelong Final Fantasy fan, I can say with a sigh of relief though that though this game is different and I miss a lot of the old conventions, I really enjoyed it. To put it in context its definitely in my top 5 (though the final placement won't be known to me for a few years after it sinks in). I thought I would hate the changes, but in this case change was good. For gods sakes the fighting alone had me running into battles instead of away.
9.2/10