Fainaru fantajî XIII

The Game opens with a bang – a bang that lasts for 20-25 hours. The characters are some of the most believable, likable, fun, and personally identifiable to date. At this point in the game, I thought for sure that this was going to dethrone Final Fantasy X as my favorite Final Fantasy ever. Unfortunately, the game sort of became lost in itself and failed to hold its high standard to the end.

The Positives: True to form, Final Fantasy XIII boasts fantastic graphics, cinematics, and cutscenses. In fact, they are likely the best visuals to date for any video game period. In addition, FFXIII comes with some wonderful orchestral pieces and all around excellent soundtrack. The six protagonists are for the most part lovable, real people and Final Fantasy XIII makes you feel their joy, pain, and anger. This is only increased by the high quality of voice acting.

The Negatives: There is little that I would classify as purely negative, however, there are a number of facets to the game which leave something to be desired. I will refer to these as the In-Betweens. (The only true negative that I found highly frustrating was that player control of the camera was frustratingly slow and uncontrollable while running.)

The In-Betweens: The story starts out really strong. Unfortunately, the plot becomes highly convoluted later on to the point where I wasn't even sure what was happening. The game does include a play-by-play journal that documents plot events. This helps when confused, but a person shouldn't have to keep reading these entries to find out what just happened. Probably the largest controversial aspect of this game is the super linear adventure. There are almost no areas to explore, no side-quests, and no way to even go the wrong way, because this game is more linear than any game of this scale by far. On one hand, this keeps the plot moving along at a nice clip, and I found that it made the first 20 hours or so a lot of fun and full of action, cutscenes, and awesome battles. However, at the same time, the lack of freedom feels unnecessarily constraining and strays from the Final Fantasy norm. The battle system is certainly different and interesting. It is fun, especially when first learning its intricacies and then learning to master it. Items are few and far-between. Unlike all of the previous final fantasy entries, there are only a very limited number of items. MP is gone. There is no cost for using magic. This sort of makes sense in the scope of the game, but it feels strange playing a Final Fantasy game without MP, ethers, and the like. The leveling system is similar to the sphere grid of Final Fantasy X, although this grid is artificially limited by plot events, which puts a reasonable cap on leveling ahead of where you are in the game.

Conclusion: Unmatched visuals, lovable characters, a reasonable difficulty level, and a challenging battle system give the game a good feel and plenty to really enjoy. Unfortunately, a few aspects prevent this very good game from being legendary.

I finally got my version for the Xbox 360 of this amazing game, after all those words about being too lineal or too boring, here's my review of 6 hours of game (if it gets different, I will update this review) I won't talk about the story, don't want to spoil anything, except saying something about the people who says this is the worst "Final"...well I have played all Final fantasies and the first one was the VI, all I wanna say is that this is by far the greatest in characters, story, graphics, fights, everything.

Story: 10/10...the best story I've ever heard from a game, it captures you, it makes you feel their pain, their feelings.

Graphics: 9.8/10...The best graphics I've seen, even from the Xbox 360 version, they both look amazing (put a 10/10 for the PS3 version)

Sound: 9.8/10...The only game I ever liked the music was Final Fantasy VII, but this game is too much, I love the battle theme! The voices are great (Vanille is maybe too loud, but you get used to it)

Duration: 9.7/10...50 to 60 hours the principal story...more than 100 hours to get all done, is it enough for you?

Gameplay: 9/10...yes, it is lineal and straight at the start, just fighting and hearing the amazing story from these great characters (specially Lightning OMG I love her!) but it doesn't look boring for me.

RATING: 9.8/10 : It is the highest note I haver ever putted on a game

I know all the bad reviews but I just LOVED the game, story, characters (I repeat, Lightning is too much!!)...everything! It's lineal at the start, yes...but a lot of games are too (counting Final Fantasy X, Devil May Cry, Call of Duty, etc)

One of the very few videogames to ever have fully capture me.. Super immersive and captivating, I found myself completely engulfed and taken over by this game ever since I started to play. It is super rare for me to get fully immersed with a game to the point where I can't get it off my mind, as I am normally pretty tough to please with my standards for games. It has one of the most likeable cast IMO next to FFX and FFVII, the soundtrack is so beautiful and epic, the graphics are the best, and the battle system is perfect and flashy. I'm intrigued by the story as well, it is one of the best Final Fantasy stories and a top contender in terms of personal appeal for me. As for the linearity everyone complains about, that's exactly why I love this game. I am not a big fan of non-linear games, and so FF13 along with FFX, and FF7 remake, are my top three favorite Final Fantasy games. I feel like this game is vital to the franchise because it is only the third modern FF turn based game (not including the sequels to FF13) before the switch to action rpg style. And so as much as I love FFX, which is my all time favorite, it's nice to get to see an upgraded and more advanced Final Fantasy turn based game as well in terms of graphics and gameplay.

Stunning graphics,good plots and strong characters.All of that is still not enough to make this game superior to FF 7;FF 8;FF 9;FF 10 and mainly to FF 12. The lack of optional things to do in this game is its greatest flaw.While in other FFs we have several optional bosses,stories and stuff,this one only has hunts!Why one would waste its time hunting monsters,many of them that can only be defeated after the end of the game,to earn items to make your characters stronger to fight no-one else but these hunted monsters??

We can have good times playing this one.All magic lies on the first time you play it.It is a Final Fantasy,thus it deserves to be played,only once, not twice.We can't spend too much time playing this one.

This has been an event four years in the making. With the power of PS3 and Xbox360 behind it, Final Fantasy XIII is something special to behold.

From the first cut scene, to the unforgettable race track scene near the end of the game, the graphics are something that we have not seen before. There were moments in this game that took my breath away and made me think how far we have come since Final Fantasy VII.

The major criticism of this game is how linear it is. I do agree that the game is very straightforward, but that is the only real major problem I had with it. Even that, it didn't really bother me as much as my fellow gamers.

I think the best feature of the game is the battle system. It kind of reminded me of FF X-2, where you can change battle styles in the middle of battle. This makes for not only exciting battles, but battles that must be thought through with careful detail. It also prevents from you using the same characters the whole game, at least for me. I had the same team throughout most of the game, until the end.

The story is pretty interesting and the characters are well rounded. If you love video games or Final Fantasy...pick up this game...It is damn fun.