Fainaru fantajî XIII

It is clear that FF13 tries to innovate the franchise in order to compete with other next gen titles. And while I also think that some changes have to be made it shouldn't lose it's charm of the old JPRG genre we learned to love. Visually FF13 is the most beautiful game of the PS3 at the moment (Although I assume it will be just as beautiful on the xbox 360). Game play wise it is still Final Fantasy,only much more linear (until Chapter 11) with side quests and secret areas to explore. However I must say that the sudden rise in difficulty is a bit shocking. Because clearing the first 10 chapters didn't require much grinding,in Chapter 11 is a must since even the tiniest monsters can beat you in a whim. The new battle system takes time getting used to. And when yo do you will experience one of the most fun and intense battle system created in the genre. But it can be off putting in the beginning since it seems almost too easy in the beginning. In Chapter 11 you will find out however that it is pretty deep and that the first 10 chapters have served as some sort of training levels. (I must add that in the beginning I really missed the old turn based strategy system,but the fights wouldn't have been as intense at it is now.) So visually and game play wise there is nothing wrong. Story wise however this part just falls short. Yes the cut scenes were brilliant and yes there were some solid moments where you learn to care for the characters. Only in my opinion not enough. Not everything is explained in the cut scenes. Most of the background story is explained in the datalog. But even then it is hard to make sense what the purpose of your characters are to defeat the villains. The villains in FF13 aren't as evil as they were in the earlier parts of the franchise. The story wasn't as engaging as it could have been. And to me that is just as important as the visuals and the game play. I'm still playing this game even after finishing the main story for the side quest monsters who are brutally more difficult than the end boss. Overall Final Fantasy 13 is still one of the best games on the next gen consoles. Only people who expect a story as engaging as the for example FF10 will be disappointed.

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)

Final Fantasy XIII almost became the best, unlike its predecessors, the HP could reach 100,000.

After three months and 72 hours of gameplay, the game was deleted. With so much training time, the Cactus hitting kills makes playing it discouraging.

*Story: Acceptable plot, but having to receive so many names like Fal'cie, l'cie, Pulse city, right away and only later studying and understanding the fantasy is boring. It's interesting to see Lightning and her friends receiving the l'cie mark and being victims of racism and hatred. Characters overcoming anguish and fear, hatred against religion and the system, and a lot of love for others.

*Gameplay: Good evolution in movements, less robotic characters and more simulation with human movement. The fights also have beautiful action scenes.

*Music and sound effects: Menu sound, dubbing, and all sound effects in the gameplay, nothing to complain about, top. And especially great music by composer Hamauzu, Final Fantasy XIII has the best music in the franchise.

Negative points.

❌ Not always having control of Lightning, making any other character the leader, and forcing you to evolve a character you don't want to play.

❌ Gameplay limitations, the game following a pre-defined script.

❌ It takes a while to access the fighting skill and magic.

❌ Limited evolution system.

Positive points.

✅ Beautiful graphics, and good character design.

✅ Best music in all of Final Fantasy.

✅ Incredible battle system, no strategy, no victory.

Game Awards 🏆 Game of the Year: Final Fantasy XIII 🏆 Best RPG: Final Fantasy XIII 🏆 Best Soundtrack: Final Fantasy XIII 🏆 Best Game Song: Frances Maya (The Sunleth Waterscape) - Final Fantasy XIII 🏆 Best Graphics: Final Fantasy XIII 🏆 Best Actress: Naho Nakashima (Lightning) - Final Fantasy XIII.

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.