Final Fantasy XIII

Final Fantasy XIII (and its sequels) is very different than the rest of the FF series. Especially its extremely linear pathing and story that you wont fully understand unless you read the datalogs. It (thankfully) got rid of Random Encounters for this game, and instead you can see your enemies, pick and choose your fights, and (hopefully) win. The music is not composed by Nobuo Uematsu for this installment, however this does not cut down on the quality of the soundtrack, as a lot of the songs are wonderful and memorable earworms. The story is genuinely good (in my opinion) and i like the themes that are covered by the game (taking charge of our destinies, not giving on to despair even when things get difficult, etc). The game is good, even if long and a little tedious. Get it when its on sale if you can. Dont buy it on PC though PC Port is not very good (not bad enough to take away from the game as a whole, but definitely not the best port i have played)

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 honestly loved this game. It's beautiful in almost every aspect--the visuals are probably the best visuals in a video game to date, the narrative is amazing, the voice acting is flawless, and the combat system is nothing short of brilliant. The major criticism this game is receiving is its linearity--which I agree, was a bit irking.

The game is very linear, with beautiful landscapes but paths so narrow you almost feel claustrophobic. However, if you think about it this was probably a tactical move by Square Enix in order to draw in new players without overwhelming them. The game is designed to be friendly to the new FF player, and hopefully after the disappointment that was XIV, Versus XIII will keep the new players hooked on the series, along with XV if Square decides to continue the series (and I hope they will).

The combat system is one of the most challenging you will find today. It starts out very simple--choose an attack and wait for the gauge to fill up, then repeat till the enemy is dead. However, soon you are introduced to roles, magic, and Paradigms--combinations of different roles to combine different attacks and moves. After all this, the challenge is choosing the right Paradigms, because that is the difference between victory and defeat in this game. It keeps you hooked and never bores you, and prevents players from just going through the motions.

The visuals are amazing, after the opening scene I was amazed that it was all CGI. The cinematics are beautiful on the PS3, so I urge you to get the PS3 version. Many environments are breathtakingly beautiful, such as a crystal lake, a house of moving stairs, and many more.

The narrative is brilliant and fits with the very likable cast of characters. You meet Lightning, a young woman who is portrayed as very cold, but slowly opens her heart up while keeping her ice cold determination; Sazh, a man who is drawn into Lightning's plans through curiosity and ends up getting more than he bargained for; Snow, a headstrong, confident young man who is engaged to Lightning's younger sister; Hope, a teenager who, despite his name, has no hope, but matures and gains confidence and courage; Fang, a strange woman with a past she can't recall; and, unfortunately, Vanille-- an upbeat redhead with a very annoying voice who will probably drive you crazy, but is hiding something dark within.

All these characters are citizens of Cocoon--a city-world in constant fear of invasion from Pulse, the world below. The government is corrupt and is run by godly beings known as fal'Cie, who carry out the Purge, in which people who live too close to Pulse fal'Cie and/or are or might become its slaves, Pulse l'Cie, are transported from Cocoon to Pulse against their will.

All in all, the game is beautiful and the storyline is touching and better than most Hollywood films. The linearity is bothersome but nothing too bad. I definitely think this game could be made into a movie, and end up as one of the greatest animated films of all time. I would recommend this to anyone.

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.

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.