Final Fantasy XIII has to be one of the most controversial Final Fantasy's to date. Not because it deals with tits, arse and gunning down black people in a Shanty town. But because it see's Square Enix take the franchise in a new direction. The new direction is not as drastic as many make out. After all...many of the development choices that have been made in XIII are in line with the direction the Final Fantasy franchise has been heading down from X. But that doesn't mean it's necessarily the right path, and XIII is all about paths. Linear ones. With no forks in the road what-so-ever.
From the start Final Fantasy XIII feels like it has very little direction of its own. And instead, feels like an amalgamation of past Final Fantasy games. Not so much a nod, nod, wink, wink as a drunken obnoxious stumble and nudge to fans. The locations look the same as those from Final Fantasy X. Bodhum looks like Kilika during sunset, and Zanarkand at night. Gapra whitewood is Macalania with an elevator. Gran Pulse is the Calm lands. Taejins' tower is pretty much any temple that had an Aeon in it. And Orphan's cradle is Sin with lots of red. Many of the games' weapons are named after those from past Final Fantasy's. Even the characters are based on templates from characters in past games.
- Lightning is Cloud and Squall with titties and a skirt.
- Hope is younger Tidus in three quarter length combats and a pair of Converse.
- Fang is Cid Highwind in a Sari and knee high gladiator sandals.
- Sazh is Barrett with an afro, without the muscle and gun for a hand.
- Snow is Seifer in his Kingdom Hearts gear.
- Vanille is Rikku and Selphie's first cousin with a red rinse.
The characters are like-able.
Vanille is an annoying bitch at the start. But once the burden of being a l'Cie hits her and she starts to feel a little depressed she's rather wonderful! But the problem with the characters is that you never feel like you know enough about them. Vanille gets a nice back story with a neat twist and Hope gets the classic style Final Fantasy character insight: with a visit to his home town, his house, and players being introduced to both of his parents. But you know no more about Lightning, Snow and Sazh by the end of than game than you did a year before it came out. Lightning has a sister, Snow is Lightning's sisters' boyfriend, Sazh has a son who is a l'Cie. Their stories do not go any deeper than this. And whilst Lightning is seen as the game's lead character - she isn't really at all. She seems to have been branded the lead character for the intents and purposes of Square being able to put a picture of her on the box art with her legs open. Lightning is a bad ass character. But you hit a point in the game where you kinda forget she's even around. The first half of the game, she's on fire. She's everything you want a lead hero to be: brash, bold, striking and bit cold with room for her to warm. But somewhere along the way, you forget all about her. Not because the story becomes so convoluted and mixed up that it pushes Lightning into the background, but because the game hits a point where the story stops telling itself altogether; and instead decides that it is going to place all of the plot crucial information into a bunch of files which can be accessed from the games' menu - known as a datalog.
The deal with Lightning's name also irked me. From the start everybody knew Lightning was not her birth name. But she was so bad ass and the name suited that we just accepted that. I didn't give a shit what her real name was because I was already in love with her character. But over the course of the game Lightning insists people call her 'Light'. I was sat thinking Is this your nickname? Is there any significance to this? Then at one point Snow teases Lightning that he doesn't even know her real name; and she tells him that if he saves Serah (her sister, his fiancée), that he can ask her. Then she continues insisting people call her Light. Bitch, shut up! Either you're Lightning, or you want to be Light, or tell people your damn name is *****! You hit a point in the game when you've forgotten this shit even has a plot, and it's at this point Lightning's real name gets thrown at you like some random battle. Like it's nothing. There's no elaboration. Not even a teasing remark from Snow or Vanille. 5 minutes after, and it's like the lid wasn't lifted. What was the point in even making a deal about Lightning's name if it's going to serve no significance to anything? And this is XIII all over. We're given hints at things that seem significant, but serve no purpose. And the characters who seem like they're not significant to anything, turn out to be significant to everything. The game probably did reveal the significance of every character, item and location in the game; only they threw it into the datalog - because it's THAT important.
This brings me onto Fang. She is a likeable character because like Lightning, she's a fearless bad ass. But she never feels like she's truly a part of the party like everybody else. Your party (bar Fang) forms pretty much at the very start of the game, and Fang doesn't join it until much later (despite an encounter with her early on). There's no explanation as to why she decides to hold one of the characters captive. There's no explanation as to why her l'Cie mark is white and looks like it has been scorched. There's no explanation as to what her true relationship is with Vanille. And d'ya know what? Fang turns out to be of great relevance and importance in the final moments of the game and its ending. Take a character who gets no development, joins your party at a point when you couldn't care less about newbies, and then make them central to everything with no plot twist. I can see how that makes sense.
The game also seems to negate some of the characters motives and the conflict they're facing. For example: Lightning punches the shit out of Snow and regulates him verbally after listening to him mouthing off at protecting her sister, all the while he's done nothing. Yet when Fang pretty much tells Lightning "I made yo' sister a l'Cie" - d'ya know what she does? Gives her a bitch slap. And then she's over it. This woman is the reason your sister is a damn ice sculpture! She should have gotten Thundaga'd from her head down to her toes and tasted a gunblade - f**k the slap!! The game also seems to focus on Serah far too much. She's the lead characters' sister: we get that. But I think the story of Sazh and his son got sidelined a little unfairly. The Sazh, Dajh and Vanille triangle delivers some powerful and heart tugging scenes mid way through the game, and acts as a turning point for 2 of the characters. It re-affirms that Sazh is easily one of the best characters in the game and the one you feel most empathetic towards, and it's from this moment on that Vanille becomes more tolerable (because she really is an annoying bitch to start off with). Yet for all of the drama the game lobbed at you during the revelations of Sazh, Dajh and Vanille - it's never touched on again. And you forget Sazh even had a son, and that a n***a was near suicidal and about to kill a ho. The story just doesn't seem to be able to develop the characters once they all come together. It does a great job of fleshing out the characters when they're paired off. The Lightning and Hope relationship was a lovely touch that should have been given a great deal more depth, and the unlikely pairing of Vanille and Sazh served its purpose nicely. But the second the whole party re-unites; it's as though the game has nothing more to reveal about anybody, and that nothing substantial was uncovered up unto that point: when in fact there is still a great deal to bring to light concerning half of the characters. Hope is the only character in the game who gets sufficient development, and who you feel is growing and becoming truly affected by the events unfolding within the story. No other character gets the same deal. One too many questions go unanswered and stay that way until the credits roll and the game prompts a post game save. I miss the days when Final Fantasy games' endings offered a satisfactory amount of resolution. XIII only left me with more questions. Possibly a deliberate thing to leave the doors open for a XIII-2, or the result of bad story telling. It's anybodies call. Given this is Square Enix we're dealing with, it's probably an equal mix of both.
The deal with Lightning's name also irked me. From the start everybody knew Lightning was not her birth name. But she was so bad ass and the name suited that we just accepted that. I didn't give a shit what her real name was because I was already in love with her character. But over the course of the game Lightning insists people call her 'Light'. I was sat thinking Is this your nickname? Is there any significance to this? Then at one point Snow teases Lightning that he doesn't even know her real name; and she tells him that if he saves Serah (her sister, his fiancée), that he can ask her. Then she continues insisting people call her Light. Bitch, shut up! Either you're Lightning, or you want to be Light, or tell people your damn name is *****! You hit a point in the game when you've forgotten this shit even has a plot, and it's at this point Lightning's real name gets thrown at you like some random battle. Like it's nothing. There's no elaboration. Not even a teasing remark from Snow or Vanille. 5 minutes after, and it's like the lid wasn't lifted. What was the point in even making a deal about Lightning's name if it's going to serve no significance to anything? And this is XIII all over. We're given hints at things that seem significant, but serve no purpose. And the characters who seem like they're not significant to anything, turn out to be significant to everything. The game probably did reveal the significance of every character, item and location in the game; only they threw it into the datalog - because it's THAT important.
This brings me onto Fang. She is a likeable character because like Lightning, she's a fearless bad ass. But she never feels like she's truly a part of the party like everybody else. Your party (bar Fang) forms pretty much at the very start of the game, and Fang doesn't join it until much later (despite an encounter with her early on). There's no explanation as to why she decides to hold one of the characters captive. There's no explanation as to why her l'Cie mark is white and looks like it has been scorched. There's no explanation as to what her true relationship is with Vanille. And d'ya know what? Fang turns out to be of great relevance and importance in the final moments of the game and its ending. Take a character who gets no development, joins your party at a point when you couldn't care less about newbies, and then make them central to everything with no plot twist. I can see how that makes sense.
The game also seems to negate some of the characters motives and the conflict they're facing. For example: Lightning punches the shit out of Snow and regulates him verbally after listening to him mouthing off at protecting her sister, all the while he's done nothing. Yet when Fang pretty much tells Lightning "I made yo' sister a l'Cie" - d'ya know what she does? Gives her a bitch slap. And then she's over it. This woman is the reason your sister is a damn ice sculpture! She should have gotten Thundaga'd from her head down to her toes and tasted a gunblade - f**k the slap!! The game also seems to focus on Serah far too much. She's the lead characters' sister: we get that. But I think the story of Sazh and his son got sidelined a little unfairly. The Sazh, Dajh and Vanille triangle delivers some powerful and heart tugging scenes mid way through the game, and acts as a turning point for 2 of the characters. It re-affirms that Sazh is easily one of the best characters in the game and the one you feel most empathetic towards, and it's from this moment on that Vanille becomes more tolerable (because she really is an annoying bitch to start off with). Yet for all of the drama the game lobbed at you during the revelations of Sazh, Dajh and Vanille - it's never touched on again. And you forget Sazh even had a son, and that a n***a was near suicidal and about to kill a ho. The story just doesn't seem to be able to develop the characters once they all come together. It does a great job of fleshing out the characters when they're paired off. The Lightning and Hope relationship was a lovely touch that should have been given a great deal more depth, and the unlikely pairing of Vanille and Sazh served its purpose nicely. But the second the whole party re-unites; it's as though the game has nothing more to reveal about anybody, and that nothing substantial was uncovered up unto that point: when in fact there is still a great deal to bring to light concerning half of the characters. Hope is the only character in the game who gets sufficient development, and who you feel is growing and becoming truly affected by the events unfolding within the story. No other character gets the same deal. One too many questions go unanswered and stay that way until the credits roll and the game prompts a post game save. I miss the days when Final Fantasy games' endings offered a satisfactory amount of resolution. XIII only left me with more questions. Possibly a deliberate thing to leave the doors open for a XIII-2, or the result of bad story telling. It's anybodies call. Given this is Square Enix we're dealing with, it's probably an equal mix of both.
The game sees a villain in the form of a man named Bartandelus. But he doesn't feel all that menacing when he's walking around looking like a cross between Lady Gaga and the Sultan from Aladdin. It's pretty safe to say there is no true villain in XIII, because the re-occurring 'bad guys' are always acting under the orders of somebody else; having no choice in what they do. And in this sense, they're really no different from Lightning / Light / ***** / Chick with a gunblade and co. They aren't reckless, and they aren't evil. Just misguided. And as a result you end up feeling really sorry for the likes of Yaag and Cid (two greatly under utilised characters). The only character in the game who makes you feel hatred towards them is and feels truly villainous is Jihl - purely because she manipulates a relationship between a father and son, uses a child as a pawn and just looks like a complete bitch who needs to have a l'Cie summon Chris Brown and set him on her. The lack of a clear villain or a consistent figure of conflict harms the story. Because at no point do you feel like any character you meet is directly to blame for anything the characters have lost or gone through. The villains do not make enough appearances or do enough to the characters directly for you to hate them, or look forward to fighting them. I remember playing VI and itching to fight Kefka. Playing VII and looking forward to fighting The Turks and really wanting to fight Sephiroth. I did look forward to fighting Jihl in XIII. But just as quickly as she's woven into the story, she unravelled out of it - and you're denied the chance to fight her. XIII honestly doesn't have you feel anything concerning 'the main bad guy' other than wonder exactly who the hell you're going to fight in the end. Having the final boss be a human character who was directly responsible for taking Lightning's sister, Sazh's son and killing Hope's mother as opposed to an unfortunate chain of events would have made the final battle much more climatic. Vanille would have made a great last boss, because I hated the bitch for most of the game and she's responsible for a heck of a lot.
XIII follows the trend of linearity which Square enforced on their Final Fantasy titles from X onwards. And it's worse here than it was in X and XII, because so many aspects of the game have been linearised. The whole of Final Fantasy XIII is pretty much a bunch of corridors, with very few open spaces (if any) for you to actually wander around. The maps look like shoe strings. And chances are if a dead end shows on your map that isn't in the direction of the yellow destination arrow, there's a treasure chest there. You just run through corridor, after corridor fighting battles. It is rather tedious, and if it wasn't for the stellar battle system (more on that later) then you would have traded the game in before completing it. You sometimes wonder why the game even lets you control the characters when it may as well have played like Road avenger.
The levelling up is also as linear as hell. The levelling up system centers around the Crystarium, which is pretty much Final Fantasy X's Sphere grid in HD. Where-as X's sphere grid enabled you to branch off and head in directions of your choice to have your party members learn certain abilities and nab specific attributes on the way, the Crystarium is just like the game: One direction. Zero deviation. Unlike the sphere grid, you're not able to view the whole Crystarium until the game decides it's going to expand sections of it for you. Which means you can't really plan which abilities to go for. You're completely at the mercy of the game and the roles it allows your characters to use. You just have to keep working the crystogenisis in one direction. I don't know why the game even bothers making you do it yourself, as it may as well level up your characters for you. The game also gives your characters specified roles. You cannot determine which roles your characters are able to use at the start. Only mid way through the game does it allow you to level your characters up in any role you choose. And even then, it caps you and only allows you full access to these roles once you complete the game.
The pacing of Final Fantasy XIII feels a little off. And the insistence to only truly stop holding the players' hand and let them actually play the game after 20 hours is 20 hours more than many are willing to invest in. The lack of option to go back to past locations is also a downer. You cannot visit locations you had previously visited until you're pretty much at the very end of the game. And even then, there are many places in Cocoon you cannot return to. The Sunleth waterscape? The Gapra whitewood? Lake Bresha? Nautilus? You ain't seeing them again.
Because of the premise of the story and your party being in a race against time, it's understandable the pace needed to be quick and enforce that element that you cannot go back. But it butchers the sense of exploration as a result. You're whisked from location to location so quickly that it renders many of the locations unmemorable. You never really get a chance to take them in and see them as existing, living and breathing places. You're essentially running through corridors the whole game, with interaction going no further than than activating a lift or opening a treasure chest. Every location just feels like a really pretty backdrop and nothing else. You're not given the chance to experience the wonders of Nautilus as you could at the Golden saucer in Final Fantasy VII. Check out the nooks and crannies of Palumpolum's sky rails, complexes and alleyways as you could the sectors of Midgar. Nosey around the Palamecia as you could Balamb garden in Final Fantasy VIII. It's a shame that the 2 locations in the game which feel familiar and come somewhat to life, are both rushed through (Palumpolum) and do not feature until the end of the game (Eden). And any character you come across, you can't talk to them. You can walk up to them and they'll automatically speak. But your characters can never engage in conversations with anybody, which kinda takes a Behemoth size chuck of the role play out of RPG.
As lovely as some of the locations look, they aren't anything but glorified HD wallpapers. As crap as (I thought) Final Fantasy XII was, at least the likes of Ivalice and Archades felt bustling and alive. There was a definite sense of wonderment and allure to them. You don't get that with 90% of the locations in XIII. Even the expansive area of Gran Pulse (the only location in XIII which gives you freedom and is open) fails to come to life. The place feels and looks exhilarating when you first step foot on it. But it's smoke and mirrors which quickly dissipate and shatter the second you start to wander around. Every square inch of the area looks the same: grass, trees and rocks. The same few enemies populate the place. Not a single non playable character in sight. Only one village in the whole joint. No real time weather effects or drastic changes to the time of day to help bring it to life. How the hell did anybody manage to stay alive on Gran Pulse? Where the hell did they live!? The feeling of wonderment and history Gran Pulse should have indulged players in is completely absent. Unless of course you flick through the datalog.
In a bid to make the game even more linear, Square have removed shops. Well, that's a bit of a lie. They're still in the game, they're just accessed via save points and branded as an online shopping network. Some may find this to be convenient. I find it to be a little lazy. Because the shops and upgrade system is found at save points, you often forget they're there until thoughts are running through your mind to the effect of Shit, I'm not doing enough damage with this weapon! or F**k, I'm outta Phoenix downs. I miss hitting a town and heading into its weapon shop to see the goods. It also acted as a neat reminder every time you arrived at a new town that you needed to keep on top of your battle inventory for the fights ahead. Being told that the datalog been updated and that new merchandise is available via some red message on the top left hand side of the screen after you fight a boss or watch a cut scene is not reminder or incentive enough. Call me old fashioned, but I miss the old shops. The shops and upgrades system also doesn't explain how the hell Wi-Fi Internet access was made available on Gran Pulse.
This leads into the issue of weapon upgrading. Gil is in short supply in this game. Instead of enemies dropping change, you have to harvest the spoils enemies drop to upgrade your weapons and / or sell them for money to make some serious Gil, which in turn you can spend on more items to upgrade your weapons. The rarer the items, the more loot you'll get for them - but only the most challenging enemies will drop them. This system would be fine if the game offered...
Now let's throw XIII some much deserved praise: The battle system. Easily one of the best in the series and the games' saving grace. Many held reservations about it after boards were spammed with You only control character, WTF!?. But the battle system truly is ingenious. XIII features some of the most action packed battles in the series to date, and introduces a level of strategy that hasn't reared its head since Final Fantasy X. Enemies now have Stagger gauges, which must be maxed out before any real damage can be done. Your aim is to chain attacks together to build this gauge so that an enemy is put into a 'Stagger' state, at which point the gauge will slowly drop and the enemy will be open to some massive damage. Building up the gauge pre-stagger can take time. and if you do not augment your attacks properly, battles can take can longer than necessary. So battles can havr you fighting with yourself: whether to take an opportunity to heal a character who is close to being K.O'd, or take a shot at staggering an enemy before their Stagger gauge falls. Characters also have roles which can be switched on the fly with the aid of the new Paradigm system: which pretty much works in the same way X-2's dresssphere system did. Only you change every party members' role simultaneously in battle, as opposed to individually. Roles include a...
The graphics in Final Fantasy XIII are stunning, although you would expect no less from Square. As the first HD Final Fantasy game it looks great and can hold the title proudly. Battles can get incredibly hectic, with several magic attacks taking over the battle field like crazy. But the action never locks up or slows down. The facial animation on the characters is outstanding. I was stunned during some of the cut scenes, because I just couldn't believe how the facial animation was so on-point. The mouth syncing is nicely done too. There are some iffy graphical moments. Despite the raw power of the PS3 and the 360 - hair still seems to be an issue on both versions of the game. Tetsuya Nomura once again gives characters free flowing do's and quirky ponytails, which test the character modellers; and it doesn't always look nice. Sazh's hair looks real. You can smell the Soul-glo and the Chocobo doo-doo through my TV it looks so real. Fang's hair also doesn't look too bad. But Lightning and Vanille's hair looks atrocious in some scenes from certain angles. The hair can look dodgy and tends to look more like paper cut-outs that have been stuck to their heads than anything else. Sometimes the hair looks amazing. But for the most part it can look a tad iffy. Square began to fall off with the FMV sequences after Final Fantasy IX. X, X-2 and XII's FMV sequences looked great, but were anything but thrilling. Where-as XIII features some stand out pieces. The sequence when the team first hit Gran Pulse, and first head to Eden are nothing short of amazing. And what is even more amazing is that the in-game graphics hold up so damn well, that at times you find it difficult to distinguish the difference. It's a shame that Square Enix didn't seamlessly integrate the FMV into the game as they did in past Final Fantasy's (to brilliant effect in VIII) just to really throw us all off.
A huge debate has been the graphical disparities between the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game. The term superior gets thrown around about the PlayStation 3 version, as though the Xbox 360 version is terrible in every way. I've played both versions, and can tell you that the differences graphically are not huge. The colours on the PS3 version do pop a bit more on screen, and the FMV sequences are crystal clear due to being uncompressed; featuring none of the macro blocking which can rear its head during fast paced FMV sequences in the 360 version. But the PS3 version of the game does not look leaps and bounds better than the 360 version to the point I'd put the 360 version down. Put it this way: if I were to score the graphics in both versions of the game individually, they'd both get the same score. The biggest draw with the PlayStation 3 version is the convenience of it being on one disc as opposed to the graphics. Final Fantasy XIII looks fantastic regardless of which console you play it on. Haters can all go sit on an upward facing gunblade.
XIII marks the first Final Fantasy game to not feature the work of Mr. Final Fantasy himself Nobuo Uematsu. And whilst fans cried rivers over this, I can safely say that Masashi Hamauzu does an amazing job with the games' score. You're always aware of it, and it sets the mood perfectly. His compositions aren't always as catchy as Uematsu's, but they are bigger in terms of scale and grandeur. A special mention has to go to the Battle theme - which has to be one of the best in the series. Not only because it is a stunning piece of music, but because it bucks the trend completely of what a Final Fantasy battle theme used to sound like. Despite it having been put in the first ever trailer to the game over 2 years ago, it still holds today, and you never get sick of it. The main theme of the game is also a really nice piece which goes through various iterations throughout the game. Despite its regularity (and sometimes overuse) you never tire of it. I even have to eat humble pie on the Leona Lewis song - because believe it or not, "My hands" suits the ending to the game better than "Kimi ga iru kara". Masashi Hamauzu did an amazing job giving this game a sonic identity, and his work in Final Fantasy XIII has made me a fan. I'd even go as far as to say XIII might be one of my favourite Final Fantasy soundtracks.
Square's first foray into Final Fantasy voice acting with Final Fantasy X was a joke. Every character spoke as though they were sippin' on Ribena 'n Demerol and eating Prozac on toast. But Square have learnt their lesson since then, and it works well in XIII's favour. The voice acting is top notch. Even that ho Vanille's voice is well done. The problem with the game where voices are concerned is all in the script. Other than Sazh, Fang and occasionally Hope, the characters words never sound as though they're flowing naturally and rolling off the tongue. And some of what the characters say makes you want to cringe. Snow keeps referring to himself as a "Hero" one too many times to the point I damn near wished he'd Summon his motorcycle of ice death, and just crash and die. And when Vanille isn't making sounds as though she's got Hope's fingers inside of her, she spouts too many questionable lines for me to count or quote to you. Everything she says is stupid, and no amount of leg, physical appeal and sexually suggestive l'Cie marks on her upper thigh can mask that.
Final Fantasy XIII is a tricky game to give an overall rating to, because how much enjoyment you get out of it is entirely dependent on how high a tolerance level you have for waiting for the game to open up, and just how much you love Final Fantasy as a series. It's easy for me to understand just why people may hate the game, even though I enjoyed many moments of it. Despite the amount of hours I clocked into the game, upgrading my weapons and doing 60 of the monster hunting side quests, I can't say I had a great deal of fun doing it all. And I quickly became over come with thoughts of just wanting it all to end so I could be rid of the burden of the monotony and get back to completing Mass Effect. But there were points in the game when I became completely wrapped up in it and enjoyed it.
Final Fantasy XIII isn't a terrible game. But Square Enix definitely made some bad decisions with it. And the constant throw backs to previous Final Fantasy's doesn't feel so much like a homage, as it does a distinct lack of forward direction and new ideas. The lack of exploration is stifling, the lack of any true gameplay leaves you a little empty, and the caps put on gamers where the battle and levelling up system is concerned is not subtle in the slightest.
Despite XIII's shortcomings, I found myself enjoying the game a great deal more than I thought I would. It made a much better first impression on me than X and XII did. But the problem is that every decision and change Square Enix made to the Final Fantasy formula for the sake of XIII resulted in snatching away control and freedom from the player. And if you were up on the level of exploration and freedom you were given VI, VII, VIII and IX - you'll feel XIII's shackles instantly. There is no window for you to deviate from the main path for even a second. And the fact you're constantly aware of the games' restrictions make things less fun. Whilst Square managed to find their feet again in terms of telling a story which seems interesting from the start with this game; they do not follow it through to the end, and seem to forget there was even a story to be told. Square's lack of consistency does exactly to the game, what the game does to the gamer: puts caps on the experience, and prevents it all from being everything it has the potential to be.
The good
+ Amazing graphics
+ Stunning soundtrack and solid voice acting
+ Brilliant battle system
+ A pretty good story
The bad
- Linear
- A buggered pace
- No sense of exploration
- Iffy camera
XIII follows the trend of linearity which Square enforced on their Final Fantasy titles from X onwards. And it's worse here than it was in X and XII, because so many aspects of the game have been linearised. The whole of Final Fantasy XIII is pretty much a bunch of corridors, with very few open spaces (if any) for you to actually wander around. The maps look like shoe strings. And chances are if a dead end shows on your map that isn't in the direction of the yellow destination arrow, there's a treasure chest there. You just run through corridor, after corridor fighting battles. It is rather tedious, and if it wasn't for the stellar battle system (more on that later) then you would have traded the game in before completing it. You sometimes wonder why the game even lets you control the characters when it may as well have played like Road avenger.
The levelling up is also as linear as hell. The levelling up system centers around the Crystarium, which is pretty much Final Fantasy X's Sphere grid in HD. Where-as X's sphere grid enabled you to branch off and head in directions of your choice to have your party members learn certain abilities and nab specific attributes on the way, the Crystarium is just like the game: One direction. Zero deviation. Unlike the sphere grid, you're not able to view the whole Crystarium until the game decides it's going to expand sections of it for you. Which means you can't really plan which abilities to go for. You're completely at the mercy of the game and the roles it allows your characters to use. You just have to keep working the crystogenisis in one direction. I don't know why the game even bothers making you do it yourself, as it may as well level up your characters for you. The game also gives your characters specified roles. You cannot determine which roles your characters are able to use at the start. Only mid way through the game does it allow you to level your characters up in any role you choose. And even then, it caps you and only allows you full access to these roles once you complete the game.
The pacing of Final Fantasy XIII feels a little off. And the insistence to only truly stop holding the players' hand and let them actually play the game after 20 hours is 20 hours more than many are willing to invest in. The lack of option to go back to past locations is also a downer. You cannot visit locations you had previously visited until you're pretty much at the very end of the game. And even then, there are many places in Cocoon you cannot return to. The Sunleth waterscape? The Gapra whitewood? Lake Bresha? Nautilus? You ain't seeing them again.
Because of the premise of the story and your party being in a race against time, it's understandable the pace needed to be quick and enforce that element that you cannot go back. But it butchers the sense of exploration as a result. You're whisked from location to location so quickly that it renders many of the locations unmemorable. You never really get a chance to take them in and see them as existing, living and breathing places. You're essentially running through corridors the whole game, with interaction going no further than than activating a lift or opening a treasure chest. Every location just feels like a really pretty backdrop and nothing else. You're not given the chance to experience the wonders of Nautilus as you could at the Golden saucer in Final Fantasy VII. Check out the nooks and crannies of Palumpolum's sky rails, complexes and alleyways as you could the sectors of Midgar. Nosey around the Palamecia as you could Balamb garden in Final Fantasy VIII. It's a shame that the 2 locations in the game which feel familiar and come somewhat to life, are both rushed through (Palumpolum) and do not feature until the end of the game (Eden). And any character you come across, you can't talk to them. You can walk up to them and they'll automatically speak. But your characters can never engage in conversations with anybody, which kinda takes a Behemoth size chuck of the role play out of RPG.
As lovely as some of the locations look, they aren't anything but glorified HD wallpapers. As crap as (I thought) Final Fantasy XII was, at least the likes of Ivalice and Archades felt bustling and alive. There was a definite sense of wonderment and allure to them. You don't get that with 90% of the locations in XIII. Even the expansive area of Gran Pulse (the only location in XIII which gives you freedom and is open) fails to come to life. The place feels and looks exhilarating when you first step foot on it. But it's smoke and mirrors which quickly dissipate and shatter the second you start to wander around. Every square inch of the area looks the same: grass, trees and rocks. The same few enemies populate the place. Not a single non playable character in sight. Only one village in the whole joint. No real time weather effects or drastic changes to the time of day to help bring it to life. How the hell did anybody manage to stay alive on Gran Pulse? Where the hell did they live!? The feeling of wonderment and history Gran Pulse should have indulged players in is completely absent. Unless of course you flick through the datalog.
In a bid to make the game even more linear, Square have removed shops. Well, that's a bit of a lie. They're still in the game, they're just accessed via save points and branded as an online shopping network. Some may find this to be convenient. I find it to be a little lazy. Because the shops and upgrade system is found at save points, you often forget they're there until thoughts are running through your mind to the effect of Shit, I'm not doing enough damage with this weapon! or F**k, I'm outta Phoenix downs. I miss hitting a town and heading into its weapon shop to see the goods. It also acted as a neat reminder every time you arrived at a new town that you needed to keep on top of your battle inventory for the fights ahead. Being told that the datalog been updated and that new merchandise is available via some red message on the top left hand side of the screen after you fight a boss or watch a cut scene is not reminder or incentive enough. Call me old fashioned, but I miss the old shops. The shops and upgrades system also doesn't explain how the hell Wi-Fi Internet access was made available on Gran Pulse.
This leads into the issue of weapon upgrading. Gil is in short supply in this game. Instead of enemies dropping change, you have to harvest the spoils enemies drop to upgrade your weapons and / or sell them for money to make some serious Gil, which in turn you can spend on more items to upgrade your weapons. The rarer the items, the more loot you'll get for them - but only the most challenging enemies will drop them. This system would be fine if the game offered...
- a larger range of enemies instead of 10 which have been palette swapped and had the name of their attacks changed.
- some form of merchant.
Now let's throw XIII some much deserved praise: The battle system. Easily one of the best in the series and the games' saving grace. Many held reservations about it after boards were spammed with You only control character, WTF!?. But the battle system truly is ingenious. XIII features some of the most action packed battles in the series to date, and introduces a level of strategy that hasn't reared its head since Final Fantasy X. Enemies now have Stagger gauges, which must be maxed out before any real damage can be done. Your aim is to chain attacks together to build this gauge so that an enemy is put into a 'Stagger' state, at which point the gauge will slowly drop and the enemy will be open to some massive damage. Building up the gauge pre-stagger can take time. and if you do not augment your attacks properly, battles can take can longer than necessary. So battles can havr you fighting with yourself: whether to take an opportunity to heal a character who is close to being K.O'd, or take a shot at staggering an enemy before their Stagger gauge falls. Characters also have roles which can be switched on the fly with the aid of the new Paradigm system: which pretty much works in the same way X-2's dresssphere system did. Only you change every party members' role simultaneously in battle, as opposed to individually. Roles include a...
- Commando: A physical attacker
- Ravager: A black mage
- Medic: A white mage
- Sentinel: A defensive tank who draws enemy attacks to them
- Synergist: A caster of protective and attribute boosting spells
- Saboteur: A caster of status ailing spells
- The Medic issue - Your character has low HP and has been hit with a status ailment. Rather than get the poorly party member back up to top HP first, the A.I deems the status ailment a priority, and casts Esuna instead of Cure. Before your character has a chance to be healed, they've been smacked, and they're dead.
- The Synergist issue - You're fighting an enemy which you've already gotten the intel on thanks to either Libra or good ol' trial and error - so the A.I already knows the adversary you're fighting deals powerful physical attacks. Your synergist will always cast Haste first, which is great. But instead of casting Protect straight after. It will cast Bravery, Faith, Vigilance, and God knows what else - deeming them all more of a priority than the one spell which could keep you alive.
The graphics in Final Fantasy XIII are stunning, although you would expect no less from Square. As the first HD Final Fantasy game it looks great and can hold the title proudly. Battles can get incredibly hectic, with several magic attacks taking over the battle field like crazy. But the action never locks up or slows down. The facial animation on the characters is outstanding. I was stunned during some of the cut scenes, because I just couldn't believe how the facial animation was so on-point. The mouth syncing is nicely done too. There are some iffy graphical moments. Despite the raw power of the PS3 and the 360 - hair still seems to be an issue on both versions of the game. Tetsuya Nomura once again gives characters free flowing do's and quirky ponytails, which test the character modellers; and it doesn't always look nice. Sazh's hair looks real. You can smell the Soul-glo and the Chocobo doo-doo through my TV it looks so real. Fang's hair also doesn't look too bad. But Lightning and Vanille's hair looks atrocious in some scenes from certain angles. The hair can look dodgy and tends to look more like paper cut-outs that have been stuck to their heads than anything else. Sometimes the hair looks amazing. But for the most part it can look a tad iffy. Square began to fall off with the FMV sequences after Final Fantasy IX. X, X-2 and XII's FMV sequences looked great, but were anything but thrilling. Where-as XIII features some stand out pieces. The sequence when the team first hit Gran Pulse, and first head to Eden are nothing short of amazing. And what is even more amazing is that the in-game graphics hold up so damn well, that at times you find it difficult to distinguish the difference. It's a shame that Square Enix didn't seamlessly integrate the FMV into the game as they did in past Final Fantasy's (to brilliant effect in VIII) just to really throw us all off.
A huge debate has been the graphical disparities between the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game. The term superior gets thrown around about the PlayStation 3 version, as though the Xbox 360 version is terrible in every way. I've played both versions, and can tell you that the differences graphically are not huge. The colours on the PS3 version do pop a bit more on screen, and the FMV sequences are crystal clear due to being uncompressed; featuring none of the macro blocking which can rear its head during fast paced FMV sequences in the 360 version. But the PS3 version of the game does not look leaps and bounds better than the 360 version to the point I'd put the 360 version down. Put it this way: if I were to score the graphics in both versions of the game individually, they'd both get the same score. The biggest draw with the PlayStation 3 version is the convenience of it being on one disc as opposed to the graphics. Final Fantasy XIII looks fantastic regardless of which console you play it on. Haters can all go sit on an upward facing gunblade.
XIII marks the first Final Fantasy game to not feature the work of Mr. Final Fantasy himself Nobuo Uematsu. And whilst fans cried rivers over this, I can safely say that Masashi Hamauzu does an amazing job with the games' score. You're always aware of it, and it sets the mood perfectly. His compositions aren't always as catchy as Uematsu's, but they are bigger in terms of scale and grandeur. A special mention has to go to the Battle theme - which has to be one of the best in the series. Not only because it is a stunning piece of music, but because it bucks the trend completely of what a Final Fantasy battle theme used to sound like. Despite it having been put in the first ever trailer to the game over 2 years ago, it still holds today, and you never get sick of it. The main theme of the game is also a really nice piece which goes through various iterations throughout the game. Despite its regularity (and sometimes overuse) you never tire of it. I even have to eat humble pie on the Leona Lewis song - because believe it or not, "My hands" suits the ending to the game better than "Kimi ga iru kara". Masashi Hamauzu did an amazing job giving this game a sonic identity, and his work in Final Fantasy XIII has made me a fan. I'd even go as far as to say XIII might be one of my favourite Final Fantasy soundtracks.
Square's first foray into Final Fantasy voice acting with Final Fantasy X was a joke. Every character spoke as though they were sippin' on Ribena 'n Demerol and eating Prozac on toast. But Square have learnt their lesson since then, and it works well in XIII's favour. The voice acting is top notch. Even that ho Vanille's voice is well done. The problem with the game where voices are concerned is all in the script. Other than Sazh, Fang and occasionally Hope, the characters words never sound as though they're flowing naturally and rolling off the tongue. And some of what the characters say makes you want to cringe. Snow keeps referring to himself as a "Hero" one too many times to the point I damn near wished he'd Summon his motorcycle of ice death, and just crash and die. And when Vanille isn't making sounds as though she's got Hope's fingers inside of her, she spouts too many questionable lines for me to count or quote to you. Everything she says is stupid, and no amount of leg, physical appeal and sexually suggestive l'Cie marks on her upper thigh can mask that.
Final Fantasy XIII is a tricky game to give an overall rating to, because how much enjoyment you get out of it is entirely dependent on how high a tolerance level you have for waiting for the game to open up, and just how much you love Final Fantasy as a series. It's easy for me to understand just why people may hate the game, even though I enjoyed many moments of it. Despite the amount of hours I clocked into the game, upgrading my weapons and doing 60 of the monster hunting side quests, I can't say I had a great deal of fun doing it all. And I quickly became over come with thoughts of just wanting it all to end so I could be rid of the burden of the monotony and get back to completing Mass Effect. But there were points in the game when I became completely wrapped up in it and enjoyed it.
Final Fantasy XIII isn't a terrible game. But Square Enix definitely made some bad decisions with it. And the constant throw backs to previous Final Fantasy's doesn't feel so much like a homage, as it does a distinct lack of forward direction and new ideas. The lack of exploration is stifling, the lack of any true gameplay leaves you a little empty, and the caps put on gamers where the battle and levelling up system is concerned is not subtle in the slightest.
Despite XIII's shortcomings, I found myself enjoying the game a great deal more than I thought I would. It made a much better first impression on me than X and XII did. But the problem is that every decision and change Square Enix made to the Final Fantasy formula for the sake of XIII resulted in snatching away control and freedom from the player. And if you were up on the level of exploration and freedom you were given VI, VII, VIII and IX - you'll feel XIII's shackles instantly. There is no window for you to deviate from the main path for even a second. And the fact you're constantly aware of the games' restrictions make things less fun. Whilst Square managed to find their feet again in terms of telling a story which seems interesting from the start with this game; they do not follow it through to the end, and seem to forget there was even a story to be told. Square's lack of consistency does exactly to the game, what the game does to the gamer: puts caps on the experience, and prevents it all from being everything it has the potential to be.
The good
+ Amazing graphics
+ Stunning soundtrack and solid voice acting
+ Brilliant battle system
+ A pretty good story
The bad
- Linear
- A buggered pace
- No sense of exploration
- Iffy camera
Verdict: Fans will tolerate it. But if you're new to Final Fantasy, this won't sell you on the franchise.