Final Fantasy XIII Review Posted by, Kevin. July 1st, 2010. Filed under Reviews
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It’s been a seriously long time coming. Final Fantasy XIII was announced over 5 years ago and it wasn’t until around two years ago that footage of the actual game was released to the general public. With the announcement of the Xbox 360 version hell has been unleashed with many Final Fantasy purists claiming that the game will never reach the height of its predecessors while other gamers have praised Square-Enix for finally breaking its exclusivity. Finally after 5 long years and a 3 month wait after the Japanese version the game has finally hit Western shores. Was it worth the long wait or is this fantasy finally turned stale?
Story
Final Fantasy XIII starts off with a very strong bang. All hell breaks loose as Lightning and Sazh fight towards a Fal’Cie to rescue Lightning’s sister while Snow and his militia fight off PSICOM so he can reach the Fal’Cie to save Lightnings sister who also happens to be his fiancee. Along the way they pick up Vanille, a crazy energetic girl and Hope, a silent angst-filled teenager. Soon they realize that fate had brought them all together and the Pulse Fal-Cie brands them as L’Cie and gives them a focus they have to figure out before it is too late and they turn into Ci’eth. Eventually they meet Fang, a saucy and powerful female warrior with a mysterious past. After the run-in with the supposed main villain they decide to challenge fate and save Cocoon.
Final Fantasy XIII’s plot has many problems with the biggest problem being pacing. The story starts very strongly as we’re introduced to most of the characters and the problem is laid right out in front. However after the first five hours the game hits a major problem. The story literally stops and a large majority of the chapters are spent on trying to develop the characters which of course isn’t a bad thing by any means, except Square went about it in the worst way possible. The game continues to present itself with very long gameplay segments and then give a couple minutes of exposition that only enhances the first impression of all the characters, which is generally negative. Eventually the story picks up and remains strong for about three chapters, but once the characters are transported to Pulse, the inhospitable lowerworld, that the narrative is dropped again until the game goes back to Cocoon. This also correlates to info the game tries to present. From the get-go the game throws out terms like the player is already supposed to know what each of them means. While they do explain some stuff later to those who are patient, and there is an in-game encyclopedia, novice players will more then likely have a difficult time finding it or even figuring out one exists.
The characters are also some of the weakest in a Final Fantasy in a long time. From the beginning till around 20 hours in the characters are built strongly upon the first impression received from them which are mostly negative. Lightning is strongly presented as being Callous, Snow is self-absorbed, Hope is an angst filled teenager bent on revenge, Sazh is too concerned about other people, Fang is the only normal one since she arrives pretty late into the game, and Vanille, well lets just say that she is probably one of the most annoying characters ever created. Over the many hours spent playing the characters do break out of their molds and most of them become likable. Even Vanille manages to have some pretty spectacular moments.
Final Fantasy, while is known for crafting good heroes, is also known for crafting spectacular villains. This is where XIII takes a giant hit because it just doesn’t have a central villain. The game continuously throws many different villains at you without mercy, and manages to dispose of each one rather quickly before they are developed. At around half-way through the game the supposed villain is finally shown but he is on for one battle but then exits for another 6-10 hours. Due to his absence from the game little is known about the character and therefore lacks the presence or effect as Seymour, Sephiroth, and Kefka had. They all had giant screen time and strong motivations for what they did.
XIII’s story isn’t bad at all. In fact its pretty good. However its held back due to the poor design and poor character development.
Score: 7.3/10
Design
Final Fantasy XIII has been gaining huge amounts of criticism due to its supposed linearity. While purists have been quick to point out Final Fantasy X as also being linear, the fact is X included towns, an airship to travel in, and the ability to back-track. XIII contains none of this and is in fact just a straight line with pretty textures covering it up. It’s always a straight run through each locale towards a giant yellow marker on your mini-map which either triggers a cutscene, a boss fight, or both. Square has made it aware that Pulse will contain that open feel gamers used to have and they are right… barely. Pulse contains a huge section of open land that players are free to roam around and battle on. However once the section is left, it turns back into a slog from point A to Point B.
Pulse also allows players to go on grand side-missions. Ci’eth Stones appear to the player which open up missions to take on rare creatures and acquire special items normally not found. The stones are what remains of Ci’eth after they’re lifespan runs out. These side-quests are excellent diversions and can really eat up precious time. The game can last anywhere from 30-60 hours which offers up plenty of play for your cash.
XIII’s leveling system returns back to Final Fantasy X’s Sphere Grid with the Crystarium. Crystal points are awarded to all party members which are then able to be spent in the Crystarium to upgrade the classes. Within the classes lie abilities and status improvements such as strength, magic, and health. The Sphere Grid got many complaints mostly dealing with it being intimidating so its only natural that Square went in and cleaned it up for XIII. While the Crystarium is much more stream-lined then the Sphere Grid, it is very pleasantly presented and works strongly within the game.
Final Fantasy XIII puts forward some brand new ideas for the franchise. The Crystarium is easily one of the best new additions as it allows players to freely upgrade the characters in any form they choose. The linear nature of the game isn’t a bad thing at all, but it weakens the story when you’re forced to run miles just to get to a cutscene, although when the narrative picks up the linear nature is much appreciated.
Score: 7.5/10
Gameplay
It’s no joke that XIII offers up some of the most exciting gameplay ever seen in a Final Fantasy while still maintaining enough strategy for the hardcore fans. XIII uses an ATB battle system gauge that fills as time passes. A total of 5 actions can be fit onto the full gauge with all characters having to start at 3 at the very beginning of the game. The more powerful the attack or spell is, the bigger the space it needs on the gauge. The battle menu is comprised of Auto-Battle which fills the gauge with whatever the AI feels best suits the circumstance, Abilities which allows you to fill the gauge with whatever you want, Techniques which include summoning and other powerful abilities, and Items where potions and other trinkets are held. Once the gauge is filled the character then pulls off flashy animations that will be sure to delight the senses.
Most battle do end up with Auto-Battle being the only selection chosen. Abilities is useful every once in a while to try out new moves but it just isn’t as precise as Auto-Battle is. Techniques are great because they allow summons to be called forth or allow Libra to be used which details all the enemies stats to the party, however they do have limits as they all have points that draw from Technique points with summons costing 3/5 of the points. Items are pretty much useless as the Medic class can heal and cure status elements in a jiffy and restore more health then any potion ever could.
Speaking of the classes, XIII offers up 6 to be mastered with each character starting out with 3. Commando (Deal melee damage), Ravager (Black Mage), Medic (Heals), Sentinel (Takes the Damage), Saboteur (Debuffs enemies), and Synergist (Buffs allies). Each class adds a thick layer of strategy to battles as each is needed to complete later battles which heighten the difficulty and require the 3 latter classes a lot more. To make it easy to create a balanced party Square created the Paradigm system which allows the switching of roles of all the 3 active party members. As the game progresses the Paradigms become imperative to success because a quick Shift could mean the difference between a win and a loss.
Eidolons are the names of the summons within the game and have taken cues from both X and XII. As the Eidolon is summoned, the other party members depart the battle and leave the summoner and summon to duke it out on the battlefield. Before this can happen though the summoner has to fight the summon to prove that they are worthy of a being of such power. These battles are considerably tough and require full use of the Paradigms. Once under your control the summon can join you and once the limit bar under the players health bar is full the summon can go into Gestalt Mode. This is basically where the summon transforms into some sort of vehicle for the player to ride. Upon them the player issues orders to them that decrease the Gestalt Gauge until only the use of their super moves are available. The Eidolons are great, they feel strong and can easily help turn the tide of battles. However some of the Eidolons are clearly more powerful then the others making it difficult to choose certain characters as party leaders over others. As they don’t gain strength or anything of the sort this leaves some of the Eidolons unused. Also there are only 6 summons (One for each character) which is kind of disappointing. Some more summons would’ve been nice with a leveling system to make sure the older ones don’t remain untouched later in the game.
Final Fantasy XIII is an exhilarating game to to play. Its fast, its fun, and it still requires strategy to play. This is one area where XIII truly shines.
Score: 9/10
Presentation
Final Fantasy games have always held high regard in the presentation department because all the games tend to be marvelous and very far ahead visually compared to other games. This isn’t the case with XIII. Yes the game does look good, but its a little late to the party. The best thing going for the game are the jaw-dropping animations. Every animation within this game is silky smooth and is enticing to watch. Every creature moves like it was a real creature and the each of the individual characters animations are near perfect and its a blast watching them pull off all kind of acrobatic moves in battle.
The next amazing thing has got to be the models. The models are some of the best to grace any game. They all look proportionate and some of the models that accompany some of the other creatures and bigger monsters are handled delicately and come out looking perfectly. The textures plastered onto the models for the most part look great. The main characters and most of the supporting characters have pleasantly detailed textures with few problems. NPCs and a lot of the creatures have repeating textures, palette swapped textures, and even muddy textures.
Environments are hit and miss. Areas like the Gapra Whiteood look fantastic while places like Eden and the Archlyte Steppe feature muddy textures. In fact a lot of the environment designs feel like they were ripped right out of other Final Fantasy games. The Archlyte Steppe feels like an exact carbon copy of the Calm Lands from X with other areas having the feeling like they were taken from other titles.
Special Effects in-game look great but have been seen and done better in other games, such as, great explosions, fire, ice, and other effects. While it doesn’t look bad, it doesn’t push any of the limits that Square-Enix claimed the game would.
Final Fantasy has always been cutscene heavy so it was a good thing Square put in the time and effort to make them look good. In-game runs at 576p on the 360 and at 720p on the PS3, while CGI scenes can run at 1080p on the PS3. In-game cut scenes look stunning which makes it even more surprising that Square would use CGI scenes which showcase the weaknesses of the games graphics.
The final point, and a very strong point is, the Soundtrack. In previous Final Fantasy games Nobuo Uematsu composed the soundtrack, this time around Masashi Hamauzu stepped in and did a fantastic job.
Score: 7.2/10
Final Thoughts
Final Fantasy XIII isn’t a bad game by any measures. The story is deep and emotional once it gets going and the game contains some of the best gameplay the series has ever seen. However a lot of the experiments Square used just didn’t pay off. The game ends up being so linear that it loses a lot of its exposition to it. It also loses a lot of the magic that made a Final Fantasy game special. Once again, this isn’t a bad game, it just ends up feeling like a missed opportunity.
Final Score: 7.8/10
The Good
Deep and Exciting Gameplay
Paradigm System is ingenious and adds Strategy
Story is deep and Emotional
The Bad
Takes too long to get to the Emotional Story
Linearity Hurts the Exposition
Not as Impressive as Square made it out to be