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Final Fantasy XIII | Review
Troy Benedict, Senior Writer
March 23, 2010
Final Fantasy XIII is like a fine wine. The end result is a complex and beautiful experience, one that only a true aficionado will appreciate. Those with a less complicated taste, however, will likely find the experience sour, tasteless, and easily forgettable.
One cannot judge Final Fantasy XIII on the first impression. Or the second... or the fourth... or the eighth. If one does judge Final Fantasy XIII on one of the first several impressions, one is likely to find it to be extremely linear, the characters to be annoying and cliched, and the battle system to be overly complex. Let's just put it this way, the time that it takes to complete the single-player campaign in a game like Modern Warfare 2, and then spend a couple of extra hours playing multiplayer, one might be done experiencing all of Final Fantasy XIII's new functionality-introducing tutorials... maybe.
Final Fantasy XIII is not a title for everybody. It's probably not a game that casual gamers will pick up and enjoy. Many hardcore gamers may find it to be just as tedious, especially if compared to the more popular Western RPGs like Dragon Age, Mass Effect 2, and Fallout 3. The people who will enjoy it are the Final Fantasy enthusiasts, the Square-Enix supporters, and those who enjoy the quirkiness of a Japanese role-playing game. After the series' 12 previous iterations, and the various spin-offs, those who pick up a Final Fantasy title should know what they're getting into, and those who don't--well, there's a good chance that they won't enjoy it. While Final Fantasy XIII attempts to hold hands for newbies to the series, the game's technicalities may be a bit overwhelming to the Japanese-RPG virgin.
Final Fantasy XIII's story is nothing to write home about. It's the standard role-playing game storyline where the world is in peril and a small band of unlikely heroes are the only ones who can stop it. The characters are cliches and stereotypes. There's the lone-wolf soldier type, the comic relief, the emo kid, the cute and naive optimist, and the well-intentioned youth who's doing it all to protect the one he loves. In fact, during the first 8.5 hours of Final Fantasy XIII, don't expect to like the characters at all. Only after the story really starts rolling (and remember, the story isn't all that original to begin with) do the characters and their (mysterious) backgrounds start to fill out and become somewhat likeable.
The graphics are absolutely amazing, especially the prerendered full-motion video. While it would have been nice to see everything rendered in-game using the PS3 and 360's powerful graphics engine, the technical requirements to put together some of the set pieces would have been amazingly difficult. It's important to point out, when it comes to the visual parity between the Xbox 360 version and the PlayStation 3 version, the PS3 wins by a long shot. Whether it truly was the technical limitations of the Xbox 360's required DVD format--3 DVDs vs. 1 Blu-ray disc--or a focus on the PlayStation 3 hardware, the full-motion video quality on the Xbox 360 has ranged from "acceptable" to "downright horrible." The PS3's visuals are, as elluded to, absolutely stunning. Fans of computer-generated films will enjoy how utterly and technically complex some of the scenes are. From a gameplay standpoint, the two versions are identical, however if given the choice, definitely go with the PlayStation 3 version as the overall experience is far superior on Blu-ray.
Final Fantasy XIII, is arguably one of the most complex games of the series, while in other aspects, it's the most accessible. It's complex because of the fast-paced battle system. Characters can switch between various paradigms that are on-the-fly skillsets, which can be swapped out instantaneously to tailor each character's offensive and defensive abilities to the situation. The five paradigms and their general abilities are as follows: Ravenger is used for offensive spellcasting, Commando focuses a character on physical attacks, Saboteur lowers enemies attacks and defenses, while Synergist raises party attacks and defenses, and lastly the Medic paradigm--which is pretty self-explanatory. Mastering the different paradigms, and how each one works--or doesn't work--with another can result in a drastically different outcome during a battle.
Final Fantasy XIII is also the most accessible game in the series, specifically because of its very liberal use of save-game locations, and each battle can be replayed upon failure. That's right, one doesn't have to restart the entire area if the encounter with a boss character results in a game over. Players also no longer have to heal party members between battles.
That is essentially Final Fantasy XIII in a nutshell. Those who appeciate the Final Fantasy series and have an idea of what they're getting into, will probably be the ones who will truly appreciate the game and all of its difficult and quirky glory.
Let's be honest, when you have a game featuring a character who has a baby chocobo (a cute, yellow, fluffy baby chicken for the uninitiated) living inside his afro, you're going to win some and lose some.
