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Review of Final Fantasy XIII
Introduction
The Final Fantasy Franchise has been a dominant force in the gaming world since the official first release in the late 1980’s and since then; the world of Final Fantasy has expanded widely from 2D basic 8-bit assets to polygenic 3D designs for next generation consoles including Playstation and Xbox. Square Soft’s success kicked off from the ground with the launch of Final Fantasy VII, selling 330,000 on its debut. Also, Final Fantasy X sold more than a million copies on preorder on the game’s debut and is known to be one of the greatest games ever created. But with Final Fantasy XII failing to get to the top of the ladder with its predecessors, it meant Square Enix needed to create another big Final Fantasy Game. After a 3 and Half Year wait since the first trailer was revealed, Final Fantasy XIII has finally hit shelves in the UK
History
Square’s first Final Fantasy was released in 1987 and was made for the NES. It was hard for Square to get Final Fantasy off the ground as there were a few competitors with Sega’s Phantasy Star and the Dragon Quest Series. Square decided to make a sequel before shipping the game outside of Japan Japan
Story
The Story can become confusing until you play through the game long enough in order to know what is happening. The Game is set on the floating island of cocoon high above the world of pulse where mechanical creatures known as fal'Cie watch over cocoon choosing ordinary people to become L’Cie where they are assigned a focus of which they must complete or a irreversible doom awaits them.
The Main Characters Lightning and Snow are trying to fight the forces of cocoon to help a young girl named Serah who as been marked as L’cie. After an unforeseen turn of events, this leave Lightning and her crew all marked as L’Cie. To make matters worse each character has the same focus to complete which is to save cocoon and being down cocoons creator Oprhan whilst trying to fight in battle to decide the fate of cocoon future.
The game is split into 13 chapters (hence the title) which also includes cutscenes from the characters past leading up to the main story. Final Fantasy XIII’s language can become confusing at first until you played through the first few chapters but it can become to hard understand the difference between L’cie and fal’cie without researching each term although the game’s Datalog works as an encyclopaedia for Final Fantasy XIII. This won’t interfere with the way the game is played due the beautiful landscape of cocoon itself.
Gameplay
Final Fantasy XIII’s Characters are summed up into two stats, Strength and Magic, this does make this the most basic statistical Final Fantasy Game so far but this does not put people off with how the game works.
Players can pick what battles they want to fight as the enemies appear on screen meaning the ATB System (Active Time Battle) has made a return but of course some fights cannot be skipped e.g. boss fights.
The Combat also takes place in the way that Final Fantasy X and X-2 did in separate battle areas. The Combat System in Final Fantasy XIII at the beginning of the story is very slow and takes a very gradual climb to pick up occurring until later the story.
Each new element is unlocked in tiny bits and takes a long time before you can have access to all the features that Final Fantasy XIII has to offer. The Unlocking Feature did work with other Final Fantasy games but it fails to get this unlocking system off the ground.
The Battle Commands are cued up to be executed in one go, with the default command been Auto-Battle which does a good job of picking out the right attacks for the current situation. Also the party leader can only be commanded in battle and members in battle are AI controlled.
The Game’s Battle
The Eidolons can be called into battle by only the party leader which replaces the party members until the Eidolons hit points are empty. They are only really to be called in dangerous situations as they are very costly to use but the design for each summon has been well thought though to make them look as cool as possible.
If the party in successful in battle, they will awarded with a rating and also will gain crystal points to spend at the games Crystarium which is a lot like the Sphere Grid from Final Fantasy X allowing upgrades for stats. The main Difference though is that there are separate grids for each characters role and the Crystarium expands bigger and becomes more advanced during the adventure allowing for more upgrades to the characters. There is also no penalty for losing in battle as you will respawn at the same enemy that you were defeated by which makes the game less frustrating for people who don’t save the game now and again
Design
Final Fantasy XIII has a very basic linear path that players go through meaning you are given a set direction to proceed through with few other paths to fight battles or find hidden items (normally guarded by enemies). The Game Really becomes open when the bigger landscapes become available to you to allow the players to explore the vast and wide open world of cocoon where you are able to take on side quests to take a break from the main story. This is always the best place to obtain better equipment and max out stats for harder battles within the game
The Game also feels very enclosed due to the fact there are no towns or villages to explore or interact with. This has been merged in with the save points, this allows the players to shop for items and also upgrade weapons later on in the game. Each shop has various items for each main area of equipment and items.
Equipment upgrades make a return but is used in a much different to what Final Fantasy X did with its upgrade system. You will need components collected from enemies or treasure chests to level up your weapons. Components can also be purchased from the shops at the save points. There are no specific details with each component as they only give basic experience points for a weapon. Overall, it lacks the intelligence of other upgrade systems on other Final Fantasy games
In conclusion to how the game has been designed, Final Fantasy XIII’s layout and structure has been trimmed down removing unnecessary aspects from the story and gameplay which would have been given to OK if included with the game. Final Fantasy XIII will keep you focus on the main objective and little else so for some gamers, the basic linear path of the game may put people off.
Presentation
Square Enix has not disappointed with the visuals of the characters and the games world. They look incredible and some of the main game cutscenes are very extreme aswell as there is so much going on in one cutscene. One thing is the cheap looking hair on some characters and also some of the textures look a bit flat but other than that, the game itself gives off a strong impression. The characters faces can keep you lock onto them throughout the whole game as they never lose their appearances or graphical look during exploration of the game. The effect is also good enough to drown out the cheesy Japanese cliché dialogue. The Environment and the world of cocoon are full of detail with a lot of different variety to view during the 40+ hour campaign. The Monster Designs are also very detailed and very imaginative but with only a few downer to some enemies. The Soundtrack is magnificent and it really adds to the feel of the games story. The Main Battle theme will not lose grasp on you hours into the campaign. For some people, The Main English Theme Leona Lewis’ ‘My Hands’ is a perfect fit for the game but to others, it dreads the way the game has been presented. In my opinion, it would have been better to include the Japanese theme song in the game as well as the English version for the game.
Conclusion
It may become a little confusing at first that you can only control one character in battle but once you get the hang of it and unlock all the features and master the techniques. It is definitely a game that is money well spent.
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