Review | Final Fantasy XIII

Genre: RPG Adventure   |   Publisher: Square Enix   |   Developer: Square Enix   |   Platform:  360, PS3

Released: 09 March 2010   |   Website: http://finalfantasy13game.com/ |   Players: 1 player

Rating: M   |   Price: $89.99   |   Writer: Stan McGuigan

This is such a massive game that it’s hard to know where to begin. Square Enix’s (formally Squaresoft) Final Fantasy series is one that has built many loyal fans. It’s easy to talk about the popularity of the FF series given the fact that there are over twenty-eight of them (remembering FF X-2 and various versions across differing platforms) and two movies.

The series began way back in 1987 as a last death gasp to try and save the dying company Square from bankruptcy. The immediate success pleasantly surprised Square who created several sequels. The series became well known for its innovations, visuals, music and inclusion of full motion videos and photo realistic characters. When you talk to any FF fan I think the big one that always springs to mind was FF VII back in 1994 which moved away from 2D to the more exciting 3D and was introduced on the Playstation One system.

It was however with more than a little frustration that fans waited and waited for the arrival of FF XIII; it seemed to suffer from continuous delays, pushing the release date further and further out. When it was finally released in Japan, it appeared to take forever for the Euro and US versions to be finished. But to most the wait was rewarded with a polished title that had many gamers burning the midnight oil and drooling at the stunning visuals and complex storyline.

The tale itself is quite intricate, early in the piece it can quickly become confusing as to what the factions are trying to do and who the bad guys really are. Simply put the story revolves around ‘two worlds’; Pulse and Cocoon and how they are intertwined with the complexities of the Fal’Cie. The Fal’Cie are magical beings with godlike powers who were created by the ‘Maker’.  People who become marked by the Fal’Cie are called the L’Cie and each one is given a focus (or task) that they must complete. If they fail to achieve their focus they become transformed into monsters known as a Cie’th. To aid in this task each L’Cie can gain the ability to summon an Eidolon who will fight with them. If a focus is completed then they are ‘rewarded’ by being transformed into crystal. For this reason the people view being chosen as a curse as either way their life will end.

As the story goes, two groups of Fal’cie started a war 1300 years ago; one group was from Pulse and the other was that which created Cocoon. The end result was that the Pulse Fal’cie invasion was repulsed in what was known as the War of Transgressions. The people of Cocoon are forever fearful of another assault by the forces of the Pulse Fal’cie. Such is that dread that anyone in Cocoon who has been in contact with anything from Pulse is subjected to exile. It is here that our tale begins with Snow leading a resistance group known as NORA to stop the purging of citizens.

Using that good old Rugby analogy, it’s easy to say that this ‘is a game of two halves’. The first chapters (centred predominantly on Cocoon) are linear where you will slowly unravel each character’s story and come to grips with the combat system and roles that the party members take. The second part is open world; here you can spend your time exploring Pulse grinding to level up your team but more importantly you can now choose your party set-up, i.e. who you want as the team leader and two others to join in the battle.

But before I start singing the praises it so rightly deserves I have to warn you (and I am talking to the kiwi audience here), two of the main characters have Aussie voiceovers. But it gets worse – one of them (Fang), has a most disturbing ear-splitting Aussie slang drawl; it was so bad that I tried for the most part not to use her as a character (I kid you not) – and to make matters worse, the voice actor isn’t even Australian! She is an American (Rachel Robinson) who puts on an Aussie accent (she also won the best female voice actress for her efforts!). Okay so I say this with a little ‘tongue-in-cheek’, pushing the boundary of that famous Kiwi rivalry, but that voice does grate the nerves.

Now that I have that off my chest, let’s talk a bit about the characters. For the most part I have to say they are all children, either physically (as with Hope and to an extent Vanille) or mentally. What I mean by that is, in true Japanese world ending story style, it seems that the characters were fashioned to accommodate the teen audience and hence the attitudes to go with it. In fact the only two who I would consider adults are Sazh and Fang. although Fang often dumbfounds me as well, and Sazh has a Chocobo chick living in his afro (Sazh’s appearance was actually based on Lionel Richie)!

So to summarise; Lightning doesn’t know what she wants other than to kill anyone who gets in her way, Snow is a meathead whose insanely positive attitude makes you want to slap him, Vanille – urghh is such a happy little teen who dances around the death and destruction surrounding her like it never happened, Hope can be partially (barely) forgiven for his whinging ways given his introduction to the team (I will do my best not to have any spoilers), Sazh seems to understand the situation and carries his own burdens which make him the man he is, and Fang – well she has the right attitude I guess, doesn’t talk a lot (thank god), but does make some rather strange decisions. All in all they seem to dance around the world like they are going on a picnic.

Although the Battle System received mixed reviews from fans, I liked it; it is fast paced and still requires a lot of tactical contemplation. The Active Time Battle (ATB) system has returned but this time you are able to chain large numbers of commands together in order to achieve massive attack bonuses. In battle you are only able to control one character at a time out of your party of three; however you can stack commands to form combos of attack such as a standard Attack, followed by Fire, Blizzard and Cure. As a bonus the team is healed completely at the end of each battle. Enemies can also fall into a Stagger State once combos have had their stagger bar filled by various attacks against them. Once staggered (for a limited time) the attacks against them will inflict huge amounts of damage, especially if a character has the Launch ability which will knock them into the air where they will not be able to counter until the return to earth.

Using the party member’s roles during battle you will be able to perform ‘Paradigm Shifts’. The shift you choose will determine how each character performs in the battle, for example you might wish to start the battle with one character to play the Commando (standard physical attacks), another Ravager (Magic attacks) and the third as the Medic (healer). You can save each Paradigm for that party and then switch Paradigms during battle at any time. So for example you might start out all on Assault and then change to a Para that is predominantly one to heal and buff as the party takes damage. Once healed you can again shift to an aggressive para. There are over 80 Paradigm combinations that can be used with the specific role types of each character.

The levelling system is called the Crystarium; this resembles the Sphere grid as seen in other FF titles. Instead of gaining XP you gain CP to use on the various Crystarium trees. Each character has specific trees to access and initially starts with three roles, others becoming available later in the game. As you spend points you will be able to gain new abilities, spells and upgrade your strength, magic and HP. Finally in combat we have the summons- as mentioned the creatures you summon are called Eidolons. Each character can only summon one Eidolon that is tied specifically to them alone. Only the lead character can summon once in battle so you must decide which Eidolon you wish to have available in those times of need. The usual suspects are back such as Odin, Shiva and Bahumat plus a few new ones Alexander, Hecatoncheir and Bryndhildr. The summons are initially fantastic to watch but I soon found that I rarely needed them. As an added bonus, at the end of the summoning all characters are revived and healed if the battle still rages so a great way to save the day.

I wont spend much time talking about the visuals other than to say they are superb; without a doubt the cinematic scenes are some of the best you will have ever seen on a console. My only regret was that you can’t replay them at all (would have been brilliant to watch them all run together on completion of the game). In game everything is crisp, colourful and flows well. The game is supported with Final Fantasy X’s co-composer Masashi Hamauzu which features orchestral recordings from the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra. In fact the music and songs from the game were sold separately as an album, selling 16000 copies on the day it was released.

In summary I found FF XIII to be a visually stunning masterpiece. It had a somewhat initially confusing story and you could become annoyed with the often frustrating characters (that you just wanted to slap some sense into) but it is backed up with a great combat system and packaged together with care. Even if you skip the free roaming portion to complete the story it will take you a good 30+ hours and that would be racing through. If you spend time exploring and leveling as well as doing the 100+ side missions you could easily go over 100 hours, which is real value for money.  [9]