XIII truly is the unlucky number…(Final Fantasy XIII review)
Yes, you do fight these things....and they WILL kick your ass.
Ah, if you are a Final Fantasy fan, then odds are you were all hyped up many years ago during the trailer for the 13th game in the franchise. Nearly everyone was, and the internet screamed with undying loyalty and love to the franchise. Everything about it was breathtaking and beautiful, we couldn’t help but be excited for. Unfortunately, a cloud of doubt hovered over my head as the day it came over to the USA started become closer. I shrugged it off, and thought I was imagining things. Then I played…and I realized I was right. Square Enix messed up royally with this game. Is it that bad? Let’s find out bit by bit!
THIS is the main villain.....My god, I miss the giant swords already....
In terms of graphics, the game is pretty awesome and the sights are amazing. But here lies perhaps one of the biggest flaws in this game: There’s no free roaming. That’s right, for pretty much the entire game, you are stuck on a linear path. Now while most FF games did this, they at least had an open world and levels where we could spend hours doing various other things such as quests or obtaining rare items. Is there such a thing in this game? Not really. The level design eventually becomes much better as the game goes on, but really, it only gets good at chapter 11. Why there? Because you are able to finally do side-quests and distract yourself from the main story. But what’s the problem again?…..It begins in chapter 11, which will take a long time to get to in order to actually enjoy this game. Not exactly a good point in its favor.
Speaking of the main story, it has its ups and downs, mainly downs. Naturally, you shall be confused like no tomorrow as you first begin playing and wondering why there are so many explosions. Well, while Final Fantasy was usually focused on one or two main characters, attention is divided between the game’s six protagonists. This might have sounded good in theory, but it’d actually work if the characters were likeable. Let’s take Vanille for instance, the usual kooky character they put in these games (like Yuffie, Rikku, etc.), but it seems the Zero Punctuation review of this game was right: the kooky meter has literally become a singularity. What does this mean? Well let’s just say she need special, special education. And yes, I put special twice just for her. I’d say more, but none of it is nice and deserves no mention. Besides, I have dealt enough of it by raging fans of the series in the form of my friends.
Anyway, continuing with the story, the game does actually give you summaries of the plot as you go along, but these tell the story much better than the actual game does. This is not proper story telling! It’s a ridiculous idea because when you play a game, you PLAY a game, not read through and waste several hours devoid of fun factor reading. That’s what books and fanfiction are for! Also, this game lacks a proper villain. I know they’re trying the whole defy fate thing, but I fail to see a true villain in the midst of all of this. This game’s villain is far less epic compared to the others in the FF series. The only good thing is that he’s a challenging boss for a change.
And that brings us to possibly the only good thing: combat. Believe it or not, the combat system isn’t half bad. It involves a lot of strategy, with the AI controlling two other party members while you control the leader. There is no MP in this game, so magic is used freely and rapidly. Using the ATB (Active Time Bar), you can perform multiple actions in a single turn, and even chain attacks to stagger a foe. Even status ailments, which were once useless since bosses within the series were often immune to them, are incredibly helpful as well. There’s also a paradigm system which changes the characters behavior, switching them from offense to defense in a flash. Should you be defeated in combat, no worries because the game actually has a retry function, so you can fight the same enemy no matter how many times you lose. So the game actually encourages you to make new strategies again and again. Sadly, the true potential of this function isn’t unlocked the minute you play, and most of the time you might just be using auto-battle.
Summons make a grand return as well, and characters can team up with them to perform special attacks and such. But you may only summon one since summoning is based on TP, and it takes away 3 out of 5, so summoning another beast to aid you is impossible. Also, the game has seemed to given up on potions and such, focusing more on the customization of weaponry. Even though when you exit battle, your HP is automatically restored, in battle, potions are only handy for the first few hours, then become useless. It begs the question as to why bother with items in the first place.
It may sound like this is a truly horrible game, but it isn’t. It has its ups and downs, but overall….it’s not great or bad. It’s only a 3 out of 5. It reminds me of Final Fantasy VIII, but the only difference was that I actually enjoyed XIII better than that game.
I wish it was, Sazh. I wish it was...
And on one more note, I think Spoony should be the one to review this game. Seriously, after the way he did number VIII, and number X (even though I love X), he can do a far better job and tear this game a new one. SPOONY: I DARE YOU TO REVIEW THIS GAME!
