Final Fantasy is a series that is constantly undergoing evolution. With each game’s world being completely independent of each other, Final Fantasy XIII has the opportunity to re-invent itself like a phoenix from its ashes. Far away from the tales of knights and wizards, we now come to visit the futuristic utopian world of Cocoon. So what awaits us in this latest installment, and does Square-Enix really deliver upon four long years of hype?
Story
Final Fantasy XIII begins in a utopian world known as Cocoon. Protected by a sophisticated government known as the Sanctum and its formidable military divisions, its citizens live happily in paradise. Sitting alongside the humans is a powerful race known as the fal’Cie, who originally constructed Cocoon and are charged with taking care of the Cocoon inhabitants—as well as keeping it afloat above the main planet.
Below Cocoon lays the main planet, Pulse. Known as a sinister land of feral beasts, the people of Cocoon are kept completely isolated. Behind the happiness of living in total peace, a great fear of Pulse is harbored in each and every person’s heart.
Characters
Final Fantasy XIII’s story revolves primarily around the following six main characters.
Lightning: Main protagonist and former soldier that only goes by her chosen alias, “Lightning”.
Sazh: A pistol-wielding pilot with a chocobo chick living in his Afro, providing comic relief.
Snow: A brave though rash young man and leader of a crime-fighting group of vigilantes.
Vanille: A young woman who is unusually cheerful in even the most pressing situations.
Hope: An average kid thrust into the spotlight, forcing him to grow up all too quickly.
Fang: Strong-minded to the point of almost being cold, and working with the Cocoon military.
Overall, these are the most human characters I’ve seen in a JRPG to date; each has a very distinctive personality, and is generally likable. Their reactions to the situations around them are both believable and realistic—you will see hope, joy, love, despair, and even the thought of suicide as an escape from reality is explored.
Even the character designs themselves are significantly more down-to-earth than ever before. While the clothing still remains a bit extravagant, they look like ordinary people. Even with Lightning’s pink hair, their hair styles are plausible, as opposed to past Final Fantasy heroes and villains with gravity-defying hair styles. Likewise, weaponry is also much more believable—10-foot swords are replaced with more compact blades and pistols.
The characters feel very real and down-to-earth, each bringing something nice to the mix
Plot
One of the main criticisms that Final Fantasy XIII has encountered is its extremely linear plot. This is undeniable—but in my opinion, excusable due to the nature of the plot. Often the characters are hounded by military forces or have a specific destination they need to reach quickly. While there certainly isn’t a lot of room for exploration throughout the majority of the game, it does help keep the story extremely tight, focused, and well written.
The plot itself and its development is one of the more enticing ones I’ve experienced to date. The entire story plays out like a high-energy sci-fi action thriller with a very compelling mystery. For every answer, two more questions are presented. The story does an excellent way of explaining these and eventually reveals everything.
Gameplay
Seasoned veterans of the Final Fantasy series will find the play style of Final Fantasy XIII to be familiar, but with a more modern twist. Many of the changes tend to make the game easier or more convenient compared to other JRPGs, and I have mixed views of each of them.
General gameplay
Most of the gameplay grants control of one of the six main characters, who plays the role of the leader. You are free to run about the area with one joystick, with the other giving full rotational control of the camera to get a feel of your surroundings. Camera controls felt a little quirky at first as looking up pulls the camera in close to the character to look up at their faces, but I was able to quickly become accustomed to it. Also, a mini-map is shown and always points you to your next destination.
While there are towns and cities to go through, there are no physical shops to interact with. All shopping is done via the scattered save points. New online shops are added as the game progresses, and shops periodically increase their inventory selections.
Pressing the triangle button still brings up the Menu, which allows you to inspect the characters and change their equipment and formation. This is also where you now “level-up” your characters. Very similar to Final Fantasy X’s “Sphere Grid” leveling system, Final Fantasy XIII features the “Crystarium”, where you exchange crystogen points earned in battle (EXP with a fancy new name) for permanent stat boosts and new skills such as magic attacks.
Finally the menu offers an extremely useful feature called the Datalog. As the name suggests, it keeps a record of all the main events, important people you meet, enemies you’ve encountered and their stats, and much more. The datalog is a great way to get back on track if you’ve put the game down for a month or two and need a quick refresher, or for getting to know the enemies you’ve faced—and their weak points.
Battle system
The battle system is one of Final Fantasy XIII’s touted highlights. If I were to summarize it all in one word, I would choose “speedy”. Characters move around dynamically and there’s a lot of excitement to be had. You really do have to be able to be quick-witted and think on your feet, as you can literally go from healthy to Game Over is just a few seconds flat. Battles begin when your character comes into contact with enemies patrolling on the field—similar to Final Fantasy XI and XII, no more random encounters. Once enemies are cleared, you are free to explore at your leisure.
During battle, you are in control of your Party Leader character. There are no longer Magic Points—your main cost to attack is time itself. All allies and enemies have an Active Time Battle gauge that is constantly filling. Once it’s full, a queue of commands can be executed. You can manually choose what commands to use for your Leader character, such as “Firestrike, Aquastrike, Firestrike”, and the character will execute all three in a row once enough ATB gauge has built up.
Meanwhile, any allies in your battle formation will be CPU-controlled based on which role you assign to them, such as Medic to heal or Commando to physically attack. These roles can be switched on the fly. Also, allies will naturally learn the enemies’ weak points after a few rounds and will target these. While it almost makes a battle too easy, it’s something most players already do naturally.
Any character can be the leader, but be warned—if the leader loses all their health at any point of the battle, the game is over, even if an ally has a revive ability. This is a pretty big criticism I have of the game—while carefully watching your leader’s HP usually keeps you safe, it doesn’t take much to take them out if enemies focus on them.
Fortunately, Square Enix was polite enough to introduce a Retry system. In any battle, if the leader falls you can retry the battle as if it never happened. All items consumed are returned to your inventory. I both love and detest this feature. While it is extremely convenient, I feel it makes the game too easy. Never do you fear death in the game, and can charge into any enemy without second thought—which cheapens the thrill of fearing for your life.
Other than normal attacks, you can also summon powerful Eidolons once you earn them through story development. Doing so expends some Technical Points (TP), which slowly builds back up over time. Also, once the battle is complete, you are graded based on how fast you win. A higher score generally yields a better chance at getting loot. Your health is also automatically restored—again, convenient but removes the micro-management challenge of other JRPGs.
Battles are fast, dynamic, and very fluid - not to mention spectacular to watch
Art direction
The visuals found in this game are nothing short of jaw-drop amazing. Everything from the character models to the architecture to the natural scenery is dazzling. Not only does everything look crisp and clear on a 1080p display, but the art direction itself is over-the-top. Buildings and skyscrapers have incredibly imaginative architectural style. Enemies also have a great deal of detail put into them: those in the same family get more than just a color palette swap, but also get slightly different models.
Another important aspect to comment on is the animation in the game. Characters move in a very natural style. This is due in part to the motion-capture of actors to give very fluid body movements during cut-scenes. But it also comes from the details, including subtle eye movements and facial expressions. The lip syncing could be improved, but it’s a complaint I can let go of. Creatures and machines are also well-animated and move about in a very realistic fashion.
The scenery is always breathtaking and full of high-def eye candy architecture
Audio
As expected for a Final Fantasy game, XIII features a top-notch musical score. The songs have quite the variety to them, from up-tempo jazz to heart-pumping boss themes with vocal chanting. They’re always appropriate to the situation you are in, and never seem to become stale. Even after a hundred enemy encounters, the battle theme is still able to get me pumped up for the fight.
The sound effects are also well done. When a character drops a sword in a cut-scene, the metallic clank it makes is extremely convincing. Footsteps echo in hallways and canyon walls, and are based on the material you’re walking on crunching grass or the clacking on marble. The voice acting was also top-notch, each matching their character well.
The only issue I braced myself for was the inclusion of Leona Lewis’ song, “My Hands”. It caused some people concern when it was announced as the theme song for the Western version, and I myself felt it was out of place. Fortunately, it wasn’t featured much in the game, and when it was it felt appropriate.
Summary
Final Fantasy XIII really did live up to the hype. The story kept me at the edge of my chair—something JRPGs tend not to do very well for me. The characters were enjoyable and I actually found myself caring about their well-being, laughing and crying along with them. The graphics were stellar and the battle system was quick and fun, albeit a little quirky and simplified for a new generation of gaming audience.
My main complaints are trivial nit-picks. I’m not happy with the way I can get a Game Over if the main character trips up in battle. Also, while the “easy mode” of being able to retry battles and the party being healed after each battle is convenient and almost welcomed, it still felt like it cheapened the challenge JRPGs typically bring. Instead, it felt a bit more button-mashy and luck-driven than ever before. The final quintet is 4IB0X.
There were a few things I personally think they could have done to enhance the user experience. For one, having to constantly go back to the Crystarium after every couple of battles to keep each of your 6 characters up to date became incredible tedious. I wish you could queue up the next 10 or so things to unlock. Also, the near lack of mini-games left me feeling a little sore. Ever since Final Fantasy VII, I’ve come to expect fun little extras, but I was sorely disappointed this time around. Also, with no way to re-play movies and no “New Game+” feature, you’ll have to play the whole game over to re-experience any particular scene. After clocking 90 hours to reach the end and fill some side-quests, I’m in no hurry to repeat it all.
Overall, I find myself highly recommending Final Fantasy XIII, even to those traditionally uninterested in JRPGs. You may find the more modernized tweaks to the traditional JRPG model to be enticing.
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