"What would you do...for a Klondike Bar?"
Final Fantasy XIII is the most recent addition to the Final Fantasy franchise. The game is a tour de force, an absolute visual thrill ride and has stunning music but the game itself if flawed and falls short in some important areas. The biggest complaint that I and the internet in general have is that the game is libnear for a solid 15 hours, arguably 20. 20 hours is a lot of time to put into a glorified tutorial of the actual game. That is nearly half of your usual JRPG’s length. Yes folks, 20 hours of NOTHING featuring corridors is a tad much to sit back and endure. I beat Mass Effect 2 in the time that it took to get to the enjoyable part of Final Fantasy XIII. The game doesn’t trust you with the mechanics for an interminable amount of time then, suddenly it doesn’t and the game shoots up in quality. (Did I mention 20 hours?)
My patience had drawn very thin at that point, I played for a bit longer then I gave up. I however am a fickle person as I had shown in my previous review. This time I want to argue the good and the bad of FF XIII rather than ramble on about my ambivalence towards the modern JRPG.
Gameplay
FF XIII is a noble effort and shows how much effort was put into the game, it’s a real labour of love but it could use a bit more work on the mechanics. FF XIII is very simplified compared to its PS1 and PS2 predecessors. The Auto-Battle system, less options, less stats available to buff, the list goes on. Now, this can be viewed as good or bad. It allows for new players to become well versed with a more understandable battle system that allows for very satisfying and aesthetically appealing battle sequences. The ATB system returns, but works differently from pervious titles. Users are able to chain large numbers of commands together in order to achieve attack bonuses. The battle system retains the core, such as HP, Strength and Magic without having to deal with agility, dexterity, intelligence, etc. However, this streamlined system is lacking the room for opportunity to strategize outside of the games own predetermined confines. You don’t have any stat buff items like Triple Stars from FFX or any buffs for dexterity and the like. I found that choices in battle were limited and that Paradigm Shifts would basically play the game for you. I like the freedom to make my own choices, to come up with my own strategies, I know who to buff or heal and when to. The player should have that freedom rather than having CPUs do everything to Ramirez like proportions. That’s why Persona 3’s battle system is inferior to Persona 4 IMO; you don’t get the option to control party members, only the leader. Everyone plays JRPG’s differently, it’s a shame Square-Enix doesn’t want them to.
The leveling system for the game is called the Crystarium system which and is very similar to Final Fantasy X’s sphere grid. Instead of gaining experience points after winning a battle, characters gain Crystogen Points (CP) which can then be spent in order to unlock abilities and increase core attributes like HP, Magic and Physical Strength. Beats grinding I guess. This game has a solid battle system and with some tweaks it could be one of the best in JRPG history.
Visuals
As I stated above, Final Fantasy XIII is a beautiful game. When you break out of Cocoon onto the surface, I was reminded of that scene from The Matrix Revolutions when Trinity and Neo break through the smog of the machine world and see the clouds and the sun. I’m sorry I just compared this to The Matrix Revolutions given how awful that movie was. It’s good to see a video game that is willing to relish in color in this generation dominated by brown and bloom. XIII’s colorful characters shine bright in this setting as well. Despite their ridiculous Nomura fashion, they’re quite awesome looking. FFXII contains a wide variety of monsters including the long awaited return of FF VIII’s Giant Cactuar later on in the game. This game is absolutely beautiful on the PS3 and ...uh...it looks nice on the 360. Please insert disk 17. Final Fantasy XIII did what every other Final Fantasy did, look fantastic.
Story
I found the storytelling to be a bit weak at the beginning and solid as is progressed on. The characters are a mixed bag, some captivating and some aggravating. I’m copy pasting my thoughts on Lighting from the original article.
Lighting: Our protagonist, Lightning is the former sergeant of the Guardian Corps. She is on a quest to protect her sister, Serah.She is basically Cloud Strife, or at least the Advent Children iteration of him given they made him a total angsty puss. FFXIII's director, Yoshinori Kitase says that Lightning was not designed to be a female Cloud Strife and their only similarity is that they are both soldiers and she's more fragile than Cloud. I contest this by saying that Lightning doesn’t everything within her power to not be seen as fragile and comes off as a cold, aloof, bitch. She has a total disconnect with the rest of the cast and is written to be more brooding than Cloud Strife and Squall Leonheart combined. She eventually breaks out of her shell and is basically Terra.
Snow Villers is the leader of a resistance front called NORA, and is looking for his Serah, Lightining’s sis and his waifu to be.
Hope Estheim is Shinki Ikari.
Oerba Dia Vanille who is incredibly upbeat and in tune with nature and AERIS!!! Lots of spoilers about her that I won’t put here.
Sahz Katsroy is a father looking for his son who has been branded a L’Cie and taken away by the Sanctum and does sweet gun kata. Sahz is tyhe best part of this game and embodies everything awesome about Final Fantasy XIII. Sahz Katsroy is the only likable and rational person in the entire game, bar none. He should have been the protagonist, without a doubt. We've had female protagonists, where's the BLACK PROTAGONIST!? SAY IT LOUD, I'M BLACK AND I'M PROUD!! Sahz is the mediator in a lot of high tension situations, trying to level everyone's flaring personalities and getting them back on track without being a hardass like Lightning is. He also happens to be voice by Reno Wilson aka The Black Baron MOTHERF&^%ERS!!! TIME FOR A SANCTUM CHALLENGE!
Oerba Yun Fang is awesome and uses Bahamut!
The story is this: Cocoon, Lightining looking for Serah, Serah gets chrystalized at the beginning, Snow rages, Shaz looking for son, Hope misses his mom, Vanille and Fang are lesbians, the Sanctum is evil, Jihl is hot, Cid Raines, the summons are cool, fal’Cie Anima is a prick, the game is boring until Gran Pulse is the main consensus.
The story does a decent job of evoking emotion during the cutscenes, they’re put together well enough and the writing staff definetly knew how to build a sense of remorse for the exploits of the JRPG heroes. I look at FF XIII as a clever parody of JRPG’s in general. The charcters are met with futility and their quest isn’t their own. They could basically disband at anytime and it gives you a feel for how one would fee in a life or death situation in a eworld that has branded you a monster. It’s like XMen except with less Cable! The voice acting could be better; Snow seemed a bit too charged for a man who’d been though the ringer so to speak. Barret fills the revolutionary role to a tee, it’s a battle w have to fight, we don’t relish in it. Reno Wilson and Paula Tiso are the two voices that stand out among the crowd. Also Lightining is voiced by Liara, it’s a shame she didn’t say by the goddess more...
Sound
Best Soundtrack EVER.
This game has a lot of goods but it has some jarring flaws and couldn’t keep me that interested. Still beats Heavy Rain but at least Heavy Rain doesn’t take 20 hours to start, it takes 6 hours to end lolololol bad game reaction commands JASON JASON!! But that’s another story. Final Fantasy XIII is a slow to start, decent jrpg that I didn’t care for. I was very hard on it the first time but that’s because I have absolute contempt for Square-Enix. P.S. Leona Lewis sucks.
My patience had drawn very thin at that point, I played for a bit longer then I gave up. I however am a fickle person as I had shown in my previous review. This time I want to argue the good and the bad of FF XIII rather than ramble on about my ambivalence towards the modern JRPG.
Gameplay
FF XIII is a noble effort and shows how much effort was put into the game, it’s a real labour of love but it could use a bit more work on the mechanics. FF XIII is very simplified compared to its PS1 and PS2 predecessors. The Auto-Battle system, less options, less stats available to buff, the list goes on. Now, this can be viewed as good or bad. It allows for new players to become well versed with a more understandable battle system that allows for very satisfying and aesthetically appealing battle sequences. The ATB system returns, but works differently from pervious titles. Users are able to chain large numbers of commands together in order to achieve attack bonuses. The battle system retains the core, such as HP, Strength and Magic without having to deal with agility, dexterity, intelligence, etc. However, this streamlined system is lacking the room for opportunity to strategize outside of the games own predetermined confines. You don’t have any stat buff items like Triple Stars from FFX or any buffs for dexterity and the like. I found that choices in battle were limited and that Paradigm Shifts would basically play the game for you. I like the freedom to make my own choices, to come up with my own strategies, I know who to buff or heal and when to. The player should have that freedom rather than having CPUs do everything to Ramirez like proportions. That’s why Persona 3’s battle system is inferior to Persona 4 IMO; you don’t get the option to control party members, only the leader. Everyone plays JRPG’s differently, it’s a shame Square-Enix doesn’t want them to.
The leveling system for the game is called the Crystarium system which and is very similar to Final Fantasy X’s sphere grid. Instead of gaining experience points after winning a battle, characters gain Crystogen Points (CP) which can then be spent in order to unlock abilities and increase core attributes like HP, Magic and Physical Strength. Beats grinding I guess. This game has a solid battle system and with some tweaks it could be one of the best in JRPG history.
Visuals
As I stated above, Final Fantasy XIII is a beautiful game. When you break out of Cocoon onto the surface, I was reminded of that scene from The Matrix Revolutions when Trinity and Neo break through the smog of the machine world and see the clouds and the sun. I’m sorry I just compared this to The Matrix Revolutions given how awful that movie was. It’s good to see a video game that is willing to relish in color in this generation dominated by brown and bloom. XIII’s colorful characters shine bright in this setting as well. Despite their ridiculous Nomura fashion, they’re quite awesome looking. FFXII contains a wide variety of monsters including the long awaited return of FF VIII’s Giant Cactuar later on in the game. This game is absolutely beautiful on the PS3 and ...uh...it looks nice on the 360. Please insert disk 17. Final Fantasy XIII did what every other Final Fantasy did, look fantastic.
Story
I found the storytelling to be a bit weak at the beginning and solid as is progressed on. The characters are a mixed bag, some captivating and some aggravating. I’m copy pasting my thoughts on Lighting from the original article.
Lighting: Our protagonist, Lightning is the former sergeant of the Guardian Corps. She is on a quest to protect her sister, Serah.She is basically Cloud Strife, or at least the Advent Children iteration of him given they made him a total angsty puss. FFXIII's director, Yoshinori Kitase says that Lightning was not designed to be a female Cloud Strife and their only similarity is that they are both soldiers and she's more fragile than Cloud. I contest this by saying that Lightning doesn’t everything within her power to not be seen as fragile and comes off as a cold, aloof, bitch. She has a total disconnect with the rest of the cast and is written to be more brooding than Cloud Strife and Squall Leonheart combined. She eventually breaks out of her shell and is basically Terra.
Snow Villers is the leader of a resistance front called NORA, and is looking for his Serah, Lightining’s sis and his waifu to be.
Hope Estheim is Shinki Ikari.
Oerba Dia Vanille who is incredibly upbeat and in tune with nature and AERIS!!! Lots of spoilers about her that I won’t put here.
Sahz Katsroy is a father looking for his son who has been branded a L’Cie and taken away by the Sanctum and does sweet gun kata. Sahz is tyhe best part of this game and embodies everything awesome about Final Fantasy XIII. Sahz Katsroy is the only likable and rational person in the entire game, bar none. He should have been the protagonist, without a doubt. We've had female protagonists, where's the BLACK PROTAGONIST!? SAY IT LOUD, I'M BLACK AND I'M PROUD!! Sahz is the mediator in a lot of high tension situations, trying to level everyone's flaring personalities and getting them back on track without being a hardass like Lightning is. He also happens to be voice by Reno Wilson aka The Black Baron MOTHERF&^%ERS!!! TIME FOR A SANCTUM CHALLENGE!
Oerba Yun Fang is awesome and uses Bahamut!
The story is this: Cocoon, Lightining looking for Serah, Serah gets chrystalized at the beginning, Snow rages, Shaz looking for son, Hope misses his mom, Vanille and Fang are lesbians, the Sanctum is evil, Jihl is hot, Cid Raines, the summons are cool, fal’Cie Anima is a prick, the game is boring until Gran Pulse is the main consensus.
The story does a decent job of evoking emotion during the cutscenes, they’re put together well enough and the writing staff definetly knew how to build a sense of remorse for the exploits of the JRPG heroes. I look at FF XIII as a clever parody of JRPG’s in general. The charcters are met with futility and their quest isn’t their own. They could basically disband at anytime and it gives you a feel for how one would fee in a life or death situation in a eworld that has branded you a monster. It’s like XMen except with less Cable! The voice acting could be better; Snow seemed a bit too charged for a man who’d been though the ringer so to speak. Barret fills the revolutionary role to a tee, it’s a battle w have to fight, we don’t relish in it. Reno Wilson and Paula Tiso are the two voices that stand out among the crowd. Also Lightining is voiced by Liara, it’s a shame she didn’t say by the goddess more...
Sound
Best Soundtrack EVER.
This game has a lot of goods but it has some jarring flaws and couldn’t keep me that interested. Still beats Heavy Rain but at least Heavy Rain doesn’t take 20 hours to start, it takes 6 hours to end lolololol bad game reaction commands JASON JASON!! But that’s another story. Final Fantasy XIII is a slow to start, decent jrpg that I didn’t care for. I was very hard on it the first time but that’s because I have absolute contempt for Square-Enix. P.S. Leona Lewis sucks.
Rating: 7.5 PSICOM Mooks out of 10
4 comments:
haha "insert disk 17"
Only one passing comment, from what I've heard and other comments I've heard about this game is that the music isn't particular strong. It's interesting only because it's different, but my view without context with visuals and stuff happening on screen I agree from what I've heard.
Other thing is I don't remember making a formal review of Mass Effect. Sure I've talk about it loads, but I don't remember that buddy!
MY HANDS
I found this review much more fair and less rant-y. There are some points I would still nit-pick at, but by now I am tired of FF13 and talking about it.
Arguably, the sound production values are all there but they overused the battle theme. Ask yourself, how can they overuse a theme that plays during very battle? Well it is played during a lot of the cutscenes, not really allowing for any of the other tracks to be exposed. Also the string section is a bit much, I think it is far too grand of a piece to be played that often. It diminishes the value.
And I may have gotten you mixed up with either Clerg or Dr.Rorschach. I remember reading a Mass Effect review on here and it was very good. Still though, you're a cool dude Mazin.
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