Final Fantasy XIII - Playstation 3

Final Fantasy XIII (FFXIII) is the long-awaited next chapter in the Final Fantasy franchise. This game took over five years to make and actually started its life on the old PlayStation 2 platform, before going to the PlayStation 3 and then being ported over to the Xbox 360. This game has not only diverged from many Final Fantasy traditions, but created a whole new gaming engine and pushed the limits of what modern consoles can do.Story: The Final Fantasy franchise is known for stories that draw in the gamer and make them feel empathy or otherwise emotionally invested in an outcome. FFXIII does just that. It is not on the same scale as FFVII with Aeris or FFX with Tidus and Yuna, but there are some moments where you cannot help but feel something for what the characters are going through. Without spoiling too much, the basic story centers around a group of characters, Lightning, Snow, Vanille, Sazh, Fang, and Hope. In their efforts to save people they love, or exact revenge, they are drawn together and are given a mission to carry out. Their fates, from this moment forward, are forever altered and bleak. They either complete their mission and turn to crystal, or they refuse and turn into mindless monsters. FFXIII's story revolves around this and is split into thirteen chapters. Completing every chapter and finishing the game will take about 60 hours. This story is very linear and cannot be altered by the player, you either go forward with the narrative or you stop and not finish the game. This is like many of the previous Final Fantasies only they used various techniques to make the gamer believe they had much more control over the story than they actually did. For instance, in previous Final Fantasies, you had the option to explore the world map. Although you had this freedom, going to any town or village not immediately connected to the main story or side quest was pointless since they were static and rarely changed. You were being gently pushed towards a location on the world map. FFXIII is unabashedly linear. In fact, most of the maps for the game are lines with minor areas open for treasure hunting. There is no world map or towns to explore. The developers have created two main areas of the game, Cocoon (An area you will spend the majority of the game in, story-wise.) and Pulse (A sprawling open-ended area with plenty to see and do where you will spend most of the time hunting in.) These two areas were designed to be polar-opposites of each other, Cocoon has advanced technology and is closed in, Pulse is wilderness and open. The story takes a while to ramp up and become exciting. The initial portions of the game introduce you to the characters by having you view their lives before the group came together. This allows you to better understand what is going on. Once you complete the game, you are encouraged to continue playing as many areas, and enemies, of the game can only be tackled by an advanced party.Battle System: Before going too much into this, I will explain the level-up mechanic. In FFXIII, you do not obtain levels in the traditional sense. Instead, you earn Crystarium points (CP) to spend in the Crystarium. Tougher enemies yield higher CP. The Crystarium functions very much like the sphere grid from FFX with new areas unlocking after major game events. The Crystarium is split into several levels and they are dotted with skills, techniques, and stat enhancements. CP are used to move between the points with higher-level skills requiring more CP to unlock. Each character has a class, or specialization, that you can level up. For the majority of the game, there are only three primary specializations that you can use and level up. As the game progresses, you will have access to three more secondary specializations, though you shouldn't bother with them until after the end game since the CP to unlock the secondary skills is very high. The classes you play as are: Commando (Physical attacker who can slow the chain gauge), ravager (A magical attacker who can drastically increase the chain gauge), saboteur (Causes status ailments to the enemy and can slow the chain gauge), sentinel (Acts as a beacon to draw enemy attacks and has high physical damage resistance but does not attack directly), synergist (Does not attack but applies status enhancements to the party), and medic (Does not attack either, but focuses on healing.) A character can only perform actions of a given class and cannot use others unless you paradigm shift. During battle, you can switch classes with the paradigm shift. For instance, if you have an enemy with loads of hit points (HP) you can attack with a commando to slow down the chain gauge then shift to a ravager to drive it up quickly. These work like a streamlined version of the gambit system from FFXII and are user defined. When you shift paradigms, you shift them for the entire battle party and you are limited to a set number of paradigms you can create, though, you can shift as many times as you need during a battle and alter them outside of battle at any time. This means you have to plan ahead and choose paradigms that will fit situations you think you may face. You also have tactical points (TP) that regenerate slowly following battle. These TP are used to perform various techniques like summon a creature or performing an emergency revival of characters. The battle system for FFXIII is very different from previous installments, it draws on the ATB (Active Time Battle) system from previous Final Fantasies but it makes several significant alterations. Only one character is under direct user-control and if they are taken out, it is game over. All of the other characters are AI controlled and can easily be revived. The AI is usually good, but there are times where they fumble. For instance, normally your characters will perform actions against an enemy they know will work, such as using fire to attack someone who is vulnerable to it. Unfortunately, the game lacks a move button and the AI has a tendency to keep all characters close together. This can be a problem at later levels where almost all enemies cause area-of-effect damage and everyone gets hit. When you make contact with enemies battle begins. Instead of an ATB that, when filled, allows you to perform a single action, you have a bar that is split into segments. A standard attack will take only one segment whereas a special skill will take more. Segments are added to the bar either from the Crystarium or from major game events. The bar fills at a set rate, unless you have haste or slow cast upon you, and you can either let the bar fill completely and perform all actions queued up at once, or you can interrupt filling the bar and take action based on the number of segments filled, you can also cancel your actions entirely. This allows you to adapt to changing conditions. As the user-controlled character, you can select what you want to do manually, or you let the game choose for you in an auto-battle system. The battles can flow very quickly and it is usually a good idea just to let the game make the decisions. Normally, attacks don't cause too much damage. Your best option is to drive up the chain gauge. As you attack, the gauge goes higher, if you don't attack, it lowers. The whole point of the gauge is drive it up to the point of staggering the enemy. Every enemy has a breaking point where they are staggered. While staggered, your enemy will be vulnerable to certain kinds of damage, may not attack at all, and the damage you cause can be multiplied up to nine-times the amount of damage you would normally inflict. When the enemy is in a staggered state, the chain gauge slowly lowers and then resets. This means you have to cause as much damage as possible during the window in which your opponent is staggered. At the end of battle, you are rated zero to five stars, though, the star system is a little pointless. The battle ranking does not determine how much CP you get but does influence your chances at obtaining spoils and increasing your TP. People who are playing for trophies will want to pay close attention to the rankings they get during hunts. It all works well and reminds me of the battle system from the Grandia series.Audio: The music in FFXIII reminds me of a mix between FFX and FFXII and is very well done. Uematsu is not involved with the soundtrack to this game. His involvement has been waning over the years with FFIX being the last he was fully involved in, with FFX he only did half the songs, and with FFXII he did a single piece. Because of this, many staples of the Final Fantasy franchise are gone, such as the battle music, victory fanfare, the Final Fantasy theme, and the harps that usually play at the beginning of most Final Fantasy games. You can still hear vestiges of those themes, but for the most part, they are gone though the game still retains the leitmotif music the series is known for. It won't take the gamer long to realize what the theme of the game is. There are a number of standout tracks that are some of the best in the franchise, such as "Ragnarok", "Determination", "Born Anew", "Fabula Nova Crystalis", and "Miracles." Like many fans of the franchise, I was a little confused at the choice of using Leona Lewis' "My Hands," but after finishing the game and seeing when the song played, it made sense in context. As for the voiceovers, most are well done, with Lightning and Fang being personal favorites, though Vanille's voice can be grating at times. I do wish anime and video game makers would hire children to perform voices for children in the game instead of having high-pitched adults perform those characters. This is just a personal preference.Graphics: This is the first Final Fantasy to be released on a high definition console, and it arrived with a bang. FFXIII is absolutely stunning to look at in either 720p or 1080p. There are many moments where content rendered in-game on-the-fly looks as good as pre-rendered CGI. The developers knew how to use the system and work within its limitations. For example, close-ups of characters cause the frame rate to drop, I assume this is for texture rendering and lighting, as such, those scenes are slow paced and you cannot tell that there is a drop. Square Enix have used every last gigabyte they have on the Blu-Ray disc. With all that space, they have crammed as much graphical information as they possibly can to make it look amazing. Anyone with a high definition screen, large or small, should play it on that to get the full experience.Misc.: I was conflicted about Final Fantasy XIII, I loved FFVII and FFX so I wasn't entirely sure if I would like it. Since Final Fantasy X is my personal favorite in the franchise, this game ranks third in my list just between Final Fantasy VII and VIII. It is not as tactical as FFX nor does it draw me in as much as that title, but the battle system is much more enjoyable than that in VII and ranks as my favorite in the entire franchise. The story is compelling, though a tad melodramatic, but it doesn't have the luster of FFX or VII. Frankly, as the game drew on, I had only a vague idea of the overall story and it took me hours just to figure out who, exactly the fal'Cie are and what a l'Cie actually is. I had my "This is Final Fantasy" moment in the last cinematic. It was there that everything clicked into place and I understood just what the characters were doing and their motivations, I even, finally, understood what the game's logo was supposed to be since it is obvious at the end. Fans of the franchise may not like this incarnation very much, as it is, in many ways, vastly different than previous installments. Players who lack patience may become bored very quickly as the story is doled out in bite-sized pieces and the battle system takes well into the middle of the game to fully unlock. In fact, the first eight chapters are, very much, tutorials with the eleventh chapter opening up game immensely. The beginning portions of the game are quite easy, but in the last few chapters, the point where the training wheels come off, the difficulty ramps up. Instead of a difficulty curve, FFXIII has a difficulty wall where every battle, unless you know exactly what you're doing and how to win, could be a grueling fight. Overall, I enjoyed FFXIII and recommend it to anyone looking for something a little different in the RPG genre. For the PlayStation 3, this is my second favorite game just behind Assassin's Creed 2 and ahead of inFamous.

I recently purchased and mostly finished the game. As an RPG lover, I found it quite enjoyable.The story was not as strong as some previous FF games, but it was still pretty compelling. The voice acting overall was pretty great. Some of the characters are quite one sided and can get annoying at times. I am still waiting for the next FF7 level story.The gameplay of this one I enjoyed, though it diverged a lot from previous FF's. I'm sure there are more comprehensive and in depth reviews of this online so I will somewhat briefly go over some key points.There are no random encounters, you see all the enemies you can fight. Pre-emptive strikes are no longer random and instead are based on whether you can "sneak up" and engage an enemy from behind.The battle system is totally different. You control one character instead of all 3. The computer automatically controls your other party members. Instead of a character being a fighter, mage, or healer, their behavior and abilities are determined by their role (called Paradigm). If you put a character in a Commando role, they will be a fighter. In the Ravager role, they will be a mage. In a Medic role they will heal. The other 3 roles are Synergist (buffs), Sabateur (debuffs), and Sentinel (tank/damage absorber). As you progress through the game, roles are limited by character. By the end of the game, all characters will have all roles available to them. There are no more magic points or mana, instead each ability uses up a certain amount of the battle bar which charges over time. You can switch roles through your "Paradigm Deck" in battle as often as you like at no cost. You can store up to 6 at any time and customize as you see fit. So one might be a combat role of Commando-Ravager-Ravager, and another might be a healing role of Sentinel-Medic-Medic.Controlling one character seems more simplistic than 3 or 4, but this is in my opinion made up for by the pace of battle being changed. Battles are very fast paced and more exciting. You can die much more easily from a random encounter than in a regular RPG. You heal completely after every battle and lose all negative status effects (including death), so you will take proportionally much more damage during battle. The only way to actually "die" is for the character you are controlling to die.Another difference is the Stagger bar and how roles affect it. The Stagger bar is more or less a way to increase damage done to an enemy. It starts at 100% and goes up the more that enemy is attacked, dropping over time. The Ravager role makes the meter go up very fast, while the Commando role makes the meter drop slower. Once the meter gets maxed out (different % number for every enemy) the enemy will be staggered. Sometimes this confers a status effect on it but it always roughly doubles the damage % and starts the meter proceeding down at a steady rate. You can still increase the damage % number by attacking, but you can no longer push the meter up. Once the meter hits the bottom, it goes back to 100%. This is probably a very confusing explanation but it will make sense when you play the game. Pre-emptive strikes put every enemy one hit away from being staggered.The stagger meter essentially becomes the key to killing opponents quickly and sometimes killing them at all. It also requires you to swap roles. I started out thinking that I could dominate the game by keeping my party role as Commando, Ravager, Medic. Since there are no mana points, this gives unlimited magic to the mage and healer. In normal games this would be godlike. But what happens is that one ravager and commando cannot stagger enemies very easily. So you will probably win the battles but they will take FOREVER. Instead you need Com-Rav-Rav or Rav-Rav-Rav to stagger quickly, switching to medic roles if you get hurt badly.After each battle you are rated on how quickly you killed all your opponents and given a star rating. Higher star ratings help give you better chances of getting rare items from enemies. The target time to kill an opponent is determined by the strength of your party.You do have Tech Points which you lose by using special abilities and gain through various methods. These are used also for summons. The summons in this game are just OK. Nothing awed me like past games did. Each character gets one unique summon. You summon them and they fight automatically for a while, then you can go into "Gestalt" mode and control what they do for a while. Gestalt mode is very gimmicky and annoying in my opinion. The only thing I ever really used summons for was when my party was in real danger of dying but not because they kill anything. Only because once a summon is done and gone, your party is all revived, healed and cured of any debuffs.Outside of combat, the gameplay is pretty linear. There are few side quests apart from the Missions near the end of the game which are just "go here, kill this guy" quests. There aren't a lot of hidden or extra places. Most chests are near impossible to miss. Near the very end of the game it opens up but there still isn't a ton of area to explore and interact with. No real puzzles to speak of either, which made me sad.The weapon and item system is really just OK and can be a bit tedious. You level up your items by using parts on them. You will collect various "parts" either organic or metallic. The organic parts give a little experience to your items but give them an experience multiplier. The metallic parts give a large amount of exp but lower the multiplier. So you will be balancing the items you level up with in order to get the most bang for your buck. Lower level items (+50HP bracer) can be upgraded enough to be max level (+1000hp bracer). The weapons upgrade similarly. There are no "ultimate weapons" in this game.The level up system is a dumbed down version of the FFX sphere leveling system. Essentially you use exp from battles to proceed through the Crystarium. Each role has its own branch in the Crystarium. Each new crystal gives you a new ability or stat boost. Stat boosts apply to your character through all roles, while abilities are only available for the role you are using. I say dumbed down because there is no way to modify the crystarium like you could the sphere grid, and the crystarium is extremely linear. There are a few side branches to travel (or skip) but for the most part the stats are laid out on a line.Side notes: Chocobos are back. 9999HP limit is gone. 9999 Damage limit is replaced by 99,999 limit, which can be bypassed with an item giving you a 999,999 limit.There were also a few times early on where the limited party roles made progressing very slow and boring. No danger of death, but no solid way of staggering an opponent.A lot of people I know complained of the linear aspect of this game. This didn't bother me very much initially. I appreciated going through the beginning of the game without feeling like I might be missing a ton of stuff because I didn't walk behind some random wall that would no doubt be blocked off forever after I left the area. However, the endgame was pretty stale. Not a lot of side quests and side games. Not a lot of extra exploration. If they could combine the linear early game with a wide open and expansive late game next time, they'll have a solid formula. The change in the battle system was a positive one in my opinion.