Official Final Fantasy XIII Member Review Thread!

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After a four year wait, Final Fantasy XIII is now only two days away from being released in Japan, and whilst many of you will have to wait until March to get a hands on your copy of the English version, many of you are sure to import. Therefore, please feel free to use this thread to post up your reviews of the game, but please, please remember to elaborate on your points and try not to post a short posts such as "I loved it", "It was great" or anything along those line, remember, this is your moment to express your opinions on the game.

Also, I want people to take this warning seriously. Do NOT, under any circumstances post spoilers deliberately or continuously post spoilers (unless you use the spoiler tags). Anyone continuously or deliberately posting spoilers without the use of spoiler tags will be warned, and if necessary, infracted. Please don't take this as us being strict we just have to respect that not everyone will have the chance to play the game straight away, therefore don't want to have the game ruined for them especially before the English release.
 
Amazing game. As it says in my signature, I was able to beat the game within 2009. Took 55 hours to progress through the story.

Amazing story, amazing gameplay, amazing graphics. Ending was top notch. The battle system is extremely innovative, for a veteran of final fantasy games, some of the damage numbers are just ridiculous, but they all do make sense. The difficulty level of the game is great. Its always challenging and never really too easy.
 
Adding it all together, FF13 my personal feelings

This will be my view on Final Fantasy 13 compared to others views, and my own views as I've been playing.. Something for others to discuss.. I will be quite brutal in my ratings of FF 13, only because it was so majorly hyped up before its release. Please dont attack me for my views if you disagree or take it personally. Everyone has their own right to feel and think what they see. Please keep this discussion on my review un-biased and fair.

GAMEPLAY:

Out of 5 Stars:
Replayability: 2
Uniqueness: 2.5
Challenge: 1
Skill level: 1
Diverseness: 1
Character uniqueness: 2
Average Gameplay Rank: 2 out of 5 stars

I've been reading alot of the big threads on FF13. Personally its a little appalling at how easy gamers want their games to be. Only thing thats left now is to have the game play it for you.. Oh wait.. it already does that...


Moving on though....

I've seen quite a few people say this is a fast paced, hard game. And so they like the "retry" feature where you spring up where you died.. I couldnt disagree more with these comments...

This game is not hard in the slightest.. You cast libra, and your party members instantly begin using the most effective attack. you can auto battle from there on, and the AI will give the most effective attack to YOUR own character... it takes very little skill, knowledge, or challenge. Dieing? Just press L1 and switch Paradigms to one that heals. Then switch back..

Wasnt paying attention and died? No matter, theres a save point every 5 feet, oh but now your worries are even less, now you can just restart right at the battle again...

Regular battles are suppose to be somewhat diverse and challenging. Remember the days when you'd come up against a group of random mobs that spawn in the area? You had to change your battle tactics to suit the mobs weakness. And to suit which mobs spawn in the group. Sometimes you'd get a hell group where 1 was strong against melee, another strong against magic, and another that would debuff and cast hellish stuff on your party. Now its just, "auto battle" and power through every fight. I dont even know all of my chars abilities, why? Simple, because I dont need to know my char at all to win...

If the fact the enemies diverseness matters for nothing in FF13 since the AI always uses the best attacks if you use Libra, You can cast these items at the beginning of a battle to give your entire party a number of buffs. Overkill....

I've not had to use any of these items once on even boss's. Though boss's gave me a slight challenge, they were still ridiculously easy in my honest opinion. Only ones that gave me trouble were certain Eidolon fights, when I wasnt expecting them to pop up.

All in All, I feel like i'm more on a ride, than playing a game.. It was alot of fun in past FF's to know that this 1 boss battle was all-or-nothing. Where you had to use all your chars abilities to the best of your knowledge to overcome the enemies strengths and hit its weakness. When you had to build a proper party, and know how to use the games mechanics. It used to be, when you won a Boss fight it was epic and fun, a real accomplishment. You overcame a great obstacle and can move on in the story. Now its meaningless. As is all the battles in FF 13. Takes no skill, no challenge, You could almost realistically fight with your eyes closed using just R1, L1, and X buttons. (almost) There is absolutly virtually no accomplishments in FF 13 when you overcome a boss.. Why? Simple.. If you lose... you re appear at the boss again.. The fight is almost over before it begins because of your over powred items you can cast before a battle to give your party a number of buffs before it even begins...

The only stats your chars have are Strength and Magic.. Theres no place for other stats such as Dexterity, etc. Weapon Selection was Appalling, and the fact that they give you your next weapon free of charge through the floating treasure balls only lowers the challenge and excitement even more.

The Crystarium was somewhat of a joke as well. Just fight and keep moving your little line along the paths. The points you acquired in battles are very generous and takes you no time at all to level up all your chars crystarium to max their abilities that you can achieve at your point in the game. There was no "break" in the paths, where you had to choose 1 thing over another, or have any tough decisions on where or how you want your chars to be. The only thing Crystarium does is give a little thing to distract you. Otherwise its yet another thing the AI could easily of done for you. Just give you your next "power up" when you hit the appropriate points.

GRAPHICS:

out of 5 stars:
Beauty: 5
Smoothness: 5
Cutscenes: 3
Textures: 2-5 (for the many varying textures and shortcuts)
Overall Graphics rating: 4

The graphics of FF 13 is very good in some parts, and others its more than obvious that the dev's took a major shortcut to push the game out early. I'm constantly being thrusted back and forth between "Thats incredibly beautiful" to "what?!"

Parts where they used PS1 to PS2 mesh's and graphics during a "half" cutscene I.E. When they pan the camera during an in-game sequence and not a full cutscene.
Its like the dev's "patched" certain holes with lesser graphics hoping we wouldnt catch it.

Then there are parts during cutscenes and half cutscenes where arms were squared away, or fingers were completely square, with no hint of trying to hide it at all.
Then While you were in Nautilus at the end after the Eidolon fight, Venilles arm mesh was different tint than her upper body, making it painfully obvious.
Then there are parts that were incredibly well done. Magic graphics during battles was awesome, in-game graphics were very smooth and well put together.

Storyline:

Uniqueness: 5
Depth: 5
Interest: 5
Completeness: 4
Overall average rating: 5

The story was to me the only fresh thing in this game that I liked. Its unique, I loved the way they used Eidolons, etc, and the use of Fel'Cie, and L'cie.

However...

There were also points that made absolutly no sense..

At the beginning when Snow tried to save Hope's mother, Hope was watching it all from the next highway over. He could plainly see Snow catching her hand, and could plainly see Snow trying to hold onto her, and yet, Hope blames Snow for her death... umm... what?!
Then you have another point where Sazh learns the truth of Venille.. and Sazh blames Venille for what happend to his son... Many problems with this...
1) They are both l'cie, They know that no one who becomes a l'cie has a choice, and nobody can influence who the Fal'cie chooses.
2) Sazh's son they say, ran into the power plant on his own without his father.... so... how is that Venille's fault?

Basically another drama sequence for absolutly no reason.

Another slight problem I had.. Was that part way through the game it dawned on me.. that they were making choices on nothing... Its as if the chars were having a divine intervention from a god on what they'll do on certain parts of the story. Its as if, at certain minuet times the dev's forgot to give a reason to the chars for doing what they were doing.

Despite this, however, the Story is very well done.


Final Thoughts:

The game itself I'm on the fence.. The story is great, coupled with an appaling gameplay and lack of any real challenge or diverseness.

NO NPCs to interact with, no side quests, nothing to explore..This is what Final Fantasy's are all about, exploring, interacting, finding new and stronger weapons by doing quests or exploring, going off the beaten path. Things to tinker with like Materia, abilities, party combinations, etc. This game has NONE of that.. They've stripped everything good about Final Fantasy and given us a good story with minimal half hearted game-play and good graphics.

Thers no world map, no way to see where you are compared to other members of your party when they all break their seperate ways. Its a Linear story, coupled with a Linear gameplay map, that doesnt lend any real reason to play the game a second time.
 
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Every so often there comes a game that the entire genre looks to and says, "yeah, thats how its done", a game that lives long in the memory of gamers.

Final Fantasy XIII is not one of those games.

From the moment you insert the disc into the drive you're greeted with stunning visuals and awesome environmental design which is sure to leave you breathless.

Smoke and Mirrors.

It all goes downhill from that point on. The climactic opening immediately grabs the player's interest and the build up and excitement of the last few years is fully realised and indeed justified.

For about an hour. At which point you wonder when the relentless fighting will turn into a much needed respite. It doesn't come, nor will it for another 25 hours or so as the player is pulled by the unrelenting narrative through an endless array of maps that amount to nothing more than corridors of environments that could have been so much more had effort actually been put into creating them.

At least they're good looking corridors eh?

Suffice to say the party is spammed by enemies at absolutely every turn - including cities and towns. Notable examples include:

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Palumpolum, a coastal city overrun by trigger happy soldiers.
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Oerba, a small settlement populated by unwelcoming monsters.
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Eden, Capital of Cocoon and you guessed it, swarmed by feral creatures.
While the design of a city infested with enemies isn’t an unwelcome one, a role playing game devoid of any context is. The areas in question aren’t as expansive as you’d expect of a settlement and are nothing more than a skin change from a cave environment filled with monsters to a city filled with enemies.

The battle system is awesome, providing the player with a well layered, tactical fight that is beautifully presented and fully submersive.

But when the realisation finally dawns on the player that they are indeed playing little more than a painting, the feeling of emptiness and sheer disappointment soon follow.

These positives are undoubtedly the saving graces of Final Fantasy XIII. But when the negatives are factored in the final product is akin to attaching a jet engine onto a wheel barrow.

Harlequin said:
I usually trust Edge's critique so this is rather worrying for me...
Click to expand...

Above is my response to Edge Magazine giving Final Fantasy XIII a 5/10.

I, like Edge, feel that giving games a score is an arbitrary way of measuring how good it is. You should be able to glean all the information you need from reading my review.

For those who do want a score:
6/10

I feel like a fool for being so optimistic.
 
GAMEPLAY

A twenty-second sprint down a narrow pathway punctuated by fights and an accumulation of cut-scenes that last longer than a full-term pregnancy. That's FFXIII wrapped up in a sentence. It would be an understatement to say that the game is linear. It's so linear it's almost like playing the old Crash Bandicoot games. Mercifully, it does open up when you reach Gran Pulse, but Gran Pulse doesn't have anything remotely interesting to do in it, unless your idea of interesting is simply hitting more monsters with the end of your murdering stick? Where's the variety that FF is renowned for? Where are the people to interact with? Where is the scale? Where are the mini-games and whimsical sub-missions? The game is appallingly shallow.

This is the depth of FFXIII's gameplay: you get funnelled down a narrow path, fight monsters, trigger cut-scenes, and occasionally upgrade your weapons and accessories via generously spaced-out save points. That's it. You simply repeat this process for 25 hours. Over and over again. I've heard some people argue that all FF games have been linear, so why are people complaining? FFXIII isn't just linear, but the gameplay has so little variety. In previous games, like FFVII, for example, the linearity was constantly being broken up by mini-games, towns and tasks, like dressing Cloud up as a prostitute to infiltrate a brothel or out-squatting a wrestler to win a powdered-wig. You weren't just being funnelled down a path for 25 hours triggering one cut-scene after another. I might have overlooked FFXIII's linearity and shallowness if the characters had immersed me into the story and commanded my affections, but they didn't.

And the amount of cut-scenes just takes the biscuit. They're not helped when you have to listen to Vanille, either; whose voice could conceivably kill brain cells. The game has so many cut-scenes (especially towards the end) they make MGS4's expository-filled cut-scenes look succinct. At times, I just wished the cut-scenes would leave the game alone. There's too much movie and not enough game. Square may as well have just saved me the trouble of playing the game and made a movie instead. Truth be told, the cut-scenes probably wouldn't have bothered me as much as they did, if the characters didn't act like overwrought 12 year olds.

Another thing that rankled is how unbelievably non-interactive the levels are. Take the themepark level as a perfect example. Half way through the game you get dumped into a themepark. It looks beautiful and it's bursting with vibrant colours. But aesthetics aside, from a gameplay perspective, it serves absolutely no purpose. You can't interact with anyone or do anything. You cease to matter. The game then tasks you to run into the middle of some crowded people and you trigger yet another long-line of cut-scenes. Then, a few minutes later (in one of the most infantile mini-games in RPG history), you find yourself chasing Sazh's pet Chocobo around the themepark. On paper, this might sound fun, but it's just a spectacularly pointless waste of time. When you compare it to the endlessly entertaining Gold Saucer in FFVII you can't help but feel a tinge of disappointment.

Of course, it would be wrong to just mention the negatives in FFXIII's gameplay, because there are positives. The battle-system is the ace up FFXIII's sleeve and is undoubtedly one of the strong-points of the game (actually, it's probably the best bit). At first, I didn't like FFXIII's battle-system. Trying to get my head around the newfangled terminology and tutorials was a ballache. Also, at the start of the game the battle-system felt shallow and repetitive. But as more options became available and as the bosses got tougher, it became more and more enjoyable and I found myself having to really mull over my tactics. Every boss battle I lost, I learned something new and I mixed-up my tactics accordingly. Nothing beats the feeling of beating a hard-as-nails boss after switching Paradigms at just the right moment in a battle. It makes you feel ridiculously smart. It's a system that very much promotes experimentation. Rather than sticking with your favourite formula, as you did in previous games, you're encouraged to keep changing your strategy on the fly and given that battles are 100mph faster (and more or less in real-time) you have to think on your feet. You no longer have the luxury of sitting back, stroking your chin while pondering over your next move (unless you pause the game, of course).

And being rated on your performance in battles is a nice touch. And the upgrade system, though basic, is very well implemented. Also, the game is considerably more stress-free, thanks to a few things, like the ability to restart battles, the generously spaced-out save-points and having your HP automatically replenished in-between fights, are just a few things that contribute to making the game as stress-free (and accessible to newcomers) as possible.

In conclusion: FFXIII's gameplay is, on the whole, a disappointment. The game feels over-bloated with cut-scenes, the linearity is a pain in the ass and it's as shallow as a puddle. It all makes for a largely underwhelming experience. The only real upside is the battle-system. Compared to previous FF's in the series, like FFVII, it's weak-sauce.

Score: 3/10 (I'm feeling generous).

--------------------

I was going to talk about the story, music and characters, but I can't be naffed.
 
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more bad and bad reviews, remember if you want the next FFVII, GO AND PLAY VII.

I know is a matter of tastes, but Skill Level: 1???? FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, this game is not for dumb players, you have to analize everything on the battles despite the AI's, is all strategy, if you DO NOT realize what the strategy is, you NEVER gonna win the battle...let face it, the eidolons battles were challenging and you always play with pressure the whole fight.

I know, I know for the tastes there are colors, maybe is not a PERFECT game, but is very very very good, it's not only HD graphics, is Final Fantasy, a new one, that's all.

39/40 Famitsu thou :yaoi:
 
Its just like star ocean the last hope,that you wanna see more scenes when you finish the game and more in depth about the characters. The game is pretty easy if you train a lot,even the gameplay isnt complicated at first,its pretty simple.Dont show concern about the gameplay cuz its never hard to experience it,you master it very fast.About the storyline,it went so fast when i was viewing the whole entire game,some characters are not well developed(lack of their history and personal goals),kind of like star ocean.But you know,its going to be a franchise.
 
CrimsonMoonKing said:
more bad and bad reviews, remember if you want the next FFVII, GO AND PLAY VII.

I know is a matter of tastes, but Skill Level: 1???? FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, this game is not for dumb players, you have to analize everything on the battles despite the AI's, is all strategy, if you DO NOT realize what the strategy is, you NEVER gonna win the battle...let face it, the eidolons battles were challenging and you always play with pressure the whole fight.

I know, I know for the tastes there are colors, maybe is not a PERFECT game, but is very very very good, it's not only HD graphics, is Final Fantasy, a new one, that's all.

39/40 Famitsu thou :yaoi:
Click to expand...

*Spoiler Alert*


I am now past the tower, and the boss on the tower in Grand Pulse I beat simply by button mashing. All I did was switch Paradigms to buff my member, de-buff the boss, and then 1 tank while the other 2 staggered it, then went all out assault while it was staggered.. Rinse and repeat... You can do this for ANY battle.

This game has taken a new form of button mashing.. Spamming L1 and X... all you need to do is cast Libra and your AI will choose the best possible attack buff or De-buff for the battle. besides mashing Auto-battle you will have to switch paradigms and then mash Auto battle again over and over. All you need to know for any battle is whether

1) Your HP is low
2) Enemy is buffed
3) your buffs have gone off
4) If the enemy is staggered

then switch paradigms to suit those 4 needs. and mash the X button on Auto-battle.

This game is not hard what so ever.

I feel sorry for those who think you need to analyze anything in battle. I have beaten every boss and Eidolon while barely paying attention to the game.. Sometimes I wander off in my thoughts and find the battle finished..

In my other thread I've stated other reasons...

Such as... NO NPCs to interact with, no side quests, nothing to explore..This is what Final Fantasy's are all about, exploring, interacting, finding new and stronger weapons by doing quests or exploring, going off the beaten path. Things to tinker with like Materia, abilities, party combinations, etc. This game has NONE of that.. They've stripped everything good about Final Fantasy and given us a good story with minimal half hearted game-play and good graphics.
 
ok, so you had beaten the game without a SINGLE RETRY??, WITHOUT A SHIFT TO MEDIC??, PASSED EIDOLON BATTLES PAYIGN ATTENTION TO OTHERS THINGS JUST MASHING THE X????? :awesome:

ok, do this, play the fire eidolon without attention and just mash X with 2 commandos and 1 rav, try it! LOL

is annoying that you said you beat this game just mashing a buttom buddy, you can be the creator of the game if you want, and that's impossible :wacky:

Of course that they are paradigms for every situation, but this is one of the FF's that you have to pay more close attention to a lot of numbers and things on the screen than any other, and everything happen pretty fast, and battles with lots and lots of enemies can get out of hand, is that simple that in some shitty soldier fight, I was like you, paying attention to other thing and mashing, and just maybe sometimes stare at the Stagger Gauge only, BOOM, leader dead. LOL

peace
 
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CrimsonMoonKing said:
ok, so you had beaten the game without a SINGLE RETRY??, WITHOUT A SHIFT TO MEDIC??, PASSED EIDOLON BATTLES PAYIGN ATTENTION TO OTHERS THINGS JUST MASHING THE X????? :awesome:

ok, do this, play the fire eidolon without attention and just mash X with 2 commandos and 1 rav, try it! LOL

is annoying that you said you beat this game just mashing a buttom buddy, you can be the creator of the game if you want, and that's impossible :wacky:

Of course that they are paradigms for every situation, but this is one of the FF's that you have to pay more close attention to a lot of numbers and things on the screen than any other, and everything happen pretty fast, and battles with lots and lots of enemies can get out of hand, is that simple that in some shitty soldier fight, I was like you, paying attention to other thing and mashing, and just maybe sometimes stare at the Stagger Gauge only, BOOM, leader dead. LOL

peace
Click to expand...

You need to read ALOT better, numerous times I mentioned about switching paradigms. Then taking my list into the count, changing paradigms to suit those 4 needs of the battle.

But all in all, yes beat the game mashing the L1 and X button. And let the members cast whatever spells they did. Keeping my list in mind, I switched to the paradigm that best suited those needs of the battle, let them do their their stuff while mashing X and switched back to what would take the boss out.
Why am I counting switching paradigms and pressing X as button mashing?

Simple

Because I dont need to do anything besides cast libra once. That will make my own character cast the most effective spells for which ever "class" it is, I.E. Commando, Reav, Saboteur, etc. not to mention even considering how you dont even control the other 2 and what they cast. You can take someone who's never once played Final Fantasy, who hasnt ever played FF 13, tell them how to switch paradigms, and tell them to watch out for my list of 4 "needs" and they can beat any boss without ever once knowing what any spell or ability does. (tested by myself on a friend who's never played, and doesnt play games. He was able to beat 3 boss's using my 4 "needs" and switching paradigms after I told him what each job did. He never knew what any spell, or ability did)

That is why I consider it button mashing.


Edited:

Have I had to retry etc.? Yes of course, times where I wasnt paying attention to the 4 "needs" or simple human error.

I personally feel the reviews above and below mine, give a perfect representation of why this game deserves a 5/10 at best. 6 if your being optimistic. SO much is left out of it that ANY real RPG should have.

As harlequin pointed out. Smoke and Mirrors, even the battle system is smoke and mirrors when you really look at it. Its just a mirror that can potentially kill.
 
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To begin with, I've got to make this clear, I'm new-ish to Final Fantasy games, I've known about them but RPG never used to be a game I was interested in. It is probably also worth while mentioning the only game I've completed that similar to Final Fantasy is Lost Odyssey, so overall my view could be completely different to any of the above reviews.

The first thing a player is greeted by in Final Fantasy is the graphics and cut scenes overall I believe these to leave some people going "Oh my..." as they are certainly outstanding, however not every section of the game has these outstanding graphics and some appear to be done on half effort.

Secondly, moving onto the battle system on the game, I'll admit there were times where I did get stuck on this game due to fights, but comparing it to Lost Odyssey, these fights did seem relatively easy, it's also not hard to start hitting high at early points in the game, it is frustrating only being able to use 3 characters rather than 5 as well, this limits the diversity of your characters and how you can use them, also annoying being limited to 6 Paradigms, it just doesn't cover everything you need or how you'd want it to be. the only advantage of this system is to make the game feel more real time, however on a lot of minor fights this doesn't come across as you can generally just repeat auto-battle on one paradigm.

Story and Characters

I believe this is where the game completely won me over the development of the story and characters really do make Final Fantasy 13 a fascinating game, and if you are looking for a game that will keep you there wanting to know where you will be lead to next the story to me did that. Each of the characters in their own change during the course of the game and it's amazing how some of them change and interact with one another, leading back to my point made earlier about cut scenes, these really do aid the game as the cut scenes generally work really well alongside the story, the graphics in my opinion do make them worth watching, as well as the story factor of course.

Overall I'd say that Final Fantasy 13 would be deserving of a 7/10 mainly due to the graphics, cut scenes and story development, for it to get the remaining 3 score it really would need to be more inclined towards the actual game play and improving upon that.
 
I completed XIII Monday, and after a little thought, this is how feel about it.

In general, I liked it but didn't love it. I went in expecting something like VIII, a game that is really great in some ways, but also has some glaring flaws, and that's more or less what I got.

The Good Stuff:
The combat was excellent. XIII is similar to XII in that you're guiding the general flow of battles rather than dictating your characters' every move. You have six roles (which are kind of like job classes) for your characters. Each character gets three roles that they're skilled in (unless you want to do some massive grinding late in the game, when each character can learn each role). You can choose six combinations of the various roles for your party members, and switch between them on the fly during battle. The focus (ha) of battles is first to keep your party alive and second to "stagger" your enemies by chaining together physical and magical attacks. The process of choosing the best combination of buffing, debuffing, defending, and attacking for each enemy was fun and challenging.I died more times playing XIII than I have while playing any other FF. In that context, the option to retry a battle after each game over was very welcome. XIII challenges the players without punishing them.

It looks lovely. Combat looks properly cinematic and frenetic, and the environments are beautiful, especially the huge areas with gigantic enemies near the end of the game.

The "us against the world" plot is good but not excellent. Most of the plot and drama revolves around the way your characters handle their situation. If you like some or all of the characters, it's great. If not, you're pretty much in the wind.

The Bad Stuff:
The first three hours or so suck. The game eases you into the combat way too slowly. The characters aren't yet well developed or sympathetic, and you may be very confused about what's going on in the plot. Rest assured, it gets MUCH better, but taking that long to do it was inexcusable.

There is no exploration to speak of until 20 hours or so in the game. Up until that point, the game goes on a very straight path. The few towns you enter are basically dungeons with people here and there, so there's no chatting with NPCs. This makes exposition about the world a little awkward. You can get the basics of what's going on through cutscenes and character dialogue, but if you want details, you're going to have to go into the encyclopedia in the menu. All of this makes some sense. Your characters are wanted pariahs branded with magical time bombs. They're on the run, and they don't have any time to chat or wander around. Still, it's kind of clunky.

Will you like it?
Maybe. The gameplay is almost solely about the combat, and the plot is almost solely about the characters. If you like either or both, you'll probably have a good time with XIII. If not, you won't.

I'm reluctant to give numerical scores, but if I had to, I'd give FFXIII an 8 out of 10.
 
Kaylee's Final Fantasy XIII Review!​



Alright, well I'd like to first start off by saying that this game is not as bad as everyone makes it seem. True, it did not meet it's expectations, but then again that expectation bar is set pretty high, considering all the other Final Fantasies that were its' predecessors.​

************************************************
I will start off with its' flaws, most of which didn't completely ruin the game for me.​

It was as straight as an arrow: Unlike most of the other FFs', XIII was so straightforward, that there was no wiggle room! Even at the one point in the game when you had some sort of freedom, you were just running around fighting a bunch of creeps trying to get somewhere.
Also when you get to that one place with the carnival atmosphere, that was like jackpot! They had a chance to put something, anything there! Even if it was something simple like run around and try to win more games than Sahz, it still would've beat chasing that little fucker chocobo chic for 5 minutes haha
. I felt kinda like I was going down a veeeeery long hallway and there was no turns or doors. Every now and then you got to a small door, or a curve, but other then that you were blindly walking down that hall. To me, it lacked a lot of the side-quests and mini-games that gave FF its' WOW factor.​

The Ending: I mean I know there isn't always "Happy Endings" but I mean come on . HOPE AND VANILLE!! I just think that it kinda sucked how out of nowhere Fang and Vanille made it their responsibility and left poor Hope chick less....plus from an unbiased standpoint (since not everyone would agree with that hehe), it left a lot to be desired. To me, I kinda felt like the whole game came out sort of...predicted. Most of the time something random that you thought about in the back of you mind, but didn't 100% believe, happened at the end.​

This isn't a big flaw, but the game got to a slow start. They place you into battle right away while your still trying to figure out what the hell just happened in the previous cutscene :P. Also, in the first 5 hours or so there was just too much baby mama drama. I think they emphasized Hopes' and Snows' character flaws just a tad too much.
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Now for the happy time! Good stuff!​

I'll start off with the most obvious; Graphics. Of course with time, technology gets better, but I loved the graphics of XIII! Especially the fight scenes in the beginning and towards the end, it really had me caught up in them. It felt sorta like a movie, which is always nice :D.​

Next the battle system: I thought the battle system was very interesting. it took some getting used to, but once I did I liked it a lot. I always had a thing for the job system so right away it made the grade :P. The paradigrams were pretty cool, it allowed me to adapt to any situation, which was quite often with how fast paced the game was. In previous FF's, in between turns you had time to go make a sandwich and take a whiz but in XIII it was like BAM! BAM! BAM! Every few seconds you'd have someone to command. It kept me on my feet, and made the battles a little less tedious. I also like the crystalarium, I liked how (once you got far enough) you could decide who maximized what role. It was pretty cool, although, when you have acess to all the role's, things like HP+20 shouldn't cost 20,000 CP just because it's not their specialty.​

Customizing: Even though it wasn't in depth, the option to maximize your equipment kept me pretty busy :D​

Lastly the storyline: I thought it was very creative and interesting. I liked most of the characters ('cept Fang) and I thought they all contributed to make a good plot. Even though it was slow and kinda fuzzy in the beginning, it eventually made sense and helped make XIII even more unique.
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Now before I go, im going to state my opinion about some of the things I disagree with. Im not trying to bunch anyones pannies so please don't be offended.​

Save points: I noted a lot of people complain about how many save points there are. How can you complain about that??? If you really hate saving that much, then just don't save at the save point. Also, I know this rarely happens, but if the power were to go out, or your PS3 malfunctioned or fell over, and you hadn't saved in an hour, losing all of that data is like losing your phone! It's heart-breaking!​

The retry option: Like I said above, how can you complain? I mean most boss fights were right next to a save point anyways, so the retry option saved you like 10 steps. Big whoop.​

It's too easy: Yes I agree that I didn't like the auto-battle too much, because I thought it took out some of the strategy, but it didn't ruin the game as some made it seem. If you honestly hated auto-battle so much, than why'd you use it? There were times when I manually imput things, especially when I was healing, because I thought what the computer had chose for me wasn't the best. Yes libra did make it also easier, but in the other FF's once you found the enemy's weakness, you just start busting his balls with it right? Auto-battle just took what you were already going to do, and saved you a few button pushing. IMO, the extra savepoints and retry's didn't make it any easier, just less frustrating.​

I hope that I didn't offend anyone, and I hope I maybe changed some people's mind about their reviews :) Sorry it was so long, I just had a lot to talk about heh.
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All in all, I'd give it a 6.5 because I loved most of the battle system, the plot, and the graphics, but it was just way to narrow for me. If Square decides to make a sequel, they should consider adding a few side-quests or mini-games, and leave out the auto-battle.​
 
Review:

The more I think about this game, the more I like it. I can see myself playing it again years from now.

The game has a total of six heroes. Two of my favorites are Lightning and Snow. Lightning is a quiet, strawberry-blond-haired female who has more guts than most male Final Fantasy characters. Snow is a brawny, trench-coat-wearing man who can never really be taken too seriously and who plays an almost equally active role in the game.

The first 20-30 hours of this game can at times progress a bit slowly. However, throughout your first playthrough, this game rarely fails at introducing something new.

Battles tend to progress at a blistering speed... but that's not to say that battles are always short, because some fiends have a considerable amount of HP. Eventually battles will start to test your wits through the difficulty and challenge, which is luckily a little after you get past the learning curve.

The game has a lot of interesting locations, which are usually littered with items to be found. In a way, this mechanic somewhat quenches any craving for treasure-hunting. A slight difficulty included in this game is that Gil is not handed out for battle completion. You have to find other ways to make Gil.

The storyline is filled with twists and turns. The storyline is rather hard to rate... it doesn't make sense, and yet it does. It's elegant yet sloppy. It's simple yet complex. It's like reading/listening to a novel while playing a game.

The CG in this game is very good. If you were having doubts on spending money for a new console, you might change your mind when you see the graphics. Lightning comes to life in beautiful cutscenes, as does crystal, roads, and everything else.

There is a rather large diversity of characters within this game as well. Square did an overall good job on the character cast, because it's easy for most people to find a character that they like. The characters tend to be convincingly real at times. Sometimes it takes noticing one little “not real to life” detail to realize again that you're playing fiction.

One controversial element of this game is that throughout roughly half the game, the game pretty much guides you and you don't have a ton of control. However the other half of the game, you are given a lot more control. This isn't exactly a new element, since a lot of RPGs focus on starting out slowly and building up, but this game is both particularly good about this and particularly bad about this in a sense of player freedom.

The game has NPCs, but no towns. NPCs are in the form of people who automatically talk/shout out when you walk by. I haven't kept up on the JRPG vs. WRPG comparison, but this quality of the game seems a bit unlike a JRPG. Don't expect villages, inns, or most of those things in the conventional way, because the theme of this game is a bit more science and mechanical. About the closest you will come to fantasy is in the form of the summons in the game, which are quite interesting.
 
My views on ff13

Final fantasy Xll is not the best game in the FF franchise, that belongs to 6 or 7 haha, but it is still not bad....Most of the most common problems with the game have to do more with the fact of Square trying to get the game to appeal to a larger audience, and showcasing the story and graphics as the main lure to the game...similar to how modern warfare used the online play...however to most hardcore final fantasy fans, the game is a big let down especially with all the hype that it had before release....Square was proud of the story they developed and thought it should be the main focus of the game....they wanted to show a newer audience that they could deliver a great story melodrama and all haha...
Speaking of the story, i thought it was great, the development of the characters was very strong, and i rlly felt that they could be real ppl, i cared about if the won and if the met their goals, and that is sometimes hard in an RPG...the only thing i can rlly complain about with the characters is that i felt they should have had a stronger concern with eachother's problems and not just go after their own motives. I was upset that even thou their motives tied together for them to fight fo a similar goal they never rlly cared about eachother's problems, they would have been more of a team if they would have. With that aside i thought the rest of the story was one of the best in any final fantasy game
Another thing i wish this game had was a more open world to explore, i understand that square wanted to make the game linear to make the story the most important thing, and with the cast being out cast it is understandable that there is that feeling of seclusion and panic feeling that u r running out of time and must push the story, but it just didnt imerse the player in the amazing world that was created....in my opinion if final fantasy 13 kept everything but traded the linear style to a style similar to FF12, then the game would be MUCH better than it turned out. the game gives u an open area late i the game but it still doesnt create a vivid world....
The game is pretty much cut of all lose ends after completion, but it leaves a big one....THE WORLD ITSELF....during and after i finished the game all i wanted to do was learn about the world and see how it changes with each major event....the world is constricting and that is a major let down....u never see a lot of gran pulse and if they would have introduced more or even had npc mention some areas that r unvisitable but r still there it would create a world that is more believable and would expand the game to maybe even a sequel......
The Gameplay was solid and that was one of my favorite parts of this game i just thing it would be greater if u could actually move ur character and interact with the environment more during battle and on the field screen..for example have a spell affect the battle area (fire leaving scorch marks)...and if u engage in a fight that is aroumd a bunch of rock be able to fight on them not just be transferd to a bland open area....or on the field map use an ability to pass an obsticle.....another great thing would have been to have more vehicle gameplay and travel, u have these awesome eidolons, why cant u travel on them, and there r several air battles and stuff that i would love to have interacted with...........and of course minigames
So thats pretty much it....in closing when i completed this game i felt like i tlly completed a journey and felt accomplished i enjoyed the story so much and it had its effects on how i see things and ppl....it was also structered and paced very well(even thou some awesome characters (jil) werent as involved)

Dont let all theese other bad reviews tell u its not a good game....if it didnt have the final fantasy label it would be perfectly acceptable....its just being compared to its predcessors....play the game and experience the story(not so much the world) of Final Fantasy 13!
 
How I felt about FF XIII

Hiya. This is my first post at the forum. Just wanted to say nice to meet you all. I'm GarryKE. Yep. And that's also my PSN ID, gaming nick for games, etcetera, etcetera.
Anyway, I realise it's quite late in comparison to most other gamers and its release-date but I have just recently finished FF XIII. I wanted somewhere to share my thoughts about the game(s) and maybe this be the place. So here I go.

Most of this is going to be a what happened thing. It's the best way I thought of outlining the major problems I had with the game.


Futuristic Final Fantasy:

What happened to the tradition, gigantic field in the middle of nowhere with minimal human life, except for the player and his/her crew of heroes?
All fantasy games feature this. It's a must, at least for me.
However, the geographical criticism does not stop there.

From small villages to entire cities filled with skyscrapers! :

Not only fields but small villages have gone too.
What happened to the lonely outposts and villages here and there with an able-bodied shopkeep just happy to help you in any way possible because you're the first sign of human life he/she has seen in a very long time?

I loved that about Final Fantasy. It really bought emotion to the game when the world's big bad enemy comes to embellish the civilization to its preferences. But now, with the case of Cocoon, you couldn't really give a flying duck whether the entire thing blew up in Vanille's face or if our young heroes, with the exception of Sazh being young, all came to save the day. It just didn't work like this anymore. Of course we had the gigantic lands of the world below but absolutely no civilisation.

(I hope for more from FF XIII-2 in this respect)


Instead of kind-hearted fellow citizens we now have a 21st (very life-like) century world:

If you go down to the shop, imagining a PlayStation controller in your head whilst you control yourself around the people and objects outside, you go up to every single person and press X, hardly anybody will speak to you. Just think you're weird. Or maybe, if you're lucky, you'll get the chance to overhear the other citizens chatter amongst each other; worrying for their peaceful Cocoon.
Furthermore, I found that communicating with NPCs in the world was a crucial component to your weapon/armor/item progression because there would always be one, little fisherman, somewhere along the long, dusty path that will offer to give you a once-in-a-life-time opportunity to take the world's rarest item.
Final Fantasy, however, did not include this.


Fantasy is all about magic, passion, hate and anything we, in reality, would conceive as abnormal or unnatural:

Yes, I am not stupid. I saw there is magic but where? Little flames of fire would shoot towards your enemy doing a bit of damage but where was the big magic moves? You know, those one that used an entire CGI cut for its animations. It would envelope the enemies in a gust of chaotic fire, throwing them high into the air, torching their anal-sides and then finishing off with letting them drop down to the concrete of their death. What happened to the big magic spells?


Several roles per person:

Is it just me or was it dissappointing to see this new paradigm system. I mean, overall it was okay but the way characters have numerous roles built into them I was not so keen on.
I'm more of a player that enjoys my fantasy games (don't mistake fantasy for Final Fantasy) where one character is assigned, at maximum, two roles each. And these are black/white magic-based roles, melee-based roles or support roles (Thief ability, healing, items, etc).


Fantasy games of 2010 onwards overall:

What is going on here? It has gone from otherworldly magic to 17th century warfare with kingdoms and armies at war with each other. Things like material weapons (swords, spears, etc) come more into play with entire battillions. That's not fantasy; that's medievil King Arthur stuff.

What happened to the beautiful women dressed in magicians' gowns?


So is it just me or has Final Fantasy moved on to an entirely new era, for which the game loses its fantasy element or is this just a technology progression with all the HD content or, is it just the same old Final Fantasy?

Don't get me wrong. I still thoroughly enjoy Final Fantasy. I think my expectations from the game got put too high since Final Fantasy X that something of those standards will never again see the light of my blu-ray drive in the PS3?
 
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