Customer Reviews

Final Fantasy XIII

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2 star:		(100)
1 star:		(72)

 

 

Final Fantasy XIII - Doesn't Live Up To Its Legacy

Warning: This will be lengthy, detailed review (Spoiler Free).

Who Am I:

Avid RPG fan that grew up with the Final Fantasy (FF) series, dating back to FF2 (US). I've completed the game in just under 45+ hrs. I have no interest in doing the side quests - read below for more info on that.

The Final Fantasy series has been near and dear to my heart for a long time. Very few RPGs can match the universe that this series has built in each establishment. So with each new Final Fantasy installment, criticism will be at an all-time high because the game has the highest of expectations and standards in regards to a RPG. Each FF game should drive the RPG market and show the shortcomings of the other RPGs. Unfortunately, FF13 has taken a huge step back in regards to the series and its attempt to evolve the RPG universe.

Let's get started with the review.

Linearity:

I know this word has been stamped, engraved into FF13 reviews. But most reviews have it correct when they speak of FF13's linearity. The one thing I will expand on is how this affects the entire game overall and not just the gameplay aspect. First, let me go over the level design.

The entire game is mission based. So once you complete a mission, you are done with that area with no return later. You can go back to very few areas during the last mission. Every mission is the same which makes FF13 feel very repetitive. Like others have said, you pretty much go down a tunnel, fight some creatures, fight boss, cut-scene, rinse and repeat. This is where FF13's RPG feel pretty much goes down the drain. There is absolutely no exploration, no world map, no towns, and no mini-games.

Yes the world 'opens' up after Chapter 11. But don't be fooled by reviews which state it is 'open.' It's just a big area with creatures in which you are allowed to do side quests. Side quests are summed up as - Get quest, kill monster, get reward, complete mission. While I have no problem with that particular formula, the problem I have is that you can't even do most of the missions because your party is limited on how strong it can get. When you finish the game, you are finally allowed to gain extra levels in order to do the side quests. But what is the point besides achievements/trophies? I use the example of FF3/FF7/FF10 where you are allowed to max out your level, get the best items, then when you feel like it, go beat the game. I read a review where they said it felt like an after-thought, I couldn't agree more.

Due to the linearity of the game, the story and characters suffer tremendously which hurts the game overall and not just the gameplay aspect.

Story, Characters:

This is the bread and butter of the FF series. With each installment, we (fans) expect an epic story with incredible characters that we get emotionally attached to. This is probably where I felt most 'robbed' when playing FF13. The story is the cookie-cutter save the world with little to no twists. While I understand many of the FF series have the same story, FF13 did a poor job of execution of telling it. It's simply too drawn out and gets boring at times. A lot of this has to do with the linearity of the missions. With it being level based and no exploration, you never have a chance to become immersed into the world and get emotionally drawn into what the characters are fighting for.

The six characters all have their unique personalities but you never really get a chance to develop any attachment to them. While the game does attempt to give you background stories for each character, it simply just falls short. This is the first Final Fantasy I have played where there really is no main character. Lightning, whom is on the cover, is probably one of least developed characters in the game. At several points in the game, you would think Vanille is the main character with the amount of story focus on her. I don't know how FF2, FF3, and FF7 did it but they had the formula right when it came down to character development.

Battle System:

The battle system has been revamped from previous installations. The turn-based combat is gone and now battles flow in real-time. This can make battles fun at times because you need quick reaction but also frustrating because you can't take a moment to decide what attack(s) to execute. There is an 'auto-battle' button that essentially plays the battle for you by selecting the best moves to use in any given situation. Also, you now also only control one lead character in battle, and your teammates are controlled by AI scripts. If the lead character dies, then it's game over for the whole party. I found this very annoying because your AI healer (whose commands cannot be customized) will heal another party member with lower health and you'll get hit the by the boss and die. Thankfully you can retry after each battle with no death penalty but it makes it very frustrating when this happens near end of a boss battle which you spend 10-15 minutes on.

Characters have 'roles' during the battles. It is essentially the job-system. For those who are unfamiliar, jobs are essentially broken down to: Medic, Attacker, Spell-Caster, Tank, Debuffer, Buffer. You can shift roles during the battle by executing pre-made 'paradigms.' You will find yourself on many battles switching back and forth from attacker-attacker-attacker to healer-healer-attacker. While the battle system is quick and intense, it is also tedious.

Summons (called Eidolons) for the most part are useless in the game. While they played a crucial part in other FF installments, they essentially are pointless in FF13 battles. There are only six summons (one for each character) and only the lead character can use their summon (typically once) during each battle. If you are expecting summons to do tremendous damage, well you will be disappointed. The only reason to summon is if your health is low and you know the boss is about to kill you, you can summon and your whole party will be at full health (and resurrected) after the summon has executed its attack. The best part of a summon is its animation and the fact you can skip the animation after seeing it once.


Graphics/Music:

This will be short. The game is very beautiful and crisp. The cut-scenes are top-notch. The problem is that you start to notice where all the attention went into and what other areas suffered because of this.

Music also has been a very high spot of the FF series. FF13's music director, Masashi Hamauzu, simply did not do a good job with this installment. Nobuo Uematsu has been the original composer for most of the FF series but this was the first one he wasn't involved in and you can tell the difference. While the music wasn't terrible, it wasn't anything memorable. Also, the most unusual part is that no where in the game is the traditional FF crystal theme music.


Final Thoughts:

Final Fantasy 13 was more of a chore to get through for me. While I did enjoy some moments of the game, mainly near the end, it was very lackluster overall. During no time in the game did I feel like this was a Final Fantasy (except the chocobos). I felt as if the Director was trying to make his own niche and sway from the formula. Well in my opinion it was a failed experiment. RPGs need exploration and deep story telling to be successful. This is why you always see games such as FF3(6) and FF7 on top of the list. There is a reason why those games, to this day, are considered masterpieces. You don't sway from masterpieces, you build off of them. Anyway, I know I left out some things such as equipment and upgrading but honestly I just wanted to focus on the main categories when reviewing a game of this magnitude.

Feel free to leave comments.

Overall Rating: 5/10

So much has already been written about this game that reviewing it at this point seems unnecessary. However, as an exercise in hindsight, especially with Final Fantasy XIII-2 a month away as of this writing, I hope you will refer to this review if you want the opinion of someone who has played through it twice and read just about every piece of criticism there is about this game. Whether you just want a new experience or are curious about the game because it's cheap now, please read on.

Let's get this out of the way first: the first 25 hours of the game are linear and story-driven. You'll be walking through alot of hallways and corridors and the story, told through the perspectives of each party member and via flashbacks, is one that will either hook you or lose you completely. This linearity is often cited as the biggest failing of the game, and it is if you want an immediately open-world experience. The developers took a huge risk in front-loading the game with exposition, and you'll either love it or hate it. How this linearity affects the gameplay and battle system is that you'll feel on-rails for this first portion of the game, as each party is pre-determined, as is how you level the party. The battle system is pretty complicated, so the game rolls each element out to you piece by piece. Let's get two things straight about the first 25 hours: just clicking auto-battle will not work past Chapter 3, and anyone who tells you otherwise didn't play the game enough to make an accurate critique of it, and it gets pretty hard towards Chapter 4 on through Chapter 10 (the Sazh/Vanille chapters, where you control two "specialists" in a party with no real power, can be tough, and some of the bosses are just about impossible if you can't figure out what to do). There is minimal grinding in these first hours, but you will have to basically fight every enemy put in front of you. There is very little money as well, and you don't really have to do any inventory management beyond equipping the best you currently have (mostly HP enhancers). In fact, it is advised that you hold on to absolutely everything you get and sell nothing except the items that have no use besides being traded for gil.

So basically, everything you've heard about the first part of the game is true, but whether or not that's really a bad thing depends on how much you hate linearity and the feeling that you're being "guided" by the game, as well as how much you get into the story. Again, this was a gamble by the developers, and the negative reaction to this and the subsequent changes in the sequel show that they've learned that modern gamers, for the most part, don't enjoy feeling like they're having their hands held. What I will say is that, since the plot is basically about fugitives on the run and trying to escape, this highlights the linearity even more than other games like Gears of War and Dead Space, that are just as linear but somehow aren't as "in your face" about it as Final Fantasy XIII.

So after you get to Chapter 11, to what might be your surprise, the entire game opens up in this epic, vast, beautiful, and daunting way. You choose your party, get to level them as you see fit, and set about leveling up in this absolutely gorgeous, lush, verdant environment. This is where you truly learn all the ins and outs of the battle system and how the game works. Again, I know it sounds ludicrous that a game takes 25 hours before you finally get to PLAY it, but if you're an RPG fan, you will LOVE how the game opens up at this point and joyously spend hours upon hours leveling your characters and learning the battle system.

So that's how the experience of actually playing the game is. One last note is that, if you want to get to Chapter 11 but just don't give a crap about the story, you can skip every cutscene, and doing so gets you to Gran Pulse in about 18 hours.

Now, the whole game looks great, arguably the BEST-LOOKING CONSOLE GAME OF THIS ENTIRE GENERATION, but it's when you first get to Gran Pulse that you really understand just how beautiful Final Fantasy XIII is. Take the pre-rendered cutscenes from the last generation, say Final Fantasy XII, enhance them to HD resolution, and you have what this game looks like IN-GAME.

Musically, the game is also just about perfect, with only some unfortunate bossa nova/jazzy stuff to lower the score. One other thing: this game has possibly the greatest RPG battle theme of all time. After countless hours I still love hearing it every single time.

To complete the presentation critique, the voice acting is almost uniformly superb. Yes, even Vanille, whose unfortunate stigma is more a case of cultural differences than a lack of quality in the acting (some things just don't translate well from Japanese to English, and chirpy, happy-go-lucky girls is one of them). It simply must be said that Ali Hillis' performance as Lightning is one of the most iconic in this generation of gaming, right up there with Nolah North as Nathan Drake in the Uncharted series and Jennifer Hale as FemShep in the Mass Effect series. She makes Lightning one of the iconic, unforgettable Final Fantasy characters of all time, bar none.

I feel it's especially important to devote more time discussing the battle system. The ATB/Paradigm Shift system is a menu-based, turn-based take on real-time action elements. This game is about speed, something you're graded on after each fight, and about understanding each role and choosing the right paradigms. The combat is fast and very strategic, as you will NEVER be able to simply overpower enemies after the first few chapters. Everything is about staggering enemies, which opens them up for more damage, and this is accomplished by attacking with melee strikes, chaining with magic, de-buffing, and even luring them with your tanks/damage sponges (called "Sentinels"). Each party member has three roles initially and each role eventually opens up for all members, though some roles are just better than others in terms of what skills they learn and how effective they are. Also note that the game is over when the party leader dies, which can frustrate you if you're not used to that.

Combat can get really hectic, hard, and frustrating for anyone expecting a regular turn-based system where 80% of the combat is attacking and healing. You cannot succeed in Final Fantasy XIII without doing some serious homework on what each role does, experimenting with paradigms, learning each enemy's weaknesses, and utilizing ALL ROLES (damage by itself is never going to win). As far as speed and strategy goes, this system is probably the ultimate evolution of a turn-based system before Final Fantasy Versus XIII comes and probably takes the core series irrevocably down the path of real-time action systems forever. As mentioned, there are real-time action game principles that you have to respond to onscreen, such as being able to interrupt an attacking enemy mid-animation if the timing is right, or being interrupted yourself and having to re-adjust. The battle system is essentially a traditional turn-based system on overdrive, and you can think of it as one "turn" in this game equates to several traditional turns. If you take the time to learn the system and love RPGs, you will LOVE this system because, once you master it, it just feels great to earn five star ratings and beat enemies in a fraction of the time it used to take you. It's also unbelievably cool to look at, which is a given since the developers specifically wanted to re-create the battle aesthetic from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete [Blu-ray]. It must be said that, by any and all measure, the game does a poor job of explaining in detail what all the roles do and what you need to win. The basic instructions you're given are simply nowhere near enough to succeed, and it's up to you to experiment and see what everything does. A great example of this is that nowhere in the game's vast datalog/glossary of terms did I find definitions of what each buff/de-buff does, so if you forgot about Shield, Faith, Fog, etc, you're going to have to figure it all out yourself. Thankfully, you are not punished at all for dying, as you re-spawn at the same location after each defeat with no consequence, ready to re-shuffle your party and paradigm deck and go from dying to defeating the same enemy in two minutes.

There is one HUGE downside to all of this, and if this is an issue for you rest assured I'm doing you a favor by urging you not to buy this game: you never have time to directly choose any specific action. Your job is essentially to manage health bars, stagger bars, buff/de-buff statuses, and enemy actions, and shift paradigms when necessary. You have to set up moves in advance essentially, knowing the next three paradigms you will use before you even get there. You really don't have the time to choose anything but the auto function each turn no matter what role you're in as party leader. What this means is that, as the player, you are more or less tasked with developing strategies and plans of attack than any actual sense of "control." Even in non-action games, there is still a connection when you choose "attack" from a menu and watch the character perform the action right in front of you. That direct connection between player and character is just not there in Final Fantasy XIII, and if that sounds like it's an issue for you, trust me when I say you will hate this game.

In conclusion, the big talk these days for gamers is that Japanese games, and specifically JRPGS, are dead. Square Enix took a huge gamble in Final Fantasy XIII to stave off extinction, and it's obvious that the reaction has been mixed. This game is, if anything, choked full of perhaps TOO MANY ideas, changes, evolutions, and aspirations. They tried to revolutionize and save a genre that is dying, and how successful they were depends on your personal tastes as a gamer. I hope I've given you the relevant information, so please comment and I will respond.

I have completed the main story arc, and am now working on Marks. Here's my (4.5-Star) review:

-As many preliminary reviewers have stated, this iteration of the Final Fantasy series is quite noticeably linear in nature in its first half. Compared to the previous FF installments, which allow you to explore a vast open world from the outset and take on various optional side-quests, FFXIII gives you neither for the first 18-20 hours of the game. Things open up after that point, but your options are still very limited compared to earlier FF games. There is also little opportunity to "level grind" (although the term doesn't explicitly apply here, more on that later) until you reach this point. You are given a proverbial "ceiling", a temporary limit to which your party members can be strengthened and developed, and for better or worse, you have to make the most of what's available to you to overcome the next challenging boss battle. Also, NPC interaction is highly limited, almost to the point of non-existence. Luckily, the story development balances all this out very nicely. It's like one big, long, winding corridor full of hurtles to jump, though the game manages to become more and more fun to play as you progress. And damned if it isn't the most visually appealing corridor I've ever seen.

-Which brings us to the graphics. Square Enix has historically made painstaking efforts to keep its Final Fantasy games on the very cutting edge of the graphics scene, and FFXIII is no exception. The characters--even token NPCs--are all meticulously rendered and animated, each doing justice to the art of the series' premiere character artist, Tetsuya Nomura. Their facial subtext is unprecedented in the series, making for very convincing performances. The way they move in battle is consistently a treat to watch, particularly in Lightning's case, as she vaults and flips about, slashing up baddies and tossing fireballs around the arena. Despite participating in chaotic battles with as many as 10 enemies on-screen, I've noticed absolutely no lag or slowdown in the framerate. The environments are positively SPECTACULAR in both their scope, lighting, and design. It's enough to make you cry, knowing that you're chained to a single path and unable to freely explore these awe-inspiring vistas, but don't worry, you'll get more freedom to roam in the latter half of the game. The prerendered cutscenes are even more beautiful, in my opinion surpassing the taut action and visual appeal of even the Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete [Blu-ray] feature film. They occur fairly often, and they're an absolute joy to watch.

-About battles: the new battle system is a great departure from what FF vets might be used to. There are up to three party members fighting on your side, and you directly control the actions of the leader only. The other two members provide AI support based on their role in your party's currently active Paradigm (a battle plan that assigns specific roles to each party member, and can be changed on-the-fly at any time). Timing these Paradigm Shifts is the name of the game, otherwise you'll get pummeled in short order.
Gone are the days when you'd have to manage your party's HP and MP between battles; HP is automatically refilled for all party members (even KO'd ones) after every battle, and MP is non-existent.
Magic spells take the form of elemental techniques that are seamlessly integrated with physical attacks and other special techniques, in long hitstrings that cost only ATB Meter stocks. The focus is not only to survive and win battles, but to finish them quickly and decisively. It pays to have your strategy thought through before challenging the next group of enemies. Judiciously switching Paradigms in mid-battle is indespensible to victory, and necessary to receive a 5-star rank at the end of the battle, and ultimately more valuable spoils.
Summons take the form of Eidolons, who join you as AI-controlled battle buddies when called upon. You can also press Square to enter the Eidolon's "Gestalt Mode", wherein it transforms into some sort of vehicle that the summoning character rides on/in, unlocking new attack options and enabling you to execute the Eidolon's ultimate technique on command. Only the party's currently assigned Leader may summon an Eidolon.
"Limit Breaks" (as they are more popularly known) can be unlocked for each character once they've reached Chrystarium Level 4. They do not cost TP, and there are no special prerequisites for executing them; fire away to your heart's content. As with Eidolons, only the Party Leader can execute his/her Limit Break.
It takes some getting used to, but the game offers plenty of tutorials to explain how to make the most of the options available to you. Personally, I find this new battle system to be a lot of fun.

-Character levels as you know them are gone as well. Your party members' stats are boosted through the expenditure of Crystogen Points (CP) in the Chrystarium Development system (very similar to the Sphere Grid system of FFX). As you advance through the Chrystarium, you gain new techniques and spells, and increase the levels of each character's available Roles.
What does level up are your weapons and accessories. Spoils you earn in victory can be spent to allocate Experience Points to your equipped gear, raising their stat bonuses and special attributes, and even transforming them into other, more powerful items. I guess this is your incentive to shoot for that 5-star battle score.

-Camera movement feels a bit sluggish, but smooth. It gives the battles a cinematic feel, but when you're running around the map, it can be a pain. I like to sneak up on enemies so that I can get the initiative when the battle starts, but the slow-turning camera has robbed me of this opportunity more than a few times (though it's not a game-breaker).

-BOTTOM LINE: It's definitely worth checking out, but I recommend you rent this one first, even if you're a Final Fantasy veteran. FFXIII has its own unique style and flow; you either love it or you hate it. The story is deep, mysterious and compelling, and the characters each have very interesting, multi-dimensional personalities. If you can stick it out, you'll be handsomely rewarded with gameplay that just gets more and more exciting as you progress.

Much of what has made Final Fantasy a great series is gone in FFVIII; from towns and cities to explore to the simple satisfaction of beating lower monsters to level up to defeat harder ones, it's all gone. There will be no clever tactics of combining the right melee with magic with healing to defeat an opponent and no setting forth in whatever direction you like in search of treasure, experience or quest gains, you will walk the straight line and "auto-chain" your way through the 50hrs that is, FFXIII.

I'm not going to bother with plot here as it's the only reason to play the game -- a movie with pauses that let you fight between cut-scenes.

Even if some felt the battle system in FFXII could be overly automated it's nothing compared to the one in FFXIII. You now only control "paradigms" where you pre-select which abilities each character will use automatically within each of the paradigms (which, at least you can and will change throughout battles). So, you set up a paradigm say, one character medic, one commando (guns, sword, etc) one Ravager (magic) and another with two medics and a commando and another with two commando and a ravager, etc, etc. So you can switch your party tactics in battle to fight, fight and heal, just heal, magic fight, magic and heal and fight, etc. It's not exciting and it leads to a lot of mindless button tapping as you wait for the battle to end.

Another big misstep was removing the real time/space battle system. Once again FF reverts back to the "suck you into a battle screen" so each area again has generic battle back-grounds so you could challenge on the screen five enemies before a waterfall but end up fighting three enemies before a rock-wall just to finish and be standing before the water-fall again! After each battle a character utters a generic "yeah us" or "got em" sort of line over and over and over and over again each battle, then you get an experience screen with 0 to 5 stars for your battle which supposedly affect what you pick up after a battle, but I've had a lot of five-star battles with no rewards and 2 and 3 star battles where I've picked stuff up.

After the battle, of course you take experience and level up, right? Well, kind of. The "chrysarium" lets you level up each of your skills separately in a pretty 3D environment, but you very quickly fill all the spots and have to stop until you achieve some goal (boss battle) to earn more level-up spots. This stops your leveling dead and is very frustrating. Also, the 3D environment is not easy to navigate, but it doesn't matter as you'll just find yourself leveling everything up anyway since there's so many exp points you won't need to focus on any one talent.

Since leveling is halted and there's no towns to buy from (stores are at save points and cost much and offer little) you can "upgrade" your weapon and accessories (no armor at all in this game just bracelets and weapons) by using "stuff" you've accumulated. The would be interesting if the "stuff" actually had specific properties, but alas, just different amounts of up-grade points. The key to this game to get stronger, get more stuff and upgrade.

Those whom complained the game was too linear were, well, correct but not correct enough. The game is no more complex than Halo, in fact, it's the same basic idea as a corridor shooter, just run forward, kill enemies pick stuff up and sprint to the end while watching cut-scenes to tell the story. Halfway through the game I've still have done nothing but walk strait, the map is pointless since there's only ever one way to go. What's worse, you are split into several groups for half the game, so you are at least half done before you even get a full party.

So, what's good in FFXIII? Well, the PS3 graphics are spectacular, the flesh still has a fake, waxy gleam but the settings are beautiful and there's no difference in cut-scenes and real-time graphics quality, frame rate is always steady. The sound, so-so, I don't feel a real 3D aural environment, the music should be turned off as it's loops, often has vocals and is generally boring or familiar but not in a positive way.

The final word on FFXIII. Great graphics, fair sound, okay story, lousy fighting, crappy level-up system, completely linear and horribly repetitive. This is a sad, lonely entry that will not beg to be replayed nor will it drive you forward to finish it. Among other RPG's like Mass Effect 2 or Dragon Age it feels limiting and simplistic. This is like Final Fantasy for beginners, not the grand entry into hi-def gaming we hoped for.

UPDATED 5/2/10
Finally reached chapter 11 and the game "opened up" meaning there are 22 hunts you can go on. Grand Pulse is a shock to those who didn't buy a book to tell them how to upgrade weapons and accessories. I did buy the book because I kept dying and needed to read something on paper for tips on the battle system. While I learned it is in fact still button mashing the Synergist,Saboteur and Sentinel abilities to win battles, but it's just a matter of you die a few times, try a few different combos, and move on. Since you can't swap characters during battles you find no reason to swap them in and out, especially since everyone auto-recovers after every batter and everyone earns points if they fight or not.

What's most frustrating is realizing that I have 30hrs play time and wasted a tone of money and resources poorly upgrading. If I had the guide-book from the start I'd have realized that you buy one things, use 36 of it to 3X your upgrade points, buy one of the best upgrade parts and then use them all at once with that 3X mulitplier, then you max out everything. Instead I squandered them trying to figure out how the system worked, now I've got nothing but low-lever accessories and only 2 maxed out weapons.

Also, there's no way to tell the game to track a hunt rather than main quest, so I thought I was on the second hunt, but no, it had me on main quest and I had to turn around and walk for an hour.

Finally, Grand Pulse is 10X harder than anything you've been through, dying will be a regular occurrence, every battle feels like a boss-fight and suddenly the Chrysarium requires 10X the points to advance.

Now that I've gotten past the "linear" part I can honestly say, it doesn't improve.

Once I had a dream that I was stuck in a really long winding hallway and there were all sorts of scary monsters in that hallway with me. Whenever one would jump out of the dark and attack me I would freak out but then realized if I could just reach the X button the monsters would die on their own and I could continue down the hallway....oh wait that's FF13

This game has a truckload of hype behind it like every other FF game. Of course we all know now the developers were spending all that money and time on graphics and strippers. Take everything you love about FF and flush it down the toilet then make some other game that is not like FF at all. That's what this is.

It's really obvious square-enix was just trying to appeal to as many numbskull gamers as possible, like the reviewers at IGN who are distracted by sparkly things. They amped up the graphics and oversimplified everything to a fault. You are barely involved in the battles and the "free roam" section of the game is a joke. You basically just walk forward and hit x every so often. Maybe they should have just put you on a rail. I heard in FF15 you just need to yell teh words "I WIN!" to defeat enemies. That should make the game accessible for 99.9% of human beings and some animals like the parrot. I guess even some robots or a cleverly placed cassette recorder would enjoy the game as well.

Honestly if you want to buy this game...wait til one of your friends buys it and then wait outside their window while they play for 20 min. They should soon grow disappointed and eventually ragefull. That will be followed by them throwing the game out the window and right into your hands.

Before I start talking about FF13, I'd like to take a moment to look back on its predecessor. For those of you who remember, FF12 had a lot of high expectations, promise, and hype. It had been the longest wait since the last numbered single-player Final Fantasy (FFX in 2001 and FF12 in 2006). During the first few weeks, many people played it, and many people (professional reviewers and "normal" players alike) gave it plenty of praise.

And then we collectively hit the 20 hour mark and watched the game fall off a cliff. We watched as interesting plot threads dissolved into nothingness. We watched as dungeons started stretching on endlessly at a snail's pace. We watched, with horror I might add, as we collectively realized that, with the Gambits, FF12 essentially played itself.

I was one of those people. I had written an early review of FF12 just a week after the game came out, about 20 hours in. And I had given the game endless praise. 9.5 out of 10 I said. 40 hours later, I realized that I had made a huge mistake. Consider this my formal recantation of my FF12 review. (Not to be confused with the informal recantations I'd been giving in the last four years.)

To make up for that, I promised myself I wouldn't give FF13 a review until after I had finished the game, for fear of making the same mistake, for fear of playing the game for 20 hours and giving it endless praise only to watch the game fall apart afterwards and force me to eat my words again.

So that's what I've been doing these last 3 weeks. Playing FF13 for the right to review it. And now let's see where it takes us...


SOUNDTRACK

Let's start with the easy stuff. I agree with the Uematsu fanboys on this one. Final Fantasy music just hasn't been good since Uematsu became less involved. And FF13 is no exception. It's almost like the composer of FF13 (Masashi Hamauzu for those who care) was afraid of making his music actually good, afraid to make it anything more than ambient background noise for fear of people actually noticing that, yes, there is in fact music in this game. (To be fair, it's a problem that plagues most modern video games.)

There are two tests for video game music. The first test is if a piece makes you want to pause the game and just listen to the music for a moment. FF13 fails in this regard. Most of the pieces are just not very memorable, and very few of them stand out. Sure, there are a few gems. But a few gems in an otherwise bland and flavorless soundtrack does not make for a good video game soundtrack.

The second test, of course, is if a few years from now, listening to the soundtrack will make me reminisce about the game and make me want to play it again. Unfortunately, I don't have a time machine, and my promise for not reviewing the game until I finish doesn't apply to waiting a few years for nostalgia to kick in. (That, and this only works if I have fond memories of the game to begin with.)


GRAPHICS

If you were to tell me FF13 has good graphics, I would probably believe you. If you were to tell me FF13 has bad graphics, I would probably believe you too. To be fair, I haven't bothered looking at FF13 screenshots side-by-side with FF12's, so I don't know how much better it actually is. If it weren't for HD technology, I don't know if these eyes could even tell the difference.

What I do know is that when you play the game with its real-time rendered graphics and you hit a cutscene and see what pre-rendered graphics can do, the difference is jarring. Are FF13's graphics good? Sure. But they're obviously not good enough to make Square not load the disc with pre-rendered cutscenes.


STORYLINE

FF13 started off fantastically. Right from the beginning, the game puts you in the middle of the action and very quickly sets up a handful of promising character-based plot threads. The game quickly introduces you to the main characters, and then sets up the main plot thread that pulls the whole game along. And at the end of all that, you say "Wow, that was a great opening sequence!" And the game was only just beginning! (Footnote: This is a reference to my experiences with another J-RPG (which shall not be named), where I said, "Wow, that was a great opening sequence! Wait, that's the end of disc 1 already?")

And then the game falls apart. I have to give FF13 credit here. It took FF12 a good 20 hours to fall apart. FF13 managed to fall apart in only 3.

The problem is that FF13's storyline is incredibly slow. No, that's not the right word. "Slow" implies that the plot is actually going somewhere. FF13's plot went nowhere. The problem is that, after the great opening sequence, NOTHING HAPPENS. After the opening sequence, I crawled through hours of dungeons, fought dozens of battles, and sat through pointlessly boring cutscenes waiting for something to happen.

But wait, you say, that's anticipation! The game is generating anticipation of the story. That's a good thing!

No, anticipation is when you're wondering what's going to happen next. FF13's story is when I'm wondering if anything's going to happen at all.

Some of you will be quick to point out that much of FF13's story is told through flashbacks, and it's the flashbacks that I should be paying attention to for the story. Except (with a few very rare exceptions) a story cannot be told *entirely* in flashbacks. It just doesn't work. Flashbacks are retrospective in nature, and events in flashbacks feel more like backstory and setup for the "present" thread rather than like something that's actually happening. In FF13, the flashbacks end up hurting the story rather than helping it. Rather than enhance the story with interesting background information or a parallel plot thread, the flashbacks make a slow, uneventful story even slower and less eventful.

It wasn't until the 20 hour mark when something finally happened. I remember this because when you're playing a game where nothing happens, you remember when something finally happens. Unfortunately, my joy was short-lived. A few minutes later, the game brings you back to hours of nothingness.

Sure, from then on stuff started to happen. But it didn't help. The events in the story (if it can be called that) don't pull you along, but rather come out of nowhere and go nowhere. Rather than being driven, the story wanders. Literally wanders. Over 90% of the story is your party wandering around with no real purpose.

And all those character-based plot threads that were that were set up in the opening sequence? None of them are developed in any way, and most of them are unceremoniously dropped on the floor. The one character-based thread that is finally revisited was then immediately ended with a young boy crying to his nearest mother-figure. Literally. It's almost as though the writers just wanted to end that particular plot thread because they felt it would distract us from the main plot thread. But it's like Chehkov said. If you hang a gun on the wall in the first act, then by the end of the third act the gun needs to be fired. If the writers had no intention of developing and properly concluding those character-based plot threads, why include them at all?

In fact, I daresay FF13 has the worst storyline ever of any FF game I've played. Even FF1, whose storyline consisted entirely of a series of loosely connected quests, had a better story than FF13. Mainly because a series of loosely connected quests is *something*. Even FFTA, whose story is hated by pretty much every Final Fantasy fan in existence, had a better story than FF13. Because in FFTA stuff happens. In FF13, NOTHING HAPPENS. You know how they say Seinfeld is a show about nothing? No, Seinfeld is about something. FF13 is about NOTHING AT ALL. And unless that particular something is like stabbing yourself in the face, as far as stories go, something is always better than nothing.

And what's up with the names? Characters named Lightning, Snow, and Hope? Regions named Cocoon and Pulse? Crystarium? And what the hell kind of names are fal'Cie and l'Cie?


GAMEPLAY - COMBAT

Some people say FF13 has a new combat system that's more action-oriented. It's not. It's just a minor variation on ATB. Hell, they still call them ATB Gauges. Yes, it is a lot more fast-paced than the ATB of your SNES/Super Famicom and PS1 days. But FFX-2 was even faster-paced, and FFX-2 was straight up ATB. To be fair, in FFX-2 you had to control three party members, but in FF13, you only control one. If they made you control all three party members, FF13's combat may have turned into an exercise in insanity.

Speaking of which, in FF13 you only control the party leader. The other two members of your active party are controlled by an AI script. Except that 99% of the time, the correct thing to do with the party leader is to select Auto-Battle and let the AI pick the moves. So really, the AI ends up doing everything. Remember FF12? Remember how people complained that the Gambits basically put the game on auto-pilot and was very non-interactive? Yeah, as it turns out, since you can't customize the AI, FF13 is even more automated. (At least it hides it well.)

The game designers did try to add an extra dimension to the game with Roles and Paradigms. Except that Roles are just character classes, and Paradigms are just the Roles your party is currently using. Nothing new here. Sure, you can change Paradigms mid-battle (called a "Paradigm Shift", apparently), but changing character classes is as old as the original NES FF3, and changing character classes mid-battle is as old as FFX-2. So really, Paradigm Shifts are nothing new either.

But I've always said that innovation is overrated, that good execution trumps good concept. So rather than debating whether Roles and Paradigms are innovative (they aren't), let's talk about what they add to the gameplay. Before Paradigm Shifts, if you need to attack, you press attack over and over again. If you need to heal, you cast heal over and over again. In FF13 with Paradigm Shifts, if you need to attack, you instead switch to the offensive Paradigm and press Auto-Battle over and over again and watch as the AI picks offensive skills for you. If you need to heal, you switch to the healing Paradigm and press Auto-Battle over and over again and watch as the AI picks healing spells and heals your party for you. Hmmm... I'm trying to see the difference here. (Other than the superficial difference.)

And then there's the Chain Gauge. Basically as you attack an enemy, you increase the Chain Gauge. When it's full, the enemy becomes Staggered and takes much more damage than before. I imagine they designed this also to add an extra dimension to the combat. Except that it didn't. Actually, it did the opposite. Rather than making battles more varied and more interesting, it made them all play the same. Every boss fight pretty much requires the same strategy. You focus-fire on them until they become Staggered, at which point their defenses drop and you can actually damage them. Compare to Chrono Trigger and FFX for examples of boss fights that have a variety of strategies *without* resorting to a gimmick like the Chain Gauge.

Fortunately (or unfortunately), FF13's combat is the least offensive part of its gameplay. It's just more of the same. Straight up J-RPG combat has become stagnant, and it's really difficult to change things up without venturing into Action RPG or Strategy RPG territory. (I can name exactly zero games that have managed to pull this off successfully.)


GAMEPLAY - CHARACTER GROWTH

Whoever invented the Sphere Grid in FFX must have thought they came up with the best thing since sliced chocobo. ("Sliced chocobo"... that sounds so awful and morbid.) After all, FF12's License Board is just a variant on Sphere Grid, and similarly, FF13's Crystarium is also just a variant on Sphere Grid. Who can blame them? Linear stat growth is just so cliche now.

FF13's Crystarium is essentially instead of one Sphere Grid, each character has multiple Sphere Grids, one for each Role they have. This means you can either focus on one Role and specialize in it, or you can spread your Crystal Points around and level up each Role evenly and become a jack-of-all-trades. Basically, character customizability and multiple strategies.

Or at least that's what the game promised.

In actuality, the Crystarium is very limited. As you fight battles, one of the Roles on a character will fill up, and you'll be forced, whether you like it or not, to start spending Crystal Points on a different Role. (Or you could just save up those points, but as it turns out, it doesn't really matter.) Apparently, the game is tuned just so that right when you fill up all of your Crystariums, you get to a boss fight, and beating that boss expands your Crystarium. So unless you're skipping battles all the time, what actually happens is that you'll end up leveling up all your Roles evenly (and fully) anyway, just because of the way the game is structured.

Not only that, but the combat with its Paradigm Shifts make you *want to* level up in every available Role. A character who can only apply buffs or a character who can only heal is too inflexible to survive in combat. In order to get through battles without tearing your hair out, you'll need to use multiple Roles per character. And so, single Role characters simply do not work. (Although there's probably already a single Role challenge out there already.)

At about the 30 hour mark, the Crystarium opens up dramatically, and all Roles become available to all characters. So now, you would expect that the promise of choosing your Roles and customizing your characters to be fulfilled. Except as it turns out, non-starting Roles are so prohibitively expensive that, until near the end of the game, it's much cheaper to keep on leveling up your starting Roles. Not only that, but your characters are generally so far behind with their non-starting Roles that, ignoring highly specialized strategies, it's not worth leveling up non-starting Roles anyway.

So there you have it. FF13's Crystarium promised customizable characters and failed to deliver on that promise. Even FF12's License board, for all the ridicule it endured, was more customizable than this. FF13's Crystarium only provides the illusion of choice, making you go through the motions of directing the characters' growth, only to have them end up going down the paths the game pre-determined for them.


GAMEPLAY - OVERALL

J-RPGs are linear. That is a given. Anyone who knows anything about J-RPGs knows that they are linear. Complaining about a J-RPG being linear is like complaining that a cupcake is smaller than a regular cake. (Cue relevant Penny Arcade comic.)

That said, FF13 is incredibly linear even by J-RPG standards. FF13 is so linear, it makes FFX look like Oblivion by comparison.

You know how people say in J-RPGs, you're essentially walking a straight line from beginning to end? Usually, they mean it metaphorically. But in FF13, you're literally walking a straight line from beginning to end.

The game consists entirely of dungeon crawling. No exploration. No side quests. No towns to interact with (not in the traditional RPG sense of "town", anyway). It's just dungeon crawling. And the dungeons themselves are linear. They are straight line paths from beginning to end, the only branches being obvious alcoves with items for you to grab. Those don't count as branches anyway.

To be fair, this gets better at around the 30 hour mark. You get to a region that you can actually explore. You get some side quests to do.

Alas, the region is full of monsters that are way too powerful for you to handle until the end of the game. (And because of the way the Crystarium is structured, you *can't* become powerful enough to handle them until the end of the game.) And all of the side quests are monster hunts, which this particular gamer finds particularly boring. And still no towns.

But my biggest gripe is that the dungeons are just too long and drawn out. In general, I don't have a problem with long dungeons. But having long dungeons at the expense of an already slow story, making me crawl through a seemingly endless dungeon when I'm already waiting for something to happen, is just asking for complete and utter boredom. And it takes *hours* to crawl through these dungeons. There's no good reason for a dungeon crawl to take that long.

It's a common problem among modern games. Game designers try drag out their games to take as long as possible, focusing on hour counts instead of actual entertainment. (It doesn't help that many vocal game critics cite low hour counts as a flaw for some games.) And since FF13's game designers realized they didn't have enough story to fill out a 60 hour game, they compensated by making the dungeons drag on forever.

Older games don't seem to have this problem. If FF13 had been made in 1991, it would have been less than 20 hours long and *still* would have had all the same content. And I wouldn't have complained.


CONCLUSION

FF13 bored me to tears. About halfway through, I started looking forward to the end of the game, hoping beyond hope that the game would be over soon. Not because I wanted to know how the story ended but because I wanted FF13 to finally be over so I could do something I actually enjoyed. (Like write a review that thoroughly trashes every aspect of FF13.)

Only my promise to finish the game kept me going. Because really, none of you FF fanboys would accept my review of FF13 as a bad game unless I had actually finished the game.

That, and I didn't want to break my streak of having finished every numbered single-player Final Fantasy game. (It was the same reason I went back and finished FF8.)

Let me make this perfectly clear: FF13 is a bad game. And I don't just mean "bad for a FF game". I mean BAD. The music is bland, the combat is uninteresting, the character growth system is a failure, the story is too slow, and the dungeons are too long. (And my spoon is too big.) The game is terrible in pretty much every way by any reasonable standard for games in general.

Still, FF13 was merely boring. It could be worse. At least they didn't make me actively hate the game. At least they didn't make it a grindfest. At least they didn't make the computer opponent cheat. (Oh wait, the final boss cheats, what with him having a skill that can randomly and instantly kill your entire party without warning.)

I remember when FFXII came out, after watching the opening scene I had a tear drop from my eye because I *knew* they did the game right. Now, after playing FFXIII I've had several tears flow... tears because all the lower reviews are nonsensical crap, tears that there are so many 5 star reviews, and most of all... tears that this game was privileged with the title Final Fantasy...

Lets start off with the good, which undoubtedly is unanimous and undeniable amongst anyone who plays this game. The graphics are breathtaking, the story is deep, the character development is perfect, the battle system mechanics flow smoothly, and the game sucks you into a world unlike any other.

So what could be wrong... what could possibly substantiate a two star review? Unfortunately... plenty... in fact way too much....

First, let's look at how linear the game is. At first I didn't think it would bother me, I am generally one to go right through the game without a break to do many side quests. But the presentation of this game is indeed beyond ridiculous... it is *literally* like running through a series of tubes from point A to point B.Granted beautifully designed breath-taking tubes, but tubes none the less.

Along with this there are no towns. Again, I didn't think it would be that big of a deal... just a slight change. But it soon became apparent I was exploring a world all but devoid of life. I feel like the game is more like a prototype for a final fantasy rather than the game itself.

Next we come to the battle system... oh lord... where do I begin. The battle system is gorgeous but flawed. If you have one character attacking and another casting spells to reduce defense (see Saboteur), eventually all the enemies defenses will be minimalized. It is at this point you would expect the character casting the spells to lower defense to join in and attack, but you would be wrong. The character instead just sits there with a thumb up their (explicit). This is mainly a problem early in the game where character roles aren't as developed... yet I cant believe it was overlooked. The problem is consistent when the computer uses the medic - it heals a character with almost full HP three times in a row while completely neglecting to heal itself despite the fact its in critical condition.

Also, the battles seem like nothing more than pressing X to auto-battle. The battle system goes so fast it is almost as if the game doesn't want you to choose your characters actions, only switch roles. I feel absolutely no sense of accomplishment after winning a battle, it wasn't me that won... it was the auto-battle. Sure I switched roles to heal and maybe cast some spells but all the actions were chosen by the computer. And I hear some of you screaming already, FFXII's battle system is also impersonal, how do I get off complaining about FFXIII? Yes FFXII was impersonal compared to other final fantasies but it was still ME modifying the actions it was ME choosing what EACH character was going to do next. It wasn't the computer. I just don't feel the same accomplishment switching "roles" during a battle, especially as unnecessary as it generally is.

Also with the battle system, a large portion of the game (~60%) requires use of only two characters which further minimalizes any aspect of strategy. Even after the game opens up and you get to form your own party, there's hardly any change to battle strategy. Attack, heal, attack, heal. On tougher battles first use buffs / debuffs then attack, heal, attack, heal. Further reiterating the redundancy, several of the enemies have WAY too much HP so you can do the same thing till your little hearts content. You think this games hard, play the original FF (or some wizardry), this games a cake walk especially with unlimited resources. As with the eidolons, don't worry about using them. It takes *forever* to build up enough TP to summon one, on top of that their next to useless on bosses.


Also as a matter of personal opinion, I cannot stand the paradigm system. I have to have six pre-rendered paradigms before entering a battle? Why not just let me change one character role as needed instead of making me shift an entire paradigm? Don't give me the strategy nonsense, if I need a paradigm that isn't there I just click retry at the beginning of the battle and add it. I don't find it entertaining having to mess with six different paradigms to create nuances.

Even though you control one character, it doesn't feel like it. When exploiting an enemy's weakness using Libra the characters automatically attack using the appropriate spell. Ugh, its sickening - I have absolutely sense of accomplishment yet again, the game does everything for me. Does no one recall in the original final fantasies how GOOD it felt to find a weakness against that one enemy who whooped you butt, then exploit that weakness and get a buttload of experience and gold? You EARNED that experience and EARNED that gold, dammit YOU found its weakness. Not anymore.

Then again, you don't even get money after battles in this game, further making them pointless. Sure, their required to advance character skills, but to what avail? Now the computer will do more for me as I sit there and watch and continuously press X to do auto-battle. Gone is the feeling of going to town and upgrading all your equipment after hours of hard work and coming back into the world to dominate your opponents. Gone again is that sense of accomplishment. And for what? I get to watch the computer do my battles for me!

I would dare say that if you compared every persons game file at the end of the game there would be little or no difference. Where are my bragging rights for having rare unique items? My bragging rights for having the best equipment? Anything? Nothing. There's absolutely no replayability, if you play through the game again you'll have the same character development, the same weapons, and be using the same paradigms on the same bosses.

There not even mana or magic points in this game for frick sake! In the original final fantasy only certain characters could cast certain spells period... this has been a downfall in other final fantasies as well - diffuse roles amongst characters. But to have a final fantasy without any form of mana or magic regulation?!?! Blasphemy I say, blasphemy!!!

Also after each battle, characters automatically gain all their health back. Again stripping me of any accomplishment I have from exploiting enemy weaknesses. Status alignments? Haha, what a joke. Hardly used at all and minimally threatening. And if for some reason I do die I just click retry. Never mind scratch that, if I start off a battle poorly and wanted I could just click retry. No need to be prepared for a malboro getting a sneak attack on me completely debilitating my characters, killing two right off the bat, yet by some miracle, being able to make a comeback and kill the SOB... I just click retry.

Now let me touch on the equipment - or lack there of. The only equipment slots you have are one for a weapon and one for an accessory (two for accessories later). No shield, no armor, no boots, no gloves, no helmet. You upgrade your weapon and accessory by finding components or winning them after battles. The game boasts a hundred different components, what it fails to mention is that they all serve the same function - to give an item experience! Sure some components boost how much experience an item gets but experience is experience, there's absolutely no point in having so many components unless they each have a relatively different function. This feels like just another way to make the game stripped down while looking like theres more at play.

And on top of everything else the game chooses, it also chooses your party... sick. This is truly a game that plays itself. Sure you get to choose your party later in the game, essentially chapter 10 out of 13. Great...

I feel like this is a bad joke. Like square-enix was sitting around saying "You know what would be really cool, and funny, well screw with the entire Final Fantasy fanbase. Lets make a final fantasy with no gameplay where the computer decides everything, yah, lets also make it devoid of any content, just one single line after another. But to keep people from thinking it's a joke, well have the best visuals the world has ever seen along with an amazing story and unseen character development."

I wont lie, they have something good here. They have something real good, but its only the beginning. They have great characters and a beautiful battle system. They need to make the REAL final fantasy 13. One where I have a sense of control, one where I have a sense of accomplishment, one where my characters are MY characters. This game does not feel like a game, it feels like a demo, or a VERY early beta. I cannot for the life of me understand how this got released and, more so, how so many people like it. I can't imagine that other people have played the other Final Fantasies, enjoyed them, and had this game appeal to them in any manner whatsoever.

I have no problem with people calling this a breath taking adventure with a story and visuals beyond what the world has ever seen. I do have a problem with people calling this a video game. I just want to break down and cry when I hear people call this a Final Fantasy.

Always been a big fan of the Final Fantasy games but this one to me seems to be a big let down. Not what I thought it was going to be.

I held off buying this game because of the criticisms I heard on review sites. I finally bought this game on a lightning deal on Amazon for a great price, and I have to say after playing this game I'd easily pay $59.99 for it. In the past I've played Final Fantasy games, and although I enjoyed most of them, there were some annoying parts. I feel that FF13 removes those annoying moments and streamlines the experience to make what is in my opinion the best in the series. Although the story lulls a bit early on, it is quite good, and because of the fast pace of the game, it kept me engaged.

My first complaint about other FF games was getting lost/stuck. Sometimes you'd find yourself trying to find someone or something to continue on and having no clue where to find that person or thing. FF13 has a clear map showing you where to go and how to get there. Some people complained that FF13 was too linear. Throughout the whole game I never once got lost or stuck. To me, that is a plus.

Previous FF games were stingy on the save points. FF13 has an abundance of them. This means less backtracking if you found you had to suddenly turn off the game. Another plus.

Other FF games had random enemy encounters that would initiate every five steps and eventually became annoying. FF13 lets you see your enemies as you approach them and gives you to option to avoid them, attack them, or even try to sneak up on them! No more annoying random battles. Plus plus!

Most FF games had slow battle systems that could take anywhere from 2 to 30 minutes per battle. The slow nature of battles made them feel tedious and chore-like, especially given the frequency of random battles. FF13 is fast and most battles will take less than a minute. The game rates you based on how fast you defeat enemies. This encourages you to try to end the battles quickly. Battles are quick and exciting and throughout the entire game I never dreaded a battle. Instead I looked forward to them. A big improvement.

Previous FF games forced you to stock up on tents and potions and waste your precious money on items you'd need for the grueling battles ahead. FF13 is a fairly forgiving game. If you should lose in battle, you just restart moments before you entered the battle, giving you the option run forward and fight again or head back and try a different strategy. No more restarting from your last save point (which, given the infrequency of save points in previous FF games could mean going back an hour or more). Also, if you should win a battle, all HP lost is immediately restored and all status ailments healed. This keeps the focus on the battle at hand and not on spending all of your Gil on potions. This feature went a long way to making the game fun instead of tedious.

Other FF games required you to level grind just to complete the game. This is not necessary (however it is still possible for those of you who just have to max out your character) in FF13. You level up using a Crystarium that you fill with Crystal Points that your earn from battle. As long as you keep leveling up the Paradigms that your characters start with and don't avoid too many battles, you'll never be too under powered to continue with the game. This eliminates another reason players would get stuck in previous FF games.

As for the presentation, which is the main reason why I play a FF game, FF13 is the best so far. I won't argue that the story is the best, but it isn't as bad as some have claimed. The cinematics and cut-scenes are gorgeous and truly a sight to behold. The graphics and animations are top-tier stuff, and the lip sync was even re-animated for the English dub. Speaking of, the dub is great. The voice work is what you would expect from modern day video games and anime. Is it Academy Award level? No, but for a Japanese game it works well. The entire game, from start to finish, is fully voiced, so no need to read subtitles (unless you like that). The music is also very good, with some memorable tunes that will get stuck in your head. The game is full of cut-scenes, so if you don't like cut-scenes, WHY THE HELL ARE YOU PLAYING A FINAL FANTASY GAME?

Overall this is an incredible package. The game is long (60-80 hours), gorgeous, and most of all fun. It is slightly easier than previous FF games, which I think is a plus. The price has come down considerably, so if you haven't picked this one up yet, now is the time.

If you have a choice between the PS3 or Xbox 360 version, pick up the PS3 version. The FMV runs in full 1080p and looks better than the low-rez video compression on the Xbox. Besides that, the games are identical.

My first impression of this game: it was horrible. It lived up to (or down to) the critics reviews that this really is a very basic game. (Note I am speaking in the past-tense.)

However, I am loyal despite failure. I stuck to Apple despite their blunder with the iPhone 4's tendency to randomly drop a signal. I stuck to Sony despite their tech suport gurus having me back up all my data for my PS3 before reformatting it with recent (undisclosed to me) warnings that the new format of the OS would make it impossible to retrieve said data. I stuck to the Cowboys as America's team despite a 2-x-1 season, and a horrible streak for years in a row between the late ninety's and the early first-decade of the second millennium. If that doesn't speak of loyalty despite failures, I don't know what does. So far, my loyalty has always paid off in the end. So I decided to stick to my loyalty with Final Fantasy, and even more so Square's (SquareSoft, Square Enix, etc.) RPGs and try my luck. Well, it paid off.

First of all, this review will contain no spoilers regarding the story line, with the possible (but unlikely) information you can get from reading the back cover of the game. It may contain gameplay spoilers, but that's why you're reading this review to see what the game is like. I could simply say, "I give it 5 out of 5 stars. It's a great game;" but you want to know why I think that, so I'll tell you.

First, the game does start off extremely basic. You don't have all the annoying, "Talk to this NPC so he can tell you exactly how to play an RPG" that you had to do with many early Final Fantasy games. That was an extreme relief. And throughout the game you do get a number of optional tutorials, some in-battle, which can all be skipped. Many of the in-battle tutorials (if not all) can be retrieved via text instructions from the main menu later on.

The first chapter there is no exploration at all. You walk down a straight path with a couple of [-shaped detours on the map for obstacles, with perhaps one treasure chest "hidden" at a dead end immediately before or after one of the bends. There are no avoidable battles (though thankfully no random battles!), no respawning mobs that I am aware of, no forks in the road, no way of going back once you have reached a waypoint... it is more linear than the first Super Mario Brothers for the NES! The graphics were extremely great, but the linearity was horrifying! There wasn't even anything resembling an experience point system. I thought I was in for a well-designed adventure game.

When the story starts out, you control Lightning, who is accompanied by Sazh. As far as the storyline goes, you have no clue what's going on. It's almost as clueless as the start of Chrono Cross. Two unintroduced characters start fighting after some amazing graphics showing a clueless storyline. Sazh is mainly an accompaniment at this point. You see in the menu that you may have an opportunity to change his equipment, but other than that, there is nothing you can do to him (from the then-present perspective).

Lightning isn't much different, though you do get to control her actions during battle. There is no hint at an experience point system, or even of levels, new abilities, or anything like that. You get a rating at the end of the battle, somewhat like Devil May Cry with a whole lot more technicalities, but there does not seem to be any means of advancement or meaning to this at this time.

Chapter 2 introduces a means of playing with new characters. I forget which characters you play with in which order, but you at first take the lead with Snow and with Vanille, though we really dont' know who they are and don't have much introduction to the story. So we see we get to control new characters, but that's it. Still very straight forward, although chapter 2 does introduce a few more turns (still dead ends) and loops in the map, all of which are still obvious and nearly unavoidable.

However, once chapter three rolled around, I realized there were more options, and I started to enjoy it a bit more. (This was probably a good 10 hours into the game.) In chapter 3, the role system is introduced. What this means is that Lightning has, for example at this point, a role of a Commando (mostly physical attacks). The battles you've been fighting you've been accumulating CP, Crystarium Points. Similar to Limit Points in Final Fantasy XI, these Crystarium Points can be used to further develop the individual roles of the character. Each new crystal in the Crystarium will either unlock a new ability, increase your attributes by a specific amount, or give ou an option to equip an additional accessory. Later to be introduced are also Role Levels, which simply improve the character's overal performance of the role, though it does not specify how. So there isn't an experience point system to level up your characters. Rather, there is a Crystarium Point system in which to add attributes, abilities, and accessories to your character. (The monsters all do have levels for some reason though. However, I have yet to examine this enough to ascertain its importance.)

One thing I find extremely nice is that there is no MP: magic can be cast at any time. Your HP is restored after every battle, and your TP (used for special abilities called techniques, such as libra or summoning, during battle) is slowly regenerated up to 5 points at the end of battles, and sometimes during battles. If you loose a battle and get a "Game Over," you can immediately retry and start up immediately prior to that battle without any loss of previous unsaved data (anything obtained such as enemy intel during that battle will have been lost). Also, every battle (including most if not all large battles) you can pause the game and hit select to "retry" the battle. It is the equivalent of escape, and never fails. I know it is available at the beginning of chapter 3. It may be available before that.

I believe it's at the end of chapter three that you get access to the workshop (my term, not a game term). Here you can upgrade your equipment, which does bring in an experience points system, though it is very much unrelated to the previous 12 games. It may be related to XIV, but I haven't played it yet, so I cannot determine that. Each mob drops treasure (hopefully). Some of this treasure are components for upgrading your equipment. Each component is worth so many experience points, plus it also has a positive or negative hidden multiplier value.

For example: 5 Sturdy Bones will increase the value of the following components (for that item only) by 25%. 36 Sturdy Bones will increase the value by 200%. The total increase of experience points is 200%, so you will have each experience point worth between 1x-3x of its original number of points for that item. All organic materials (bones, teeth, shells, etc.) will increase by a hidden amount. All mechanic materials (rings, conductors, etc.) will decrease the multiplier. Usually one mechanical item will drop the multiplier from 3x to 2x (the increments for all materials seem to be 1, 1.25, 1.5, 1.75, 2.0, 3.0). However, the value will never drop below x1.

Also in chapter 3 we get to play with Sazh, so we start to see that every main character that is in your party (at least up until Chapter 10; I don't know if there are any "guest members" after chapter 10) we will be able to play with. Another thing introduced here is a hidden reward system, where certain actions will change the rewards in treasure chests in events later in the chapter.

In chapter 4 the Crystarium is expanded and we see that each character will also be able to play different roles, eventually obtaining up to three roles each, and I believe a total of 6 roles:

The Commando is mainly physical attack, though it does employ magic. I believe it is more meant to incur single instances of physical damage.
The Sentinel is your tank, with no offensive abilities as of chapter 10 other than a counter attack.
The Ravager is mainly magical attack, I think, though it definitely is more like physical magic than your traditional Black Mage. I believe the Ravager is meant to increase chain attacks.
The Synergist casts offensive and defensive status enhancements and en- spells, adding a magical effect to physical attacks (plus a nice graphical enhancement of the weapons).
The Saboteur enfeebles your enemies.
The Medic is the healer, and as of yet can cast cure, esuna, and raise. Esuna removes the latest debeff from one of your party members.

There is also an "Erase" type spell to remove a buff from your enemies, though I don't recall the name or the role which casts it.

Each character has a different set of crystals for their role, and each character can develop different levels of roles. It is important to figure out which characters you want to develop at which role. My recommendations thus far are to max out Lightning as a Commando, Snow as a Sentinel, Vanille as a Medic, and Sazh as a Synnergist; though the player's guide has different recommendations, I will not mention the other 2 characters by name, as they come into the storyline later (one in chapter 2, one not a ways until later), but I'd recommend a Synnergist and a Medic for the former, and a Sentinel and Commando for the latter. (However, the latter's Saboteur role is very useful as well, and that is what I am focusing on.)

Also in chapter 4 there are hidden areas, which you have to do something later in the chapter to unlock something earlier on the map that isn't obvious. Another thing that is not outright obvious, though it is fairly common sense, is that most chapters and many waypoints, when you start off, go backwards a few feet on the map for a treasure sphere.

Late in chapter 9, all 6 members of the party are together and you finally get to decide who is party leader and who is in your party. Up until that point, the party leader and who was in the party was predetermined, with all 6 having been leader at some point, and a variety of combinations of members for the party. Even though you have 6 members in your party, only 3 can be active, and they cannot be switched during battle like they could in XII, nor can the leader be switched during battle as in Star Ocean The Last Hope. In addition, you only control the actions of the party leader, although an "auto-heal" or "auto-attack" option for the party leader is also available and frequently comes in handy. You do not have to do so, but using Libra or a Librascope on the enemy (only necessary once per enemy per game, not per battle) will allow the AI to take over when using auto-attack (as well as to control your characters). If you fail to use Libra, your other party member or two party members may cast spells that will heal the enemy.

In Chapter 11, from what I have heard, it ceases to become so much of a JRPG and more of an adventure RPG. Side quests become available, and places may be revisited. I'll try to update this review later after I have played through the entire game. So far, I am at 60 hours and three second at the beginning of chapter 10, the "midpoint in the storyline," but by far not the midpoint in the game.

The advantages of the battle system include an ATB gauge, which means you can perform so many actions at the same time. So far, each action takes 1 - 3 ATB gauge slots. If, for example, you cast Raise (3 slots) and then Cure (1 slot), the action will perform automatically when all four slots are full. If you want, you can hit ' on the PS3 to cut off the charging at any point, so that when 3 slots are full you can cast Raise and then move on to charging to use Esuna (2 slots) on another character rather than using up the 4th slot. When you start the game, you start with 2 slots. At chapter 10, most characters have 4 slots, and I believe soon I get a 5th.

Regarding the storyline, early on you find out there are 13 days preceding the start of the story, so events soon take on meaning. Also, in addition, in the datalog there are sections regarding these 13 days, the characters, myths, societal life, and many more things. This datalog is an evolving piece of work, with many additions and revisions to the 13 days, the characters, and events being added throughout the game. It will give you a flashing information icon when there is new information. I recommend checking it every time there is new information, as some of the information does change and cannot be reread later in the game. Most of it, however, is simply updated. I believe the only information that actually changes is on the characters, but I could be mistaken. Enemy intel is also available in the datalog. It will contain every enemy encountered, and will have a checkmark by it if you have used Libra on it. Make sure in the first 10 chapters that you have used Libra on every mob if you are a competionist, as you cannot go back in (or to) the first 10 chapters to refight. Sometimes this will necessitate using a LIbrascope on a boss fight in order to scan every enemy that you will only encounter once. Most of the time, I simply sell the Librascopes, but it is good to have 1 or 2 on hand.

Gil is not dropped, and is rarely found. You need to sell stuff to buy components to upgrade your weapons and accessories. The primary things to be sold are your premuim items: Credit Chips, Incentive Chips, Cactuar Dolls, Moogle Puppets, Tonberry Figurine, Plush Chocobos, Gold Dust, Gold Nuggets, and Platinum Ingots. These are near-worthless (worth 1 exp, no hidden multiplier value) as components, and are not consumable. They can be sold for 500 gil (quite a lot early on) to 150k gil. Never sell items that end with -ite unless you know you have the maximum you will ever need. They are somewhat rare drops/treasures, very expensive, and are the only items used for catalysts to upgrade your weapons or accessories past the ' level in order to get new or upgraded abilities.

The last thing to comment on is the Eidolons (formerly avatars, guardian beasts, etc.). Each eidolon is custom to one character. The eidolon can be summoned for TP (tactical points) gained at or during battles. They will fight alongside your lead character for a time or until their health is depleted, where they will return to their celestial place and allow your other party member(s) to return.

'''''Slight Story Spoiler'''''

In addition, the Eidolons adopted the popular Transformer cult mentality that has recently swept the stage in mainstream media. In addition to fighting alongside you, the god(dess/es) (such as Odin) can transform into a vehicle (such as a horse) upon which the character (in this case Lightning) can ride in order to perform super abilities. Shiva ceases to be a single goddess and becomes a duo of sisters who can transform into a motorcycle for (guess who!?) Snow. They're still the sexy goddesses from early Final Fantasy eras, but the ideology somewhat is altered. Some former Eidolons are mere gods in this story and cannot be summoned. It is uncertain as to whether or not Eidolons and Fal'Cie (such unsummonable gods and goddesses) are the same beings.

'''''End Spoiler Alert'''''

Now, I am an avid fan of the series, but I am even more so an avid fan of storyline games, and RPGs in general, not in sticking with the basics of Final Fantasy. I do not stick to the classic RPG genre. I don't even idolize Final Fantasy VII as one of the two greatest games in all history (I recognize the debate between Final Fantasy VII and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.) My rating of the mainline Final Fantasy goes in this order: XIII, XII, Chrono Trigger, X, X-2, VIII, VII, IX, III (on the DS), VI (never finished), V, II, I, IV (never finished). (I don't count XIV or XI in the mainline games, and I didn't get far enough into Chrono Cross to evaluate it, as I have had 3 copies crash on me shortly into the game, though I expect it would be somewhere between XIII and X-2.) My favourite game of all time is Star Ocean: The Last Hope International, followed by this one most likely, though I have not finished either yet. (I was 110 hours into Star Ocean: TLHI when I was told to reformat my PS3...)

So giving this game a 5-star review is not saying that it is a 5-star Final Fantasy game. The theology/philosophy of the game is significantly different than former games, and if thought about rather than just enjoyed, can be very disturbing. There's much more to this story that good vs. evil and a nobody becoming a hero surmounting impossible odds to become a magician capable of defeating an evil deity. In fact, if there is a good-vs-evil in this game, I have not yet figured out what it is. The heros are (mostly) nobodies of the former Final Fantasy era, but I don't even know if they know if they are good or evil, or if a good even exists (evil is albeit obvious). It doesn't rank with Devil May Cry, in that they are obviously evil attempting to undo that evil and be good, but throughout the story thus far it is unclear as to whether or not anything good truly exists. Even the ultimate goal of saving oneself or others can be misinterpreted as evil.

The gameplay obviously is not Final Fantasy. It is not even classic RPG. But it is RPG, and it is amazing. If you're looking for Final Fantasy VII, the only resemblance you will see is the icons (chocobos, eidolons, spell names (some), item names, etc.), and the violence. This is most definitely not classic Final Fantasy. It is not classic anything! But I hope it defines a new classic that 20 years from now we are modeling our RPGs off of.

As far as audience, I would recommend late teens or early adulthood. This game is very violent and very disturbing philosophically. The T rating is appropriate, given the ESRB standards, but I think ESRB standards are a little too low. It is not as violent as Final Fantasy VII, but it is not something I would want my 13- or 14-year-old kid playing, although I do let my 21-month-old watch frequently hoping he won't here all the violence. The violence is very vocal, but it is not bloody, and there isn't a lot of foul language. I don't recall seing any contorted bodies, although there is a picture in the guide of a main NPC with blood on his face (not very graphic). I recall hearing the "formal" words for "dang" and "heck" (I don't know if Amazon permits using the "formal" words) a few times, but that is it. I don't recall hearing "poop" ever, and had I heard the f-word, I would probably not have continued playing it. I actually don't recall hearing "god" either, or any other theologically slang curse words that can be disturbing to some.

Despite the lack of good-vs-evil, there are good messages in the game as well. If you know of someone who is holding a grudge, feels like they can't do something, or doesn't know the purpose of continuing their fight in life, (these are not inter-related), this is a game for them. I always like gleaning some sort of philosophical message from story games, and this is one that has a few of those.

Overall, like I said, I give it a 5-star review. Again, it's not classic Final Fantasy, nor is it classic RPG. Really, I think this game should define a new genre of games: the MRPG--movie role playing game. A lot of the game is cutscenes, and they are beautifully rendered. Actually, the whole game--music, FX, vocals, video, story, gameplay--is rendered beautifully. I no longer call this a video game when I'm talking to my son. I ask if he wants "to come watch Daddy play his Movie Game?" It's an advancement in technology, ingenuity, gameplay style, and storyline that should be appreciated; not because it is a classic, but because it will someday become one.