Review: Final Fantasy XIII

Release Date: JP: December 17, 2009, NA/EU: March 9, 2010

Developed By: Square Enix

Genre: RPG

Platforms: Playstation 3, XBOX 360

Platform Reviewed: Playstation 3

"It's easy to lose sight of things in a world as wide as this one, but if you keep going you're sure to find what you're looking for sooner or later." - Vanille, Final Fantasy XIII

In the 40 hours I spent playing through Final Fantasy XIII (or 13, if you prefer) I experienced what could only be described as mixed feelings. There were certain points in the game where I found myself unable to tear myself away and I was giddy at the thought of the next time I could get a good session in. At other times I had to will myself into loading up my save and pressing on to the next chapter. If I had to plot it on a graph I'd end up with a distinct trapezium, beginning with a slow ascent as I gradually learned to enjoy the game, peaking with a long line of highly entertaining gameplay and ending with a slow decline as I slogged through the final chapters.

This says one thing to me. To grow fond of this game takes effort. That first slope of the trapezium consists of tutorials and being handed each element of gameplay piece by piece. On beginning the game many players may be put off by the lack of options in combat and even the ability to level up. With leveling up being one of the main motivations for engaging in battles in RPGs, it was an odd decision by Square Enix to exclude this feature for the first couple of hours of the game, all for the sake of a learning curve.

I don't want to set the world on fire...

Thankfully, the story is able to draw you in right from the start. As in any good introduction you're dropped straight into the action and there's an immediate drive to find out just what's behind the chaos that's going on around you.

There's no question that this is a Final Fantasy game. As is tradition, a small group of heroes are thrown together by the starting events of the game and find themselves with the potential to alter the fate of the world. However, this time the protagonists are charged with the task of destroying the world rather than saving it. With the price of failure being transformation into mindless beasts and the way to success being the destruction of their home and everything they hold dear, to say our heroes are in a bit of a pickle is an understatement.

It's this plot point that kept me going through the early stages of the game. For roughly the first half of the game the characters are split into groups of two. This really allows you to get to know the characters as individuals as they each react in their own way to their new dilemma. It's genuinely interesting to see them interact with their partners and watch as their motivations are revealed. By the time the characters meet up again you'll have decided on your favourites and gained a desire to see them overcome their dire circumstances.

There's real growth to be observed in the characters too. While at first they appear to follow stereotypes such as the soldier who's all business and the hot-headed brawler with a flair for heroics, it's refreshing to watch them break away from their mould and become so much more intricate and as a result, likeable.

That's a shifty lookin' paradigm

If you continue to enjoy the story and put in the effort to get through the first portion of the game, you'll discover its next great element; the combat system. When fully unlocked it's one of the best the Final Fantasy series has ever seen. Players who might have yearned for a little more direct control over the combat in Final Fantasy XII will be happy to hear that Final Fantasy XIII has returned to its turn-based Active Time Battle roots.

The first time you see an auto-battle option you may find yourself concerned that the coming battles may turn out to be a little on the easy side and the fact that two out of three characters are AI controlled can only add to this worry. Thankfully, the battles become so fast-paced with quick decisions being constantly made that you come to depend on that auto-battle button.

This is thanks to the paradigm system. Paradigms are combinations of the various roles that your characters can assume. All of the staple RPG roles are here, including today's standard of damage-dealing, healing and tanking, along with support roles of buffing and de-buffing. The paradigm system allows you to set up several combinations of these roles and switch between them at will in the middle of combat. The rise in challenge as you progress towards the end of the game as well as a rating after each battle really gets you experimenting with different combinations and it becomes very apparent just how deep the system goes. There's a great sense of satisfaction when, after tweaking your paradigm setup, you achieve a full 5-star rating on a battle that you had previously struggled to even live through.

There has always been the type of RPG player that enjoys going further with a game's combat system and learning advanced tricks and techniques in order to master it. There's definitely room for that here as a little research on internet forums can reveal some of these techniques. While not required to finish the game, choose to master the combat system and you will consistently see 5-star ratings at the end of each battle resulting in a higher chance of obtaining the more rare and valuable items of the game. Along with this, you get the choice of how to level up your characters. Each has three of the game's six roles available as primary roles, but for a higher cost of experience points, secondary roles can be purchased for each character too. Need some extra healing? Give Snow some medic spells. Need to get your buffs up faster? Have Lightning take a few Synergist spells. There's a lot of potential for customisation.

A feast for the eyes and ears

Visually, Final Fantasy XIII is stunning. Square Enix's art team never fail to impress and as usual they've gone all out to make the game look as strikingly beautiful as possible. The FMV sequences once again show off some of the most impressive CGI you'll find on current technology. Something of note is how much smoother the visual transition between a playable section of the game and a FMV sequence is. While it is still obvious that the FMVs are better looking, the in-game graphics engine has been used to great effect, producing some awe-inspiring background scenery and well animated characters that are capable of displaying plenty of emotion. This results in a much smaller contrast between the two that has been present in previous Final Fantasy games.

Nobuo Uematsu is still missed as the main composer of the series but Hamauzu's score is competent and pleasing to the ear. Much of the music is an arrangement of the main theme, so repetition is present, but the theme is in keeping with the game's atmosphere. Those expecting a soundtrack on the epic scale of the older games in the series may be disappointed however, as there is nothing particularly memorable about Final Fantasy XIII's.

On the other hand, the voice acting is continuing to improve for the series and has come a long way since the awkwardly delivered speech of Final Fantasy X. The main characters' voice actors fit into their roles well. The only complaint I would have is that there's something not quite right about Vanille's accent as at first I couldn't even tell what it was supposed to be.

"All this dampness is damp." - Sazh, Final Fantasy XIII

So with all the positives in mind, why the mixed feelings? I'm sorry to say that even the peak of the enjoyment trapezium wasn't perfectly straight. This game has flaws, born out of choices made by Square Enix that appear to experimental but unfortunately, not to great success.

The first of these is the decision to limit the amount of storytelling through exposition. A growing trend in RPGs is the use of a journal or datalog to store extra information about the game's world, characters and important events. Final Fantasy XIII's datalog includes information about main plot points which is otherwise unavailable unless read. The story can be followed without ever opening the datalog but not to the full effect the developers intended. In a fast-paced, action packed game like this it feels wrong to have to stop and read at various intervals.

Another negative is the slow decline in enjoyment I experienced towards the end. It often felt like there were a few too many battles to get through before reaching the next cutscene. When I reached the next advancement of the plot it frequently followed with another long stretch of battles to plough through. Disheartening isn't the word.

Just can't wait to get off the road again...

But these are just niggles which could have been outweighed by the game's positive elements. The main problem that constantly disappointed was the complete linearity of it all. Until you get to one of the very late chapters there is no straying from the main path. You're locked into a routine of battles and cutscenes and while this may be true of any story-based JRPG, they've always done well to hide the fact with the chance to diverge from the main path and explore optional areas with extra rewards on offer. The feeling of adventure brought on by exploration is one of the main motivations for many RPG players and the lack of that here sometimes makes you wonder if you're just playing a battle-simulator with a narrative.

You do eventually have the chance to get involved in some side-questing but it becomes available much too late in the game. By that point I'd been playing for 25-30 hours and I just wanted to reach the end of the story. The idea of stopping and lengthening the game by another few hours just didn't seem appealing whereas if these side missions had been spread out through the entire game, I would have been much more motivated to complete them.

It almost feels like these were meant to be played primarily after the main game is completed, considering your characters are unable to reach their full potential, level-wise, until the final boss is defeated. The side missions themselves are fun once you're no longer feeling the eagerness to progress the story and I'm finding myself still playing the game after completion. For anyone that's looking to get trophies or achievements, many are tied to what you might call the end-game so at least in terms of having things to do, you get your money's worth.

Overall

Final Fantasy XIII is a game that RPG fans will want to look into while waiting for the next big game to be released. Despite the flaws, fans of the Final Fantasy series in particular are still going to be pulled in by the familiar style of world, characters, story and turn-based battling that they've warmed to over the last decade or two. Amongst claims that JRPGs are becoming stale, the evolution of the traditional turn-based battle system and a cast of characters that break away from the stereotypes of the past are refreshing to see. It's just unfortunate that issues with linearity and pacing are the only things holding this game back from being truly outstanding.

Rating: 7/10