Final Fantasy XIII

Sure took me a long to complete this game. I've had it seen it was released back in March and was playing it randomly since then. I haven't played too many of the games in the main Final Fantasy series, just III, X, X-2, and the beginning of XII. At the end of the day I liked this one but I have to say that your opinion on Final Fantasy XIII will depend greatly on your ability to like the story, or rather its storytelling method. Like every Final Fantasy game since VII, XIII’s storytelling is derived from anime, and if you don’t like anime for its melodrama, long winded dialogue, and over exaggerated movement, I don’t think you’ll be too happy when the characters start spouting extemporaneous prose posing as conversation at each other like a couple of professional wrestlers cutting a promo in the middle of a ring. This style of storytelling derives from the theatre of ancient Greece, where the primary purpose of their morality plays was further development of their characters, and it is here where XIII’s story truly shines.

As for the gameplay, the first thing that has to be brought up is that the level design is extremely linear. Actually, The first 60% of XIII isn’t just linear, it’s a straight line. There’s very few branching paths to speak of, and the ones that are there aren’t very big. Chapters one through twelve are designed for two things: to tell you a story and to train you how to fight. This sounds like a long tutorial, and it somewhat is, but there’s not a lot of downtime. You’re constantly learning new things, developing the story, changing locales, and you are always moving forward and never backward. It gets kinda boring, but once you hit chapter thirteen, that all changes. Suddenly you’ll be in a big open world with all the optional areas, side quests, and treasure that you were looking for most of the game. This is where Final Fantasy XIII the game really starts to live up to its potential. It's a shame then that you can't fight everything you see, because the difficulty of some of the random enemies suddenly spikes, which brings me to my next point: Final Fantasy XIII's difficulty is a very random. I frequently destroyed my opponents for a bulk of the game's routine encounters and suddenly found myself outclassed by the time I reached the second half of the game.

The combat doesn’t get off to the same blistering speed as the story does, as the game spends the first ten or so hours slowly feeding you the basics of the battle system and this is a good thing, as throwing the unique and complex mechanics at once could’ve been too much to handle for some. In a first for the series, you only have control over the party leader, and instead of micromanaging what each character does, any point during combat, you can initiate a paradigm shift to change the role that each character plays in battle. The combinations of classes your characters can be at any given time are limited to pre determined commands that you can select in the options menu before battle. It's certainly a unique combat setup, but the only downside that the game ends whenever you leader is knocked out, regardless of the status of the other two party members. It's annoying, but it just another of a few small flaws in an otherwise solid game. The JRPG genre has been one that has been starving for innovation and a refreshing change of pace, and Final Fantasy XIII is certainly that. Its originality derives from its streamlined nature and its no-nonsense approach to progression. I've played better RPGs than this and though I can't compare it to other entries in the series, it gets the job done.