Final Fantasy 13 Review for PS3 and Xbox 360

     Two words: Profound Disappointment. That doesn't mean that the game is a complete and utter failure, it just didn't live up to anyone's expectations of what would be another entry into the main Final Fantasy series. I also never finished the game. I was able to hit 45-50 hours and I ended up taking a break from it. Now, I just don't care to go back and finish it. Here's your review:

Gameplay

+ Prepare for combat! - Here's basically the one aspect about FF13 that's actually so more-than-decent that the majority of it's shortcomings can be overlooked. Think back to the old turn-based Final Fantasy's and then think about only having control of one character, all of the other party members are AI-controlled. *sigh* Now that I think about it, this system is going to need a lot of explanation.
     The first step is setting up the character you control. You'll never really specifically control this character, not because you can't but because it feels pointless and redundant given how well the auto-battle command works. When you use libra on an enemy, it scans them telling you how the enemy works and what it's weaknesses are. Now all of your party, and your character when auto-battling, will zero in on that monster's weaknesses, taking it down as fast as possible.
      The second step is the chain-gauge. It's similar to the way you try to dizzy your opponent in a fighting game. You max out the chain-gauge through attacks and debuffs. Melee attacks will only raise the bar by slivers but it slows the draining of the gauge. Magic attacks will raise the gauge extremely fast and in very large amounts but all of that effort tends to go away quickly. The trick is to temper the gauge with melee attacks so that it drains slowly and then use magic to fill it. When the gauge is maxed the enemy will be staggered leaving them susceptible to attack interruptions and with less defense.
     The third step is playing the paradigms. Usually you have your characters that are mages, tanks, healers, etc and they never really change roles. With paradigms, you can change any character's role at anytime. Imagine trying to stagger the enemy with a melee, magic, magic paradigm but your party is being crushed HP-wise. You would want to switch to a tank, heal, buff paradigm to protect your party. After you're all healed, you may switch back to your melee, magic, magic paradigm to finish the enemy off.
     So to put all of these steps together will give better insight towards what the fighting is like. Scan the enemy, try to stagger the enemy as fast as possible with an offensive pradigm, change the paradigm should the situation call for it, and then finish off the battle. It feels great going into a challenging battle and executing all of the right paradigms at just the right times to walk away with the victory.


+ Paradigm for your thoughts? - Customizing paradigms was extremely fun for me. I love being able to customize my gameplay, being able to play the way that I want to and not the way I'm expected to. And thank goodness it's not the latter because all of the paradigms you're given automatically usually suck the hardest. It's just a lot of fun thinking of all the possible situations I can get to in a battle and creating paradigms to get me out of the unwanted ones. It's simple but complex at the same time. Paradigms are definitely a move in the right direction for the series and I'd love to see it utilized in future titles.

= Experiencing technical difficulties... - The fact that you can't control or even guide what the other members of your party do during battle is a large over-sight. If I need to stay on a defensive paradigm for a while and one of my characters are supposed to buff the party, they'll only buff the party once and wait till the buff wears off to rebuff. While they wait for that buff to go away, they just stand there doing nothing. How helpful is rebuffing compared to nothing? Answer: Incredibly.
     Also, if you have two melee characters they will never attack the same enemy if there's more than one. It's never really a problem per se but it sucks when I need to kill a staggered enemy quick and I need those two to attack the same thing to finish it off. Everything about the battle system seems to be revolving around players that aren't good at games but really, the gameplay is actually kinda complex for new players and it costs the more experienced players control over situations that could be fixed with the smallest of all control tweaks. Instead, we're forced to sit through a bad situation from the lack of control. With a lot of hardcore games finding ingenious ways to include the less experienced gamers, there's no excuse for Square Enix, a company of such great pedigree, to let these problems (and other problems I didn't get into) go unfixed.


= The crystal method - You don't gain experience, you gain crystarium points or CP. CP is used to purchase skills and stat upgrades for your character. It works akin to the sphere system in Final Fantasy 10, you purchase upgrades on a certain path and when that path is completed, more paths open up to you. Normally I like systems like this but it doesn't feel executed in a graceful way.
     You will almost always have enough CP to purchase all of your skills in the crystarium which really doesn't lend to a feeling that you are building these characters around the way that you play. Then, instead of keeping characters limited to the first 3 classes open to them, every character eventually gains access to the skills of every known class which cost buttloads of CP. So much CP, you almost can't comprehend how you'll obtain what's required.
     How could this be fixed? Make every class branch, limiting every character to two classes, and make better ascending costs for skills. It's like Square Enix went, "Alright, we're forcing them to use the characters the way we want... Oh, we should give them some choice. Well, we can't really do that so let's just give the player a bunch of incompatible classes for their characters." It's a thin veil and it feels cheap when you notice how the trick is done. But hey, I like these kind of experience systems and I had fun with it in the beginning.

- It's my party and I'll make it how I want to! - Huge problem for me here. You have 7 characters. How should the game proceed? Apparently by forcing you into two-people parties or by choosing a group for you that would be more likely to hinder than help you. I feel that the most fun you can have from an rpg is making your own parties.
     Two-person parties (which account for basically 70% of the game) make the fighting stale. You know what the outcome will be, you'll always be able to predict enemy reactions, it's just less dynamic overall and that's no fun at all. When there are three person parties, the battles become dynamic. You can make more diverse paradigms, you have to account for abnormal situations, and on top of that, if you're able to make the characters to your own specifications, you feel more responsible for your victory; You're the one that made a difference in who did or didn't die out on the battlefield. The fact that your hand is gripped tightly till what is essentially the end of the game, robbing you of choice in all aspects distances you not only from the gameplay, but from the story and the characters themselves. Personally, I feel like these things are a crime.


- Walking the line - Linearity is crushingly boring in this game. Everything from enemies to treasure is laid out in front of you as the only option you have when it comes to travel is forward. It causes the game to feel one dimensional; Nothing feels natural and the structure of the game feels transparent as you begin to realize a pattern: Go forward, fight, forward, cutscene, forward, repeat, repeat, boss, high-resolution cutscene. It's not very motivating and it just becomes boring. Linearity normally isn't a bad thing in video games but it certainly kills this game.


- It was custom made! - Upgrading weapons in Final Fantasy is like asking a farmer to build you a computer. He's gonna have the most confused look on his face. Why? Because he obviously doesn't know anything about computers but you're trying to tell him he knows and he's just trying to play dumb to get out of it. Ok, maybe that comparison sucked but so does the weapon and accessory upgrade system! It's never really clear when you should upgrade, how useful it is, and which items out of the plethora are best to use since you can use any and all for upgrading. Gee, thanks Square Enix!


- Don't touch me! - It's extremely clear that Square Enix built this game for RPG first-timers. They just did it completely wrong. Things are too complex for noobies. They ease you into the gameplay mechanics extremely slow but really, if a new player doesn't get bored in the beginning of the game, they're just going to give up when the game demands more speed and thought. And how does this serve the vets? Well we get stuck in bang-your-head-against-the-wall boring and repetitive actions, praying to the deities of gaming that the game STOPS HOLDING OUR HAND and lets us play the game our way!
     Honestly, if you want to consider the new-comers, you need to find more artificial ways to help them out. Make the battles turn based, ease up on complexity and turn up the fun in just performing one action over and over. Turning your game into a half-baked thought does not bode well for your reputation.

Story and Presentation

+ Yep, it's a Final Fantasy game - You know it is when the menus are sharp and the visuals all look like they came from a world where everything is made of glass and costs more than what your life is worth. If you've been dying for the usual Final Fantasy style, it's definitely present here and you'll feel right at home.

= Do I sense flattery? - I can't help but feel like Square Enix was trying to make a fully realized world like Mass Effect by utilizing an encyclopedia filled with information on the setting of their story. It's probably because that was the last RPG I finished that I felt super connected to just because of all the information you are given. Unfortunately for Final Fantasy, it doesn't really add to the context of anything. Essentially all of the entries in its encyclopedia are flat and obvious. It's like saying, "Yes that cow is indeed a cow," and then adding "You may also notice that it is white with black spots." It was a nice try though. I'd enjoy it more if it felt like more effort had been given.


= How could you be so shallow? - The characters of Final Fantasy just feel one dimensional. I did enjoy certain situations they were put in and there were moments that evoked emotion but there was nothing really making any of them likable or interesting. Each of their personality developments happened at a sloth's pace. In the end, nothing really made you care much about what was going to happen to the characters. I very easily was able to drop the story and not care about what happened next. I probably will go back and play the last chapters of the game at some point but it's anyone's guess as to when. 

- The environments are bland - One thing I liked about the Final Fantasy franchise was the aesthetics of their worlds. Now while some of the environments can be pretty, they're just lacking. I don't know if it's detail or personality that's missing but something is and that disappointed me.

- I am become Vanille, bringer of death - I can't express how much I can't stand Vanille which is weird for me because I like the comedic relief characters in serious stories. They're also not something unfamiliar to the franchise but somehow they totally missed the mark with Vanille. Her voice is agitating and she doesn't gain any personality until late in the game. She reminds me of a dog, talking and acting only in exclamations, not full sentences. Example: 


Sazh: "We lost their trail. We can't save'em anyway, we should just run!"


Vanille: "Omigosh!!!11!!1 A RAINBOW!!!!!" *runs toward the rainbow giggling incessantly*


Sazh: "You're right. We gotta keep trying, moving forward. Maybe we can save them after all..."


     I began enjoying her when she finally started gaining depth but dear God, she's such an empty character for so long!

Graphics

+ Are you the real deal? - The graphics in Final Fantasy 13 are very pleasing. I definitely can't mark it as an equal or a minus but I will say that I guess I was expecting more. Since the release of the PS3, we've seen very pretty games. The graphics just didn't really blow me away or anything. It is hard to tell the difference between the high-res cutscenes from the in-game cutscenes which is impressive. I think the real reason behind it is not because of the graphics, but rather the very detailed animations of the characters.
     In my Heavy Rain review, I named a couple of games regarding their ability to lend believability to their characters and this Final Fantasy was one of them. The character animations are incredible. The way they move and physically show emotion comes off as real and extremely natural. I think Square Enix has always been that company that raises the bar when it comes to graphical capabilities. Instead of raising the bar graphically this time around though, it seems they've stepped it up when it comes to animation and the fluidity of action. Developers should strive for these kind of visuals.

Sound

= I've heard it all before - Nothing real great in terms of sound. Certain noises lack oomph, some noises don't sound like they should. Don't play this game expecting to be immersed into the game through sound effects.

- You ain't no Nobuo Uematsu - This is a minus not because the music was terrible per se, it's just not up to usual Final Fantasy standard. You don't even need to be Nobuo Uematsu to make good Final Fantasy music! The guy who did FF12's soundtrack did a great job. Whoever they got for FF13 wasn't the best choice when it came to composers. The music is bland and when there were good songs, they ended up being ruined by terrible pop vocals and lyrics.


- KLOMP! KLOMP! KLOMP! - That's the sound of your character walking. It oddly stands out above everything else in the game and it's damn annoying when you have to hear it all the damn time.

Should you buy it?

     I'd have a hard time recommending a purchase. If you've never been into Final Fantasy, don't play it. If you're interested in starting the Final Fantasy series, don't start with this one. If you love Final Fantasy, rent it.
     I've been seeing some more than decent scores being given out for the game and I really don't get it. There's so much charm and personality missing from this game, not to mention all of the mistakes that were made with the gameplay. Maybe people have some kind of allegiance to Square Enix and they refuse to say anything negative about it. There are reviewers who agree with me. I'm certainly not the only one that thinks Final Fantasy was a misstep for the series.
     I honestly don't know what happened to make Final Fantasy 13 such a disappointment, I just hope it doesn't happen to Final Fantasy Versus 13. That's one game I'm really looking forward to. Let's hope for the best.

P.S. My apologies if this review was tough to read from a literary perspective. I haven't written anything in a while. Here's to more reviews in the future!

Final Fantasy XIII was developed and published by Square Enix for the PS3 and the Xbox360. Played the game on the PS3 for 67 hours before not caring anymore.