(Note: I am only up to the fourth part of Chapter 12)
Final Fantasy XIII is a first in the series of sorts - like Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy X, it is the first original Final Fantasy game for the generation of consoles it debuted in. Unlike the two, it's also the first Final Fantasy ever to be multiplatform on a localized release, as it came out on the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360 in NA (it was Playstation 3-exclusive in Japan, though). It's also the first numbered Final Fantasy game, in my memory, to garner so much negative response – I don’t think Final Fantasy X-2 was subject to this amount of wrath.
The story revolves around a group of people branded as l'Cie... okay, let's use semi-normal terms. The story revolves around a group of people branded as monsters (l'Cie) by inhuman beings known as Fal'Cie. When this happens, they are given a task, called Focus, through vague visions and dreams. They must either complete this task and become a crystal, which "grants eternal life", or fail it and become a Cie'th, which is sort of a shambling zombie, by not doing their Focus in an arbitrary amount of time. Now in the world of Cocoon, being a l'Cie is considered a curse - the people see it as contagious, and no one wants to have a random, vague task wherein his or her life depends on. They are hunted down mercilessly and killed (though publicly the government says they're being sent away to Pulse, the world below). The game stretches and twists this concept into 13 chapters by adding a lot of travelling and intrigue. It seems simple, but remember: Final Fantasy X's story is defeating an age-old monster by summoning the Final Aeon. If you didn't know better it could be defeating a giant T-Rexaur by summoning a pallet-swapped Bite Bug.
The character you could consider as the "main" character in this game is Lightning, a female version of Cloud who holds Squall's gunblade. Her sister, Serah, was branded a l'Cie, and so she carries out a plan to rescue her. However, she accidentally gets branded as a l'Cie in the process, along with five other people. And so the journey starts.
Aesthetically, FFXIII is like every other Final Fantasy game. It looks breathtaking in its generation. FFXIII particularly is very much like FFX in this sense - it's colorful, it's a giant leap above its predecessors, and it makes you say "holy crap this was a CG movie last gen". The difference in the CG cutscenes and the in-game cutscenes are really negligible, too.
The music, likewise, is superb. It doesn't get drilled into your brain like Uematsu music, but I would have to say it's a fresh and welcome deviation. I like Snow's Theme in particular, and the normal battle music, Blinded By Light, is worthy enough of being the boss battle theme.
Who am I kidding? You already know of those. A Final Fantasy with bad graphics and horrible music? No way! Let’s get to the point(s).
In my previous post, I gave descriptions and opinions on the numbered Final Fantasy games I’ve completed (basically those from the PS1 generation onwards). While I didn’t put all of details for each game, I think everything we’ll use that I said can be grouped into the following:
1.) The freedom/linearity
2.) The battle system
3.) The leveling system
4.) The characters
5.) The summons
6.) The world
I did neglect to mention some factors, like the PS1 FF’s all using the ATB, but I didn’t feel the need to mention them, as those are minor changes from past FFs. Let’s do a quick recap using the above items for each game.
Final Fantasy VII
The freedom/linearity: Linear in the beginning, slowly shifting to freedom; travel by walking and a variety of vehicles, plus chocobo
The battle system: Uses ATB gauge, “Materia System” provides all non-attack/Limit Break commands, Limit Breaks require charging;random battles
The leveling system: Character Levels and Materia Levels used – Materia provide better stats and spells when levelled
The characters: Cloud is the clear main protagonist, and cannot be removed from party unless separated; several points of “party separation” exist
The summons: In the form of material; cast as spells anyone can use
The world: Many NPCs; shops in towns; save in save points; mini-games concentrated in a single area
Final Fantasy VIII
The freedom/linearity: Semi-linear in the beginning, quickly shifting to freedom; travel by walking, cars, or trains, and airships, and chocobos
The battle system: Uses ATB guage; Spells drawn from enemies; Guardian Forces, or GFs, provide all non-attack Limit Break commands; Limit Breaks are perpetually accessible (barring status effects);random battles
The leveling system: Character Levels and GF Levels used – GF have better HP when leveled, and can also learn abilities to augment their growth; Characters need to junction spells to improve stats and resistances
The characters: Squall is the clear main protagonist, and cannot be removed from party unless separated, using the secondary party, or in the final dungeon; several points of “party separation” exists; secondary party of outside character also exist
The summons: Summoning replaces the summoner’s HP with the GF’s HP, and all actions done to that summoner is done to the GF instead. Summoning is cancelled when GF’s HP reaches zero (summoner unaffected). Characters can only summon GFs junctioned to them.
The world: Many NPCs; shops and upgrades in towns or through GF abilities; saves in save points and overworld;Triple Triad card game available literally minutes into the game
Final Fantasy IX
The freedom/linearity: Semi-linear in the beginning, slowly shifting to freedom; travel by walking, water and air vehicles, or chocobo (land/water/air)
The battle system: Uses ATB; Spells and abilities are restricted to specific characters; Limit Breaks/Trance require recharging but are usable multiple times;random battles
The leveling system: Character levels used for everything; abilties learned from items, requires mastering to be independent from equipping item;
The characters: While each character has his or her different story, Zidane’s tale is arguably the one tied most to the story, and he cannot be removed from the party unless separated; character separation happens often early in the game and in long sequences, then rarely later on
The summons: Cast as spells; Limited to two characters
The world: Many NPCs; shops and forgers in towns; saves in moogles and save points; an absurd amount of mini-games available, both location-specific and otherwise
Final Fantasy X
The freedom/linearity: As linear as linear can be – There is no overworld, only a world map that dictates where the airship can bring the characters
The battle system: Conditional Turn-Based System, or CTB, lets characters take turns without interruption; Limit Breaks, or Overdrives, need recharging, are single-use, and can be transferred (the charge, that is) to others using abilities; abilities are restricted in the beginning, but all characters eventually gain the ability to learn everything later on;random battles
The leveling system: Sphere Grid System gives characters a linear but branching way of learning abilities and improving their statistics.
The characters: Tidus and Yuna are the main protagonists; all characters can be replaced in combat and even during combat
The summons: Only usable by one character; replaces all party members when summoned; can also use overdrives
The world: Many NPCs; shops in towns and some dungeons, saves in save points; Blitzball accessible in a town or in save points; all other mini-games and quests are location-specific (except capturing monsters)
Final Fantasy X-2
The freedom/linearity: Same “world” as FFX; game broken down by mission, but side-missions can be taken at any time the game permits, giving a sense of faux-freedom
The battle system: Uses ATB gauge; spells and abilities are restricted to jobs, or Dresspheres, which can be changed during battle; actions can be interrupted;random battles
The leveling system: Uses character levels; spells and abilities learned from Dresspheres
The characters: Yuna is the clear main protagonist;No switching of party members
The summons: There are no summons, although each charcter has a special Dressphere that, when used, removes all other party members for the duration
The world: Many NPCs; shops in towns; saves in save points; Most mini-games available only later on in the game
Final Fantasy XII
The freedom/linearity: While the story is fairly linear, the world is basically a “single-player MMORPG”; dungeons are linear but the outside world is vast and teeming with life
The battle system: Uses ATB gauge and Gambit System, which provides for prioritized actions as determined by the player;Only one character can be controlled at a time, with everyone else following their set Gambits; enemies are fought on the field; Limit Breaks, or Quickenings, eat up MP “nodes” and can be chained
The leveling system: Uses character levels; abilities and equipment usable only if the corresponding license from the License Grid, a chessboard version of the Sphere Grid, is learned;
The characters: There is no clear main protagonist; no specific character’s story is tied to the overall plot
The summons: Like quickenings in terms of cost; replaces other party members except for the summoner when used; moves independently in the initial version of the game; need to be learned from the License Grid, and only one character may learn a specific summon;
The world: Exactly like an MMORPG, with the ability to quickly travel using special save crystals or airships; shops in towns; saves in save points; the few mini-games are location-specific
Let's see how Final Fantasy XIII fits in.
The freedom/linearity:
This game is just as linear as Final Fantasy X, except for one big difference –you will not be able to backtrack to any area at all save for one. Right before and after the endgame, you will be able to return to FFXIII’s equivalent of FFX’s Calm Lands – Gran Pulse, which is first available in Chapter 11 (out of 13 chapters). For the most part, though, enjoy the scenery while you can – you won’t be seeing it again.
Luckily, the game gives you ample time to enjoy the multitude of environments, ranging from ancient ruins to technological forests to futuristic metropolises and ruined towns (don’t get your hopes up). To reach Gran Pulse, it will take you at least 15 hours to do so (it took me around 29 – I think the consensus is that the average is 15-25). And since there are no actual tows, those hours will be completely spent on fighting and watching cutscenes. You can expect the general flow of the game to be “Cutscene -> Battles -> Cutscene -> Battles -> Cutscene -> Boss -> Cutscene -> Game-Offered Save -> Repeat”. Keep your energy drinks handy.
The battle system:
The battle system is very similar to Final Fantasy X-2's - instead of Dresspheres, you have six unique roles to work with: the Commando, this game's DPS role; the Ravager, which increases the Stagger meter (more on that later) faster than the others and is key to dealing punishment; the Medic which, as its name suggests, is a healer; the Sentinel, which serves as a damage sponge; the Synergist, which provides for positive buffs; and the Saboteur, the antithesis of the Synergist, specializing in negative buffs. Each character initially specializes in three primary roles, but later on you get to learn the other roles as well - just not in the same capacity as the main ones. The combinations of these Roles are called Paradigms. Unlike FFX-2, you don't change a specific character's role per se - you change the roles of all party members. Of course, you can set two Paradigms to be completely identical save for one character and call it "changing one member's role", but it's a waste of space more often than not, as you only have six Paradigm slots to work with. Also, the Paradigm List is reset whenever you change your party's composition, so you better keep your favorite Paradigms handy as the game does not record them.
Combat is done by giving your party leader a set of commands to perform. You have a limited number of slots with which to work with every turn, similar to Legend of Legaia, and some actions use up more than one slot. When the ATB gauge fills up (regardless of whether you used up all the slots or not), the characters will perform the indicated actions – dictated by the player for the party leader, and predetermined by the AI for the other party members. Yes, that's right, like Final Fantasy XII, you only control the party leader. Unlike FFXII, though, you don’t determine how the other members act. There is also no MP – Abilties and Magic are the same.
You also can't change members of the battle team mid-fight, and when your party leader dies, it's game over. If you’ve played Persona 3 or 4, you’ll be familiar with this.
Here's another similarity with Final Fantasy XII - you see the enemies on the field, and bumping into them starts the battle. You can consider it like FFX-2 plus FFXII in this sense. If a battle proves to be difficult, you can choose to retry and be sent back moments before you bump into the monster (or in cases of boss battles, in the safe area right before the battle starts). You can then choose to change your party layout and Paradigms (in case you "forget" to do so before reattempting a boss fight, the game automatically opens the menu for you prior to the rematch) to improve your chances of surviving. Sounds like the game is a cakewalk, right? Wait till you see bosses with HPs in the hundred thousands around a fourth into the game. Oh, and the game also offers the choice to retry when you die in battle, so there is actual “Game Over” in the game.
Upon finishing a battle, you are given a rating of one to five starts depending on how fast you finish the battle relative to the target time. This determines whether you get items from the fight or which items you get for it, and also somewhat determines the amount of Technical Points or TP (for special skills and summons) you get – to be specific, the actual score determines the TP. The target time is dictated by your current strength (particularly the level of your weapons) and the enemy composition. You also get CP (no, not the illegal kind of CP… Crystogen Points), which is unaffected by the ranking you get, which you use to improve your characters. This leads us to:
The leveling system:
The CP you earn is used on the game’s Crystarium, which is very similar to FFX’s Sphere Grid – at least, in terms of appearance. What it really works like is FFXII’s License Grid –instead of levels, each node is either an HP, an MP, a Magic, a Strength, or an Ability node, is worth a set amount of CP. In structure, though, it’s more like a Fishbone instead of a grid – there is only one main path, with some nodes branching out up to three levels, but it never splits to more than two paths. This system is more linear than the Sphere Grid in the sense that it really is impossible to deviate from the growth the game intended you to take. The closes you can get to “defying” this is to get stats and abilities from the secondary roles, but this can prove to be a waste as the Crystariums for the secondary roles tend to be very expensive with minimal returns. Since the time I’ve gotten access to these, I’ve only done this for one character, and only to get Cure so I can use a specific Paradigm.
If you think the system isn’t bad at all since you can just grind, well… in truth, you can’t. The game limits your growth at specified points in the game, so you will never be overpowered at any point in the game. While this can be an annoyance (I have seen many people give up on certain bosses), it can also be seen as a challenge.
What did I forget to mention? Oh yeah – there are no Limit Break-esque attacks for the characters, unless you consider the special moves you get near the end of the game (Army of One for Lightning, Death for Vanille, etc).
The characters:
In the characters I see a vague reflection of Final Fantasy IX. Each character has his or her own story to tell and the game provides arcs for each of them, but the main characters for me are Lightning and Snow. I believe this to be true solely because they are related to the main focus of the first part of the game, though I probably should reserve my opinions, as I haven’t actually completed the game yet. In a sense, this again is reminiscent of FFX and FFXII combined.
The summons:
Summons, or Eidolons, are called upon in a similar fashion as in FFXII. When you call an Eidolon (which consumes 3 TP), all party members except for the summoner are removed from the battle temporarily. Rather than a bar of life, though, the Eidolons have SP gauges, which get depleted over time, whenever they attack, and whenever they get attacked; and a separate Gestalt Gauge, which replaces the summoner’s TP bar display, and gets filled over time. This gauge determines how long your Eidolon can spend in Gestalt Mode.
In Gestalt Mode, the Eidolons transform into their secondary forms (Alexander becomes a fortress, for example). In this form they are free to perform various moves that cost a varying number of points to perform. The total number of points available is determined by how much the Gestalt Gauge was filled. When these points are depleted, the Eidolon can then perform one final finishing move before leaving and returning the normal battle team.
Eidolons have two actual uses - One is to shield you from attacks that would otherwise kill you outright. Two is to refresh your entire party after contributing some considerable damage against the enemy.
When you summon an Eidolon during mid-animation of an attack, you will notice that it is immediately cut off. Congratulations, your Eidolon just saved you from death. This is doubly useful as only your Party Leader can summon an Eidolon, and only the death of the Party Leader is needed for the game over screen. Also, when you die while your Eidolon is out, you will be healed to full, along with your entire party. At the worst, summing your Eidolon is like a better Renew (a Technique that revives and heals your party considerably) that's more expensive by just 1 TP. At best, it's a full Renew that dishes out a decent amount of damage for 1 TP more. I believe that, overall, the Eidolon System of FFXIII is relatively more useful than in other games.
The world:
There are no towns and barely any NPCs. The shops and blacksmiths are in save points. This, coupled with the linear nature of the game, is the reason why Final Fantasy XIII receives so many negative comments. The only towns you see in the game are either 1.) small areas in flashbacks and cutscenes, or 2.) War towns where all you do is fight. You will not find any place to take a break here, and all you need to do, you will do in save points. You will shop for items in savepoints. You will upgrade your equipment in save points. For all intents and purposes the save points are basically towns without people.
As the game doesn’t allow you to backtrack much, the mini-games (if you can call them mini-games) are concentrated on Gran Pulse. Digging with chocobos, hunting down Marks a-la FFXII’s are this game’s choice of sidequests. Again, there might be some that I haven’t reached yet given my current completion level of the game, but can you guess what’s fundamentally wrong with this system?
It’s time.
When were you able to play in the Gold Saucer? Disc 1. When were you able to start playing Triple Triad? Literally within minutes of playing the game. Chocobo Hot and Cold? You make good progress in Disc 1 as well. Blitzball? Not so early, but you get to play it almost all the time. This is the problem with Final Fantasy XIII – not just with its mini-games, but also with the actual gameplay.
It takes a lot of time for you to get to the good part, and during that time the game will torture you to the point that it makes you want to just stop playing completely.
I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one with this problem – to put it bluntly, the parts where you can only use Vanille and Sazh are the parts that completely and utterly suck. Neither can completely support the team like Lightning, Snow, or Fang can, and their combination is just horrible. Is it a placebo effect, since they can almost do the same things Lightning and Hope can? No. Both of their normal attacks have horribly long animations. As a Commando, Sazh doesn’t have Launch so you lose half of the rewards for staggering an enemy, which is not getting hit by it. This part makes you long to have Lightning back, but at the same time this is also an exercise in frustration.
Another point I’d like to raise, and one I don’t completely agree with, is the single button combat. In the early parts of the game and during most random encounters, you can win battles just by letting the computer choose the best move for whatever role you currently are using. This doesn’t always lead to the best results, but if you’re already tired and stressed out and you just want to get this part over with, why bother? To me, this part is what separates the people who want to play and the people who just want to play. If you take the time to enjoy the intricacies of combat, chances are your action button presses will be a good combination of confirm, and L1. L1 is the button for Paradigm Shift, which lets you switch roles in mid-combat as stated earlier. This is imperative in order to survive in latter boss fights, as well as to maximize the rewards for battle.
To be fair, let’s see the most efficient combat tactics for the other games. I have ordered it from the most “single button combat-ness” to the least:
FFXII - Actually you just have to press whatever direction points to the next area
FFVIII - There is nothing worth doing in combat other than using the Lionheart you got in Disc 1 or Armageddon Fist that Zell has from the start
FFX - You press confirm and do 99999 for every two button presses
FFVII – Use Materia to do multi-hit attacks
FFXIII - Have fun killing bosses with Relentless Assault alone
FFIX - You either use long animations to abuse Regen or use the plethora of 9999 abilities to finish the game fast
Short Actual Review:
Did I sound negative in that last part? I guess. Do I think the game is bad? No, but I think that's my very forgiving side.
Yes, the game is as linear as a straight edge. Do I think this is a fault? No. You have to consider the premise of the game. You are fugitives. The government is out to get you. How do you expect to take a break in a peaceful town in this futuristic setting where the government has a complete grasp of everything in the world? You just can’t. This was shown to you in Palumpolum if you just pay attention to the story.
The game did have a chance to give you one, though – once you reach Gran Pulse, everything could have been undone, but no. The creators still didn’t give you the town you wanted. I don’t know if this was a story decision (which actually makes half-sense) or if they just went “Oh, we didn’t have towns until this part of the game, let’s not break our streak”. Personally I think it could’ve gone either way – problem was they chose the way that was worse.
I actually like the combat in this game. Final Fantasy X-2’s was my favorite because it was fast-paced, active, and fun. You weren’t stuck with six people whose only differences are their Limit Breaks. While having the same Dresspheres in FFX-2 isn’t exactly a disadvantage, in FFXIII it is not advisable to stay in the same roles all the time. Yes, having three Ravagers and doing preemptive attacks all the time can work well, but for stronger enemies that can’t be taken down in a single round or those that take and give a lot of punishment, you will be forced to switch Paradigms frequently to match the situation. I’ve died in some boss battles more times than I’ve died against Yunalesca, and admittedly it’s because of my lack of understanding of the Paradigm System (while some bosses just are hard).
I also like the story in this game, especially the specific character arcs. The story is just what you’d expect from a Final Fantasy game. My only gripe about this is how it’s actually told. The first chapter of the game is full of bad writing, and to completely understand how the story goes, you have to read the Datalog. Imagine Mass Effect – you can go through the entire game without reading the Codex and you’ll still have a good idea what’s going on. In FFXIII, there are times when this simply isn’t the case.
If you don’t understand where I’m getting at, here’s an example from Chapter 1.
Cutscenes:Hope is whiny and is a coward, complete with facial expression
Datalog: Hope is seething with anger
I swear, it seriously happened.
So what’s my rating for this game? The story is intriguing, sure. The combat is up there with FFX-2, I know. But for its components of this game being built around each other to the point that they’re strangling and limiting each other, I can’t give this game any higher than an 8. Some reviewers seem to consider this game as an experiment in the series. I think it’s more of a “we’re in here too deep, let’s just get on with it and fix Versus XIII” situation. The story limited the gameplay, the gameplay limited the storytelling, the storytelling provided ways to save up on the story, it’s a circle of mess.
In all honesty I probably would have passed over this game if it didn’t have “Final Fantasy” in the name – which would have been a mistake, I know. But brand loyalty is part of what keeps this game considerable for those that don’t know any better.
I give it an 8/10.
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