One of the greatest in the series. If you dislike Final Fantasy, then stay away, if you're intrigued, then give it a go.
To the loyal fanbases and the unswayed, this game is in every respect artwork. Artwork is probably one of the only ways to effectively review it. It is effectively a blend of seamless story telling, continued brilliant sound tracking and an innovative game-play mechanism.
The story of the game has long been one of the most compelling pieces of Final Fantasy. The characters on the surface seem predictable and clichéd, but a few more hours into the game and these start becoming more realistic, more fleshed out, more real. In my experience, it was hard to think they weren't real people. Once again, well voice acted, they are brought from the screen. The situations are a little less Final Fantasy typical, as opposed to just assimilating a team and then sticking to that team, with some characters then dropping back with no further development, there is constant changes in smaller teams, elaboration on the individual story lines and inter-character interaction. Which makes the game all the more interesting and changed from the mentality of "Mob running around saving world" to "Loosely related characters that seem to come together through a single piece of plot that links them together" Okay, so the second sentence is a bit specific, but hopefully that portrays more or less the complexity of it.
The Soundtrack to FFXIII is again a piece of magic, with some tracks that really stick out in one's mind, the game has proved once again, that it doesn't need Nobuo Uematsu to really make the OST stand out and make an impression. Sure, the age old victory themes and traditional FF music has been moved away from, but so is a natural progression for it to ascend musically. The accompaniment of music always fits the scene and seems to also draw on the situation storywise as well to provide a mood that really fits the context, rather than just a repeated "Fields" song that pops up time and again. But then again, so deems the linear plotline, there is room for this to happen.
The gameplay elements have really taken the base of everything FF and elaborated it time and again, from the field system making everything shorter and easier to access, to the combat being elaborated for the quick thinking strategists to utilise their combat tactics, you need to be quick in deducing enemies if the battle isn't going your way, which provides a challenging element to gameplay, a criticism of the battle system is though that sometimes when something needs to be done repetitively, you will find yourself just click 'A' every five seconds and watching stuff happen, but the game really elaborates on the actual combat visually so you'll be enticed anyway, and it's really some moments that make you go, "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT? THAT WAS FRIGGIN' AWESOME!" Out of absolutely nowhere. In the field elements of playing, entering combat still remains not random, which again is good and eliminates you raging out every time a random battle waddles along. Seeing the other party members running alongside you and telling you "They're going to look on ahead" is a nice touch.
Overall, this game really takes the biscuit for me, if you enjoy games that challenge you and bring tears to your eyes better than some movies, you should get this game. Graphically, it will blow you away, it has some truly breathtaking cutscenes reminscent of the graphically intense cutscenes from FFX. Definite must buy for FF fans.