Yet another Final Fantasy game, and possibly the least interesting.
Not so good, as someone I spent some time with in jail said every day when I'd ask him how he was doing. But enough backround story here. I'll get into what's good about the game, what's decent about the game, and what just sucks about the game. Also, this is an opinion, and just because I was disappointed doesn't mean that this won't be your favorite game of all time. So here's the breakdown:
Graphics -
Make no mistake, this game can be really pretty. Images can speak for themselves. Expect realistic people, some gorgeous environments/cutscenes, things like that. Good job Square-Enix.
Story -
I will not lie, I found it boring. There is a lot of talk about l'cie, fal'cie, cocoon, pulse, things like that, but the game takes a long time to really get into what that stuff actually is. The summons are pretty, but incredibly lame. I dislike the whole transformer approach they took with those. It was so lame that I'd feel embarrassed to actually play during those parts. And a general complaint/praise for however you see fit is that there are no "towns". I'll state this right now that I dislike this move, even if it fits the story better. I just found the characters rather generic and unlikeable. Lightning (dislike her name, don't know why) is just a woman with an attitude problem. Snow (Dislike his name too) is obsessed with himself, and calls himself a "hero" way too much. Sazh is likeable, he was alright, and it's good to see some older people, not all younger than 18 protagonists. Vanille is just annoying, she's way too upbeat and I dislike her accent. Fang annoys me too, though I'm not sure as to why. And Hope just is... well, he's a real wuss. He always is complaining about being a l'cie, and it gets annoying after awhile. For being named Hope, he certainly isn't too hopeful. In general, I disliked the story, and the "plot twist" if you could call it that, was rather obvious, to me at least. The story just failed to engage me.
Gameplay -
Seemed fun at first, until I got into the meat of it. The problems are numerous. One problem I have is that the game doesn't allow you to level up beyond a certain point until you expand your crystarium, which sucks, you cannot waste a bunch of your time to power-level if you want. Battles are artificially hard, and the tactics are the same. Set up Paradigms, have one or two ravagers send all the magic they can at one enemy while a commando attacks it to stagger it, then just go crazy on it once it gets staggered. Using libra on virtually any enemy will tell you "Capable of delivering devastating physical/magical attacks". You occasionally switch to have a medic or two to heal you up as needed, but other than that, it's just commando ravager unless you are in one fight where you need to buff up your characters, so you have a synergist. Also, might I add that only a commando has an attack option, so if you have a medic out, and if nobody can quite be justified to heal, they are just sitting around doing nothing. I virtually never use the sentinel or saboteur.
Also, if your one character you actually control dies, it's game over, no team member can revive them, which really is lame, being as you certainly can revive them. Even if they have a life spell, they still cannot revive you because, as I already stated, it's game over.
I'm towards the end of the game (my ps3 died so I cannot quite beat it yet, but I'm on the last chapter), and I don't have any cool spells, and my characters are just about as strong as the crystarium allows them to be. They have Fire, Blizzard, Water, Thunder, Aero, Fira, Blizzara, Watera, Thundara, and Aeroa, and maybe some attack variations like "spark strike" or "flame strike" etc. and that's it. Where the hell is meteor, flare, holy, ultima, all that stuff? Nowhere as far as I can tell. And the spells look unimpressive too.
Summons look pretty, but I dislike the whole transformer thing they have going on, it seems rather lame. Everything turns into a vehicle like thing, and its just rather lame. Bahamut Zero from Final Fantasy VII is an example of an awesome summon. Eternal Darkness from Final Fantasy IX is another good example, Eden from Final Fantasy VIII is awesome. Transformers? Or, I'm sorry, "Eidolons" as Final Fantasy XIII calls them? Kinda lame...
Also, this game is incredibly linear. And doing some "Kill this monster" quests at the end of the game just don't give me any satisfaction. The whole game is just running through an incredibly linear path, killing enemies, until you fight a boss. This is why towns would be appreciated if you ask me, it breaks up the action, gives you a safe place to be, talk to people, things like that. But no, they took that out. And the game eventually opens up to allowing you some semi-freedom in this HUGE open field, and it's here that I loose more interest because it is so ridiculously large, that it just bored me being in the exact same environment for so long. Final Fantasy X was linear, but there were towns, some minigames, monster killing sidequests, an eventual airship, a story I enjoyed, even the annoying characters weren't quite so extremely bad. Final Fantasy XIII just takes it to a fault.
Plus at the end of the game, I barely have any money, and I have no incentive to upgrade my 3 main characters weapons to even the first upgrade out of 2 to get the ultimate form of it. I hate upgrading weapons, why can't I just buy a better one? Upgrades are extremely lame, the ONLY game that had a decent upgrade system/building system was Chrono Cross. Oh, Star Ocean games are very solid for their item creation/upgrades too.
Also your HP refills completely after every battle, and there is no MP, so you can cast spells infinitely. There is a TP gauge, but it's easy enough to keep filled.
Oh, and fighting the Eidolons is annoying too, it's just not fun. You have to fulfill certain conditions before you die from the death spell they cast on the character you control (so after that time, it's game over), and you cannot just attack them until you defeat them, they need to generally be hit with magic so much, to fill up this gestalt gauge and then you can end the battle.
Music -
I like video game music. As far back as some catchy NES themes (Mega Man 2's Dr. WIly Stage 1, some Final Fantasy songs, whatever), but I did not enjoy any music in this game. I cannot explain why, but I just dislike it. Cool battle themes? Chrono Trigger, Dragon Warrior VII, Dragon Quest VIII, Final Fantasy I, II, VII, IX, X, Star Ocean 1-4, Grandia 1-3, Lunar 1 and 2, Xenogears, Tales of Symphonia, Tales of Destiny 2, Tales of Phantasia. Cool boss themes? Final Fantasy VI, VII, VIII, Xenogears, Seiken Densetsu 3, Legend of Mana, Tales of Legendia, Grandia and Grandia II, Lunar 1 and 2. Final Fantasy XIII doesn't have one memorable song for me. Sure, they are orchestrated nicely, but the actual songs aren't any good.
Replay Value -
I'm going to get my PS3 fixed, finish this game, and honestly not play it again for a long time, if ever again. I do not see anything to make me come back for more. Oh yeah, and then there is the exceptionally long period of time where the game teaches you how to play it, and doesn't allow you full access to all of the mechanics of the game. That just makes me not want to restart it anytime soon.
So I'll sum up everything...
The Good:
-Pretty Graphics
-Fast Battles
The Bad:
-Linear to a fault. No smokes and mirrors to deceive you or anything.
-The music
-No towns
-Upgrading weapons/accessories
-Doesn't give you freedom to level up like it could. Even Final Fantasy X, that let you slowly get more and more powerful gave you way more freedom than this game.
-The battle system needs work.
-Not a lot of gil
-Summons
-The characters
-This game is longer than it has to be.
-I only put the difficulty down as hard because battles can turn quickly because enemies in my opinion should be weaker, and you should strategically refill your HP, and conserve your MP, as opposed to just giving it everything you can constantly. The game isn't actually hard though.
-The Eidolon battles
I think I pretty much hit everything I wanted to on this review. And if you're thinking "You haven't even finished the game yet, who are you to judge it!" Well, by chapter 12 of 13, I've played enough according to most standards. To put it in perspective, if you're watching a movie that is 2 1/2 hours long (150 minutes), you should be able to enjoy it before the 138.5 minute mark, and if you don't, there is nothing that last 11.5 minutes can do to redeem the 138.5 minutes of sucking, no matter how awesome those 11.5 minutes are. That just makes a great end to a crappy movie. That's the best that I can hope for with completing this game, which I will do just because then I can say I did it, and all this time invested will have been for something I saw through to the end. Oh, and I'm also guessing on the time spent, it may be more, I just leave the game on while I go have a smoke or do something frequently.
If you ask me, if I were you, I would go buy a 10 dollar PSN card from a store, and download Final Fantasy VII, VIII, IX, Tactics, or Grandia if you haven't played them yet. You'll have more fun if you can tolerate the obviously inferior graphics. And you'll save yourself a BUNCH of money. Unless you like everything I said I don't, you are an avid RPG fan (like me) or a collector (also like me), I'd just go buy something else. Maybe Resonance of Fate (I have it, just haven't had a chance to play it yet, my PS3 is dead...
I hope this helps you make a decision about if this game is the right game for you. If I didn't want it for collections sake, I'd be really disappointed I bought this. It certainly was the worst Final Fantasy experience I've had that I can think of. I'd rather play any RPG I listed in this review than this game, and I'm not being overly harsh. Pretty graphics are nice, but they just don't make up for all the problems in this game.
-Indalecio-