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Background
I’ve always been a bit of a pessimist when it comes to Final Fantasy games, my friends would sit for hours playing Final Fantasy VII and I would put it on and within 5 minutes be ridiculously bored, lost patience and turn it off.
Final Fantasy XIII gets released and my girlfriend starts relaying stories from her childhood consisting of playing it with her sister etc so I think I will be nice trade in a few games and buy it for her.
I get home with the game and I get told “well I didn’t actually play it, I liked watching my sister”. So I think I am not wasting my money I may as well give it a go. I am extremely pleased that I did.
So now 13 hours into the game I thought that I’d pass on a brief review to let you know what I think.
Graphics and Story Line
The game starts and you sit there in awe at the graphics, in places it even feels real, gripping you with its bright vibrant colours, smooth skin textures, the fluidity of transition and physics of the game animation. As the game progresses and more flashbacks occur the quality of animation seems to improve, the firework scenes with Snow had me sitting their mouth open just staring at the realism of it.
An obnoxious arrogant hero and moody sidekick from what I have read seems to be the FF way but nether less I still think it works. As the story progresses you get bits of “Ah I told you so” and “Ah of course” as the truth unravels but you remained gripped none the less. Your opinions of some characters change and some a.k.a Vanille remain the same with her being thoroughly annoying throughout. The story is written like an extremely well thought out film. Gripping, suspense filled and interesting.
Music and Sounds
The magical and calm backing music seems to be a tell tale sign of a Final Fantasy game, making you feel at one with the scenery and aggravating the hell out of you after your 6th hour of gameplay.
Gameplay
The controls for general movement are effective and smooth for the majority. They can be modified to invert the movements if you’d prefer. There are a few times when you can get stuck on items and this can become infuriating but on the whole they are satisfactory, when you want to avoid an enemy the controls are varied enough to allow you to but a few extra options like the ability to jump would have been nice.
The early fighting is easy but don’t let this fool you. As the game and story progresses so does the difficulty of the fighting as you’d expect. To help you in your battle you can construct different paradigms which help you utilize the different expertise of your team. You can switch between them during your battles but any queued attacks or moves will not remain. It’s a shame you cannot rename these paradigms so you can easily see which one you need but you soon enough get used to War and Peace, or Solidarity etc.
The upgrade system in FFXIII is easier to understand than previous Final Fantasy’s and resembles that of FFX. Each new stone or gem is given a CP value and as you fight you earn Crystarium, in turn you can the use the CP to upgrade your traits for each Character. Like the exploration, character progression is linear. Any sense of freedom the Crystarium may provide is simple trickery.
From what I have read the most freedom you get is to upgrade the weapons and your accessories. You can upgrade your possessions using the spoils from battle or items you purchase from the shops. It's rewarding to see your items gain levels by adding fangs and particle accelerators to them, and you can even drastically change an item's attributes if you apply the right components.
Overall
Overall I am extremely happy at my decision to get value for money. This game provides loads of it. Its gripping and fun and surprisingly one that non gamers don’t mind watching for the pure graphic beauty.
There are a few things that would of made this game better but with everything there is always scope for improvement. In the space of a week I am proud to say that I have become and now am a Final Fantasy fan. This game whether you fall into the hater or lover of FF category is one that can be picked up, played on and enjoyed.
9/10
I never really got the time to sit and appreciate a Final Fantasy game, something else always came along in the meantime to stop me really getting in to it.
I am tempted to give this one a go but I fear the same will happen.
But 7 is the one that built the franchise really. I don't care what others say, the FF's before 7 were brilliant, but hardly "main stream".
It is not as good as 7 (it is still awesome and the mini game Blitzball will have you playing for ages on its own!)
But the great thing is, for all the people who have just realised they love the stories and aspects of Final Fantasy, there are so many out there for them to go and try!
Oh and a good review! Enjoyed reading that
> A good review. You really should consider playing some of the
> others.
>
> 7 was particularly good, but I can now understand why some people
> find taking a massive step back technology wise is hard work. I
> re-play FF7 once a year though so I can't really comment :D
Yeha I may try and pick up some of the others once I've finished this as I really am enjoying it.
7 was particularly good, but I can now understand why some people find taking a massive step back technology wise is hard work. I re-play FF7 once a year though so I can't really comment :D
Background
I’ve always been a bit of a pessimist when it comes to Final Fantasy games, my friends would sit for hours playing Final Fantasy VII and I would put it on and within 5 minutes be ridiculously bored, lost patience and turn it off.
Final Fantasy XIII gets released and my girlfriend starts relaying stories from her childhood consisting of playing it with her sister etc so I think I will be nice trade in a few games and buy it for her.
I get home with the game and I get told “well I didn’t actually play it, I liked watching my sister”. So I think I am not wasting my money I may as well give it a go. I am extremely pleased that I did.
So now 13 hours into the game I thought that I’d pass on a brief review to let you know what I think.
Graphics and Story Line
The game starts and you sit there in awe at the graphics, in places it even feels real, gripping you with its bright vibrant colours, smooth skin textures, the fluidity of transition and physics of the game animation. As the game progresses and more flashbacks occur the quality of animation seems to improve, the firework scenes with Snow had me sitting their mouth open just staring at the realism of it.
An obnoxious arrogant hero and moody sidekick from what I have read seems to be the FF way but nether less I still think it works. As the story progresses you get bits of “Ah I told you so” and “Ah of course” as the truth unravels but you remained gripped none the less. Your opinions of some characters change and some a.k.a Vanille remain the same with her being thoroughly annoying throughout. The story is written like an extremely well thought out film. Gripping, suspense filled and interesting.
Music and Sounds
The magical and calm backing music seems to be a tell tale sign of a Final Fantasy game, making you feel at one with the scenery and aggravating the hell out of you after your 6th hour of gameplay.
Gameplay
The controls for general movement are effective and smooth for the majority. They can be modified to invert the movements if you’d prefer. There are a few times when you can get stuck on items and this can become infuriating but on the whole they are satisfactory, when you want to avoid an enemy the controls are varied enough to allow you to but a few extra options like the ability to jump would have been nice.
The early fighting is easy but don’t let this fool you. As the game and story progresses so does the difficulty of the fighting as you’d expect. To help you in your battle you can construct different paradigms which help you utilize the different expertise of your team. You can switch between them during your battles but any queued attacks or moves will not remain. It’s a shame you cannot rename these paradigms so you can easily see which one you need but you soon enough get used to War and Peace, or Solidarity etc.
The upgrade system in FFXIII is easier to understand than previous Final Fantasy’s and resembles that of FFX. Each new stone or gem is given a CP value and as you fight you earn Crystarium, in turn you can the use the CP to upgrade your traits for each Character. Like the exploration, character progression is linear. Any sense of freedom the Crystarium may provide is simple trickery.
From what I have read the most freedom you get is to upgrade the weapons and your accessories. You can upgrade your possessions using the spoils from battle or items you purchase from the shops. It's rewarding to see your items gain levels by adding fangs and particle accelerators to them, and you can even drastically change an item's attributes if you apply the right components.
Overall
Overall I am extremely happy at my decision to get value for money. This game provides loads of it. Its gripping and fun and surprisingly one that non gamers don’t mind watching for the pure graphic beauty.
There are a few things that would of made this game better but with everything there is always scope for improvement. In the space of a week I am proud to say that I have become and now am a Final Fantasy fan. This game whether you fall into the hater or lover of FF category is one that can be picked up, played on and enjoyed.
9/10