Final Fantasy in Name Only!
Set in two world's, Gran Pulse and Cocoon, FFXIII tells the story of six individuals escaping their fate and in the process saving the world. How they accomplish that or WHY... now thats when things get confused....
In an effort to cut this as short as possible, the story in FFXIII is convoluted to say the least. I'm not saying its non-understandable, but let me put it this way.... any game that requires you to have a chapter summary DURING and BEFORE the game loads says a lot about the plot.
STORY:
Square does a taxing job trying to introduce us into a middle of a political purge. Terms like fal'cieth and l'cieth just really made the game too hard to understand for gamers just looking to pick up decent RPG. They should have streamlined the story and cut away with a lot of unnecessary plots such as Cid Raines and Jihl Nabaat. You could have cut out those two characters and STILL it would not affect the main story.
Honestly, the guy who did the story tried to do too much. WAY too much and at the end didn't deliver. I would prefer he stuck with the Princess is stuck in another castle bit at least you can draw a straight line from what you need to do to your goal. In FFXIII... you literally have no idea what the story is, all your doing is fighing monsters up until Chapter 11.
GRAPHICS:
I would expect nothing less from Square if FFXIII was not visually appealing. FMV are breathtaking even the environments and battle scenes were nice to look at. You can't go wrong graphically with FFXIII.
GAMEPLAY:
I'm real mixxed when it comes to gameplay in FFXIII. in one hand, I applaud Square for getting out of the traditional turn-based RPG and embraced of a more "active" ACTIVE RPG. You gotta think fast on your decisions or else enemies get an extra round of attacks. I love how the auto-battle system is set up in relation to your roles. Even better how they incorporate Libra into the mix. The more you fight an enemy the better an understanding you have of it and the stronger your choices will be in dealing with them. Nice touch of realism there.
On the other hand controlling only ONE character is a bit of a wash. Sure the other two AI controlled characters do a great job of decision making, but when it comes to debuffing or buffing, I would prefer that I choose what order it should happen. In the future, if Square will keep this type of battle-style, I would like the option of being able to control all my character or having them go auto-battle.
Square did away with XP in this game, instead you "level up" a Crystarium board. Quite similar to FFXII and FFX, there are abilties and stat up across this board as you kill enemies you get points and spend it on this board to level up your characters Each character has 3 main roles and 3 sub roles. It takes quite a bit of grinding to max out the board, but it is doable.
The one gripe I have with this is that the last "level" does not get unlocked till after you beat the game. In fact that is a main gripe I have about the end-game. In other FF series you know your nearing the boss when your guys are maxed and that they have the best weapons and accessories. Sadly FFXIII does away with that concept. Sure you feel stronger as you reach end game, but your best weapons are only accessible till AFTER you beat the game.
When I play an RPG, I want to go over it once... not come back after the story and unlock more things. It would have been nice to incorporate your character getting crazy strong along with the main story
I wouldn't call that a bad idea, but it takes away a lot from it. I was also expecting the last boss to be harder as in Sephiroth or Kefka hard, where you have multi-battles, but to be honest... if you just maxed out 2 or 1 role you can pretty much 5-star the boss. I guess they didn't want to deter from the story too long.
SOUND:
I don't know if its me, but the soundtrack to this game is completely FORGETABLE! No tune stands out for you to remember or even want to DL. A new chocobo mix... maybe the intro... but overall, I did not like this soundtrack at all. The battle music is nice, but really a forgetable soundtrack.
OVERALL:
When you play an RPG, you play for story. Whether its romance or revenge, a good story with ANYTHING makes the game stand out much more. FFXIII at best was below par. The graphics are nice, the sound is alright, and the gameplay is good, BUT the story drags the game down in so many levels that you just can't help not having fun as you play the game. My friends tell me "So whats the story?" and I reply
Would this game be any better if it was NOT called FFXIII. YES it would have! If you call this game SPACE FUTURE ACTION RPG, then I would give this game a lot of leeway. BUT because they labelled it FF then it MUST be held accountable to a high degree. Square had 12 FF prior to this to make this game stand out and thats not counting the sub-games like FF Adventure, Quest, X-2, Advent Children. 12 FF to make the 13th shine and sadly I have to say its my LEAST favorite FF of ALL TIME.
Here's my breakdown:
Story: 5/10 Seriously... this is why we have "drafts" and a story board. The writer needs to go back to Storytelling 101.
Gameplay: 7/10 Its an RPG, its an ACTION game, its BOTH! They took a real gutsy gamble to change RPG and it paid off. A tweak of this system and we can see a new era of RPG's
Graphics: 9/10 Would you expect any less from Square?
Sound: 7/10 Plain and forgetabble
Replay Value: 3.5 I would not expect anyone to play this game twice and expect to do everything again. But if you were to do play it a 2nd time, you'll probably get frustrated again with the horrible story.
Overall: 7/10 Not too bad as a first time FF RPG on the next gen. Would it kill them to spend a few more HUNDRED bucks on decent writers?