Square's best work may be behind them, but they can still craft an RPG experience worth remembering.
The result? Final Fantasy XIII is a very good game. It is not an arguable classic that is part of the streak of games from VI to XII (excluding XI, which was mediocre), but it is still the best JRPG we have seen since Final Fantasy XII and Dragon Quest VIII, both works of Square-Enix. So when you are the only one doing anything relevant with a genre that is running out of ideas, it can't be too bad of a situation.
Final Fantasy XIII has stripped away lots of traditional RPG elements in favor of a more refined and simple take. While I do applaud how approachable and "down to business" it is at first, it becomes rather repetitive as the game goes on. The format is essentially running straight paths with battles here and there until you trigger a cutscene. Occasionally you will make a left turn to grab an item. Rarely does going through any location require any kind of thought or puzzle-solving.
The battle and leveling system take clear elements from Final Fantasy X, X-2, and XII. You use a mechanic not unlike the Sphere Grid or License Board. It doesn't have as much freedom to build characters as either did but it works. Combat on the other hand, takes some getting used to. The roles and paradigms are a simple version of Gambits from XII. I see what Square is trying to do in having your party fight on their own while you control the leader. It makes you feel more involved and with the fast-paced real-time combat, it works. However, when the party leader dies, it's Game Over. Unlike XII, where you could switch to a new leader and if your Gambits were set up correctly, your party could even revive you. Why that does not happen in this game, I can't understand. It seems like a cheap way to make the game more difficult. It would have been a much better idea to just switch to a new leader or even be able to be revived quickly.
There are a few elements that seem like they could use some more depth. You hardly ever find new weapons in this game and you also hardly ever get any Gil to spend on weapons or accessories. What confuses me is that despite this, you have a ton of stores that you can access, and you have only the ability to upgrade your weapons through spoils you find in battle. But...you hardly ever get any spoils. Every battle shows you the spoils you got. It's a huge list that is often empty. I don't see why they would make it so difficult to upgrade your weapons and accessories, and even more difficult to buy them. Money is almost a non-factor in this game. I think I bought two Phoenix Downs in my 30+ hours of playing and it's needlessly difficult to make enemies drop the items you need to upgrade your weapons effectively. This was definitely something overlooked that should not be such a problem. Every enemy should be giving me more drops than I should know what to do with the way they did in Final Fantasy XII. Not only would this solve the upgrading but you would also have things to sell which would solve the problem with money.
The game starts off kind of slow and I can see why it's such a turn off for many people. At first I kind of regretted having bought the game in the first place, but once you get about ten hours in and understand the battle system as well as the story, you can really get into it. It's addictive to play and once you have the right party and the right paradigms, it really does shine. While the story-telling could have been done better from the start (there's way too many flashbacks to push the plot), it still deals with very interesting themes and is not as cliche as you would think. Yes, it's a bunch of young people saving the world like we usually see in Final Fantasy (or JRPGs in general), but how they get there and the looming fear of what can or might happen to them, is extremely engaging. Seeing things unfold one scene after another is great and keeps you playing.
Now, I bought this on the 360, and if you have a PS3, I would recommend getting it on that for convenience. The 360 version is three discs, the cutscenes suffer from compressed graphics at times, and the voices in cutscenes is sometimes drowned out by sound effects or the music. They aren't big problems but if you had the option to play the PS3 version, you should take it.
Final Fantasy XIII may not sit atop the throne, or even next to the throne with the slew of games in the series before it. However that does not stop it from being a great game and the most relevant breath of life into the JRPG genre we have seen in years.