Quite a refreshing turn of events from the standard Final fantasy formula.
Personal thoughts aside, this is a very well made game. In fact, it's surprising how well it holds up, considering how much has been changed.
People who don't follow the franchise will say that this is just another Final Fantasy game, but veterans like myself will immediately notice how different this game really is than it's predecessors.
Final Fantasy games have always been about 3 things, great turn based battle system, an exciting story and in the recent years the graphics. This game delivers on all of these things.
The story is follows 6 characters as they embark on their journey to fulfill their task and eventually save the world. The story is filled with plot twists, character building and, I have to mention it because my girlfriend will kill me if I don't, romance.
In all previous Final Fantasy games, you had characters you loved and characters you hated, as well as well developed and underdeveloped characters. In FFVII you had Caith Sith for whom even to this day no body gives a damn. In FFX you had Kimahri, who was cool at first but quickly faded away later. In this game you will obviously have characters that you will hate (Vanille) but surprisingly ALL of them are developed quite well. Even during some cut-scenes when you mutter to yourself how you hate one of them, they will sooner or later redeem themselves and earn more respect from you. I thought I would never like one of the characters because he was too wimpy and weak but he really came through alright later on in the game, and that's quite an accomplishment for the overall story.
The dialogues are handled with top notch voice actors but the dialogue can sometimes get annoying when players start talking about non-related topics, thankfully these moments don't come so often. The world of Final Fantasy XIII, or should I say, the world of Cocoon and Gran Pulse is a massive world (A 3 DVD disk massive world mind you :P ), filled with rules you have to follow and areas you shouldn't explore right away.
The creators of this game really put some extra thought into the worlds culture, and have ultimately developed quite a bizarre where the strong control over the weak and those in the middle fight to get to the top. Too bad it's not that well explained, but thankfully the game offers an in game Database which you should check at least once if you want to at least figure out what the "F" is going on. Still, once you do you will get excited for the story.
As for the gameplay, well, wow... I was seriously surprised how different yet how entertaining it is from what I was used to.
Battles are started by touching enemies (I guess we might as well say goodbye to random encounters ).
The battles are still handled in a turn based style and in real-time of course, but there are quite a few new tweaks and turns this time. For starters, you only control one character during a battle, while the other two team-mates become smart AI assistants. This may seem like a bad idea at first, but it works quite well. Your team mates know how to take care of themselves and rarely will you complain about their actions. Also, instead of always selecting what action that one character you are controlling will do, you will mostly select the auto-action option. So yeah, you are controlling just 1 character and you can just use the auto-abilities the whole time. How lazy does this game think we are, you might ask. The answer to that question is: because the game wants you to look at how fast and cool the battles look while still being part of the action, and you know what, it works! Sometimes you may feel like you just watching an action flick but you are very much part of it just like in all FF games. Of course you can still chose your characters actions manually but the game does a fantastic job of selecting the appropriate actions for you and your companions in any given situation. Yes, it's that good.
You may have noticed that I used the plural form of the word "action". This is because during a single turn you may select up to 5 actions per character, so feel free to attack an enemy 5 times during a single turn and heal your ally with 5 cures during a single round. There is no mana in this FF game. Instead, the game balances out the power of the magic spell with the amount of time you have during a turn. You may fire 5 during a single turn but casting a single curaga may take a whole turn. Another new really interesting aspect added in battles is the stagger system. Every enemy in the game can be staggered which makes them weaker and sometimes even immobilizes them. By scanning enemies you can find our their weaknesses and use it to stagger them. Most enemies have a weakness against an elemental matter, so if you cast fire on a monster that is barely affected by melee attacks but weak against fire you will build up their stagger meter and once it reaches full, it will take almost twice as much damage from both fire attacks and even those melee attacks. Staggering an enemy is sometimes crucial for your success. You are also able to start a battle by sneaking up on an enemy and perform a preemptive strike. This not only gives you a free turn but also raises the enemy's stagger bar quite high, so it is recommended to sometimes start a fight ninja style.
Using items is just like in all Final Fantasy games, except they work on an entire party. One potion now heals your entire party, but the phoenix down only resurrects one person. It is a bit disappointing that once the character you are controlling dies, it's game over time, even if you have 2 healers ready to revive you. Also, every battle you fight will have a rate. If you fight well you are awarded with stars, if you don't no biggie :), but you will need those stars for they unlock some abilities, such as scanning enemies and summoning monsters. Speaking of summoning, every character has just one summon, which makes it a total of 6 summons in a game. Once you summon a monster they fight by you until you give them the order to transform and become more powerful for a short period of time. Odin transforms into a horse which the main character can ride and Shiva transforms ... into a motorcycle... SERIOUSLY!!!???? That's pretty degrading to one of the most well known character from Final Fantasy, but I digress.
Each character has their unique weapon of choice. Weapons can be upgraded by using components and material you find thru-out the game.
Finally, Final Fantasy fans of the world REJOICE, for after a battle is over you no longer have to access your menu to heal your party, THE GAME DOES THIS FOR YOU :DDDD !!!
Now, Final Fantasy games have always been notorious for their long grinding periods, and many people (haters) will claim that this game is also one endless grind, but the truth couldn't be further this time. Until you progress through the story, you are unable to develop your characters. That's right, they are actually preventing us from grinding :((((((( !!!
This means that you can only develop your characters so much and use that to the fullest until you fight and beat a boss that will allow you to develop a little bit further. I found this extremely annoying but this does make the game more fun and challenging. By limiting to how much your characters can develop you are required to take full advantage of everything you know. No more : "I'm not high enough a level for this boss", no no no, this time you need to plan out a strategy for each boss, and sometimes it takes a lot of dieing to get one boss down, but once you do, it makes it all worth it. Thankfully, the game realizes that you could be dieing often so a "Retry"option was restored. So, no need to worry about reloading your save file in case you died on the last battle. This may also seem kinda rude but it's really not that hard, just remember to plan out your attack a bit and heal when needed an you will be fine. Only till very late in the game (During DVD 3) do you gain quite some freedom (but still not all of it) to grind and develop your characters just like in any old FF game, and by the time you get there you will learn to appreciate what you have :) . It's also funny to note that during this point you are also given side-quest missions which can give you some extra experience points and some exclusive items. But even with all that, the game falls short with grinding, which is a good thing for most people (I personally hated the fact). Basically all you will need to do in order to beat the game, is follow the glowing arrow and fight all battles that come along your way. This will offer you more than enough experience to advance further and even beat the game, unless of course you plan of completing it 100% in which case there will be some grinding involved.
Developing your characters is done through the Crystalium. This is basically an offspring of the Sphere Grid from FFX but a lot less complicated but more limited. You earn Crystal points which you use in the crystalium to unlock crystals that boost your attributes (Attack, Magic, HP). The crystals are connected with a sing line with an occasional small fork in the road. You move from one crystal to the next until you hit the end, and you will hit the end :). Only once you beat the entire game are you able to maximise your characters and explore everything this game has to offer. YES, I said once you beat the game, the first Final Fantasy game to have a sandbox mode :).
Characters also have classes. With out much confusion, these are basically: Tank, Melee DPS, Spell DPS, Healer, Buffer and Debuffer. Each character is best suited for 3 out of those 6 but can later master the other 3 as well.
The graphics are, as always, wonderful. The game looks and feels amazing. However, the game is meant to be played on an HD TV, so if you don't have one, you may do some squinting in order to read some of the blurry text. The voice acting is wonderful, the music is in true Final Fantasy spirit. The battle theme is catchy as hell! Seriously, WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT :D ?!
What more can I say, this game is simply amazing! A true treat for all Final Fantasy fans out there, and a good start to all the newcomers. With a great story ( and a romantic twist just for the ladies :P ), great battle system and overall gameplay and great graphics you really can't go wrong with this one.