Final Fantasy XIII Review

Ah, Final Fantasy XIII. The thirteenth (obviously) main installment in my favourite series of all time. I've been waiting for this game for... Well, I don't know. Since it was announced. And here it is! I had a lot of expectations going in to this. It IS a Final Fantasy game. It IS on the PlayStation 3. And it IS awesome looking. But did it live up to my expectations?

Not so much. And by saying that, I am by no means saying that FFXIII was a BAD game. It just wasn't as good as I would have liked. It is definitely a decent game. It doesn't reach the top tier of amazing FF games, and it doesn't fall into the bottom tier reserved for those few failures in the series. Instead it floats somewhere around the middle in the "just good" tier with the majority of the FF games. The game had a lot of good things going for it, but unfortunately a couple of areas held it back, particularly the story, or plot, or narrative, or whatever you want to call it.

But let's start with the good things. The battle system in FFXIII is my favourite in any game in the series, topping even FFX-2's battle system. It's fast paced, quick and fun. Having control over only 1 character is a bit of a shame, however it was absolutely necessary and I don't feel it really took much away from the overall enjoyment of the battles. The AI is fantastic. There's not really much more I can say about that. I hardly ever - if ever - got angry at the AI for doing the wrong thing or anything like that. The paradigm system - although encoporating very "different" roles from the traditional FF classes - was a great system that allowed for a lot of strategy and thought when battling. I guess my only gripe with it is once you got the handle of the 6 battle roles, how to effectively use them, and how to set up good paradigms, there wasn't really anything else to learn, and you ended up just doing the exact same thing for every battle. There needed to be something "else" that added to the battles as you got further into the game.

The crystarium is another good point in FFXIII. It's a simple yet interesting character customization system. In a way it is a more simplified version of FFX's sphere grid - which is a good thing. However, CP costs got ridiculously high as the game went on and - as the difficulty level increased - so did the amount of time required to do monotonous level grinding. Also it could have been nice to have a more satisfactory finale to the crystarium. I was expecting to find great spells like Flare, Meteor, Holy or Ultima on the final level of the crystarium, but no. Nothing. Just some more stat boosts. That was kind of disappointing. Overall, a very good character customization system, though. Not as good as the materia system or the sphere grid, but better than than liscence grid from XII.

Okay. The story. Not a very good point in FFXIII, I have to say. The idea was good in principle. But the actual delivery? Not so much. I liked the idea of the l'Cie and the fal'cie. But it wasn't executed very well. Far too much of the game was just spent as the character wandering around Cocoon, with no particular aim or goal. And then there was a huge rise in the action around chapters 7 and 8, but then we went back to running around aimlessly on Pulse. The story was not very complex at all, but was just dragged on to make it into an appropriately sized game. The plot jyst wasn't delivered very well. After a long period of nothing, a whole lot of information would just be thrown at you. I mean, there are about 5 or 6 cutscenes in the whole game that explain the story. That's not enough! All of the plot points needed to be explored in greater detail. I found myself having to read the datalogue in the menu to completely understand the plot, because the game didn't do a good enough job of doing so itself.

Well a mediocre story can be saved by good characters, so let's take a look at them. Unfortunately, in the case of FFXIII, the characters do not save the story. And not because they're bad. I actually like nearly all of the characters in the game. The problem is, the characters in this game are so entwined in the story. Therefore, because the story is underdeveloped, so are the character's motives and intentions. 2 of the main characters in particular have a huge role in the overall purpose of the story, particularly the ending, but so little time was given to flesh out their pasts, and their current feelings, that it was hard to know let alone care what happened. I don't even understand, because a lot of airtime was given to each of the characters, but nothing relevant ever seemed to happen. It's a shame really, because I really felt like I could love this cast, but in the end, I just ended up liking them.

This is Lightning, the leading lady of Final Fantasy XIII. I was very pleased with the decision to have a female lead, however, like Terra in FFVI, she wasn't a true lead, in that there wasn't much more emphasis on her than the other characters. Still, Lightning is the main character, and a good one at that. She's strong, smart, calm and not downright unlikeable, so unlike certain other FF heroes, it's easy to see how the characters view her as their leader. I really liked Lightning in the first half of the game, but unfortunately she kind of disappeared in the second half. All of her development ocurred reasonably early, which is a problem because you kind of get over her (in a way) later in the game. I also feel that we didn't get into her head enough as a main character. We saw her actions and could make assumptions about her thoughts and feelings, but she never really expressed herself, so it was difficult to totally understand her.


And this is Snow. I guess he's meant to be the male lead but... Not so much. He was probably the biggest character during the first 2 chapters of the game, but after that, the game didn't really focus on him that much. Which was fine by me! Snow was totally insufferable. One of those characters that just makes you groan or facepalm because he's so annoying and stupid. He was a completely 2-dimensional character and not likeable in the slightest. He was always cheerful, no matter what, and completely oblivious to everything interesting or deep. He had this ridiculous and tiring "We are the heroes, nothing can go wrong! Serah and me forevs!" fairytale attitude that made me want to punch him in the face. Fortunately, Lightning did that for me. He just LOOKS like someone who you would want to punch in the face. I mean, look at that stupid scarf stuffed down his pants. What an idiot.


Vanille was the third main character in the game, I think. Kind of hard to tell in this game. I think she was supposed to be anyway. She was also the narrator of the game, which I don't get at all but whatever. She was my favourite character in the game, easily. She kind of annoyed me at first because she was just so ^_^ all the time and was constantly giggling or squeaking or moaning for no reason and I thought for sure she was just going to be one of THOSE girls. You know, the useless bright and bubbly type who is only there to lighten up the game. However, as the game progresses, I realized that she was actually a very deep and interesting character. She was the character who went through the most - or at least, most interesting - character development. The thing that bothers me about this is, it wasn't shown! Before the game began, Vanille was supposed to sacrifice herself to save the world, but she got scared, and didn't do it. Throughout the game, she grew up, and became stronger and more confident, and at the end of the game, she went through with it and did sacrifice herself for the world. Unfortunately, her past was barely touched on in game. In fact, I'm not even sure it was specifically said in game, or if I just read it in the datalogue. I mean, how did they mess up such an epic character arc? A lot of people don't like Vanille, but they're obv wrong. If you hate Vanille, I think it must simply be a case of not ~getting~ her, because she's great. Definitely one of the most likeable and endearing characters in the series.


Hope gets a very mixed response from players, and I definitely understand why. I like the ~idea~ of Hope more than I actually like Hope himself. I think he was meant to be that whiny naive kid who you still root for. Unfortunately, this didn't really work with Hope, and instead his whininess and naivety just irritated me. His irrational hate towards Snow because of his mother's death really bothered me. He saw his mother willingly offer to help him, and he saw how Snow tried to save her when she died. Like, I understand that it's natural for a child to put the blame anywhere he can or whatever, but it just didn't work with Hope. As a player I was on Snow's side, because I knew that it was an accident and that he did what he could to help her and therefore Hope just came off as stupid and hateful. Still, I did like Hope's development as a character, and his younger brother role towards Lightning, Snow and Vanille was really cute.

This is Sazh. Don't be fooled by the absolute ridiculousness of him, he is actually really cool. My second fave in the cast, behind Vanille. Sazh had a great sense of ~fun~ and was just a really likeable guy. Also, his story with his son was way more sad and way more compelling than the boring story between Lightning/Serah and Snow/Serah. His relationship with Vanille was probably my favourite in the game for a while, and I think it's a real shame that they barely spoke to each other after Vanille reunited with Fang. I guess that's all there is to say. Nobody dislikes Sazh. He's awesome.

Fang is one of those characters who you can tell the game-makers really like. Square Enix definitely thought Fang was cooler than she actually is. Fang IS cool, it's just that that is kind of it. She's down there with Snow as the most under-developed character in the game. From start to finish Fang is just the "tough cool chick who has a soft spot for Vanille." Fang was kind of used as a plot device at times which unfortunately means her character is a bit all-over-the-place. She just randomly does things in the story for the lolz or something, because there isn't really any obvious reason for her doing them other than moving plot points forward. Fang is cool, but certainly nothing special.

Well, they're the heroes. I would tell you who the villains are, but to be honest, I barely know myself. The main villain is Barthandelus or something, who is some evil priest who wants to... Kill people? Seriously, one of the most underdeveloped villains in a game ever. His two sidekicks, Jihl and Yaag were also complete randoms. We were supposed to care about them, I think, because they both had sad and/or shocking death momes, but because we barely knew them, it wasn't sad nor shocking.

Before the game was released, there was a lot of focus on the Eidolons who were said to have a huge role in the game. Not only was this not true, but in some ways I feel that the Eidolons actually took away from the game. They were totally useless in battle, but that's not really the point. The real bad thing about them is, the "moments" the characters had were usually forced, jarring and out-of-place. Snow/Shiva was first and TBH I don't really remember this too well because I didn't really know what was going on. It was okay I guess, but not as ~exciting~ as it could have been. Then came Lightning/Odin which is a perfect example of random and forced. All of a sudden Lightning is pissed at Hope and can't be bothered looking after him. Odin comes along, they beat him up, and then Lightning's all "Yeah w/e, let's go." Then Hope got his Eidolon in Palumpolum after the epic climax between him and Snow. Oh, wait, no he didn't. Sazh/Brynhildr is next which happens in Nautilus. This is the ONLY Eidolon mome that I thought was actually done really well. It was such a huge ~emotional~ mome for both Sazh and Vanille, and the entire scene and battle was just really epic. The only problem with it, I think, is Sazh initially going after Vanille to kill her just didn't feel ~right~ Obviously it ended up creating an awesome scenario, but I just don't think it was in character for him to go after her in the first place like that. So as if Lightning/Odin wasn't forced enough, the last three are even worse. Fang/Bahamut was fourth and is an example of "Fang being used as a plot device" that I mentioned before. She randomly attacks the group for absolutely no real reason, only to get over that when they help her fight Bahamut. Then down on Gran Pulse, Hope has a cry because he feels he is too weak and is a burden on the team or something, which came out of absolutely nowhere and was not in tune with his character arc. Why they didn't do Hope/Alexander back in Palumpolum is beyond me. It also really bothers me (much more than it should) that Fang fights in Hope's Alexander battle, and not Snow. They play similar roles in battle, and Snow is obviously a much bigger character in regards to Hope. But the worst of them all is Vanille/Hecatoncheir, which is even more irritating, because she had the potential to have a really amazing moment, but she didn't. Fang tells her that she knows that Vanille has been lying to her, and Vanille then reveals everything to Fang, and then Fang is like "Lol JK! I didn't know anything, I was just teasing! ^_^" Like, what the hell is that? Overall, the Eidolons just ended up being VERY underwhelming and their prescence in the game was forced and unnecessary.

Anyway, eventually the game came to an end, and I have to say I was less than impressed with the final dungeon. Better than FFXII's final dungeon for sure, but nothing like some of the more epic final dungeons in the earlier games. The final boss was fairly easy, and the only reason I even died once was because he uses Death, and if he uses it own your party leader, it's Game Over. This is easily remedied with an accessory that protects against instant death, however. In some ways I really liked the ending. I think it wrapped up Vanille and Fang really nicely, and I had a very satisfied sad/happy feeling over their sacrifice. However, a lot of stuff happened and it wasn't really explained why. Lightning, Snow, Hope and Sazh were turned into cie'th which was AWESOME. But then they randomly became human again, and Sazh explained this with "Fal'cie smoke and mirrors." Which I guess means they never really become cie'th (which sucks, because that was epic) and that it was just an illusion. But that begs the question, what the hell were the real people doing while the cie'th were beating on Vanille and Fang? Hiding? Just for the lolz? Anyway, after Vanille and Fang save the world and junk, the others get turned to crystals. And to me, that would've been a fine ending to the game. However, then they leave their crystal state, which is also fine except that it WASN'T EXPLAINED WHY. And then Serah and Dajh turn up, which not only is ridiculous because what are the chances that they just happened to be near by, but also, why the hell did they leave their crystal state? What's going on? The game doesn't give any reason for this, and instead ends on a "They all lived happily ever after..... (Minus Vanille and Fang but w/e)" note which is okay. If you're willing to look past the ridiculous and obvious plot holes, then the ending is very satisfactory, but I just find it difficult to do that.

Okay, okay, graphix and musix. Well in regards to graphics, what can I say? The game is absolutely beautiful. I've actually read reviews where the reviewers actually bash the graphics of the game, which is nothing other than hater hate. The game is visually stunning, and there isn't really any denying that. Sorry haters! Music was alright. Not as many ~moving~ or epic tracks as some other titles in the series, but it was still nice. The battle music was possibly the best in the series, and Leona Lewis' My Hands actually ~werked~ really well. Yah, I went there!

So in conclusion, Final Fantasy XIII is a good game and definitely worth a play. It's just there a few obvious flaws in the game, particularly with the storytelling, which really holds it back for me. Pretty much everything was good, it just could've been so, so, so much better, unfortunately.

[63/100] [C+]