Review: FFXIII

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Final Fantasy is among my favourite games in existence and I really don’t think there is a game I’ve missed playing.

Going to start off with a quick mention of tactics, it’s not my favourite and one of the very few I played for five minutes and stopped.  I didn’t enjoy the whole battle like a chess game even though I had wasted money buying it.

I tend to not read too much about Final Fantasy games before I get them well why would I when I’ve enjoyed all of them.

From the likes of 1 all the way up to the latest ones I’ve enjoyed so many including both Online XIV/XI and Linear Mystic Quest.

Then came XIII, it had a beautiful main character and graphics that were incredible.  When I started playing it after such a long wait I had that happy feeling.

I knew I was playing a game that not only would give a gripping story line of good vs evil, give us characters that we fall in love with and battles to test our might with a bit of a grind levelling up if we chose to.  The game would also give us endless hours of looking for secrets, talking to characters, finding hidden places where we would dive deeper in to this new world.

Sadly half of that didn’t turn out to be the case…

For the first few hours you hope to come at a turning point to enjoy looking for secrets or perhaps talk to some NPCs to learn about the story, learn about the world.  You wait another few more hours and.. it still doesn’t come…  when you finally get there in this amazing open land.  You really do get a sense that this is Final Fantasy this is the game you wanted…. But then you begin to realise that this one single open area is it.  It spreads out.. it opens up but this is it.  You effectively have to sit in this open area and grind your way to be able to combat bigger creatures but once you decide to continue on from this area…   that’s it.  There are no other open areas….  This is what the game has building up to and it’s a disappointment. 

The endless cutscenes and interruptions to our playing the game.  I’d be interested to know if any other game interrupted us as much as this one did.  Every corner or every 5 minutes we would get a little cutscene to tell us……  nothing.  To hear more characters whine about how hard their lives are while struggling to believe it as a gamer.  I want to play this game….

I’ve always enjoyed games that felt like a movie but this was like an interactive book more than a game.  And it’s not like every cutscene gave us a tiny piece of story but more like how difficult the characters were going to be to understand and feel for…

The characters

 A young boy has just lost his mother and it felt like this wasn’t the case.  A strapping tall man had failed to realise how many lives were just lost and another man with a tiny bird on his head seemed to act like his life was incredibly difficult.  This was the first time I’ve ever felt so sorry for the majority of these characters without actually feeling for them.  I felt sorry on the level of how pathetic they were.  The boy losing his mother would normally be in a state of shock and tears not feeling sorry for him self five minutes after it happened.  We’ve all dealt with loss and the boy was at stage 2 instantly.  What has SE done to the characters to make them feel not believable.

Then we have our character, closed off and really hard to read yet doesn’t seem to care about anything even towards the end this was overly stretched.  I loved lightning as a character but felt like her difficulty side was again over stretched.

Linear

Call it what you will, this game felt more like Mystic Quest where you effectively follow a single path.  At least MQ had villages and towns where you could walk around talking to NPCs.  You could learn about the world without the constant need of custcenes and interruptions of what little exploring you had.  You could look for secret chests that were well out of your way.

Unfortunately this game effectively feels like you are holding down the forward button.  There is no towns, no characters to talk to and certainly no hidden caves.

As mentioned before that one single big open area is it for Final Fantasy XIII.  And there are few tiny pieces of story or information about the world you are in.  You learn about people having lost their lives in this world and become statues.. but where is the story.  Where are these big epic battles that have high rewards or to tell us more things about our characters..  there are none.

Previous Final Fantasy

No matter what game you played previously, you always got a sense that the world was bigger than it was.  The characters had a much deeper story and it always felt like that there was more.  Even if you spent hours unlocking, maximising characters and gaining their ultimate weapons.  There was always that doubt.. are you missing something?

XIII doesn’t make you feel like that.. in fact it makes you feel like that once finished you may not repeat it.. you may not replay it.

Some of my less loved games I’ve still replayed with the likes of IX but that game although I didn’t love the characters and thought the story was over complicated.  It still felt like a Final Fantasy game where there was so much to explore and to do.

With the now release of FFXV.. I am about to embark.. or shall I say hope to embark on a journey with loveable characters in a world with so much to do in a game where it feels like the journey is as important as the destination.  Where not only do I get to enjoy the story but I enjoy the action just as much.

If you’re new to these type of games you may find FFXIII is for you.  If you enjoy a beautiful game with a story then again this is a game for you.