Final Fantasy XIII

Review from Jae - Monday, 15 March 2010 @ 1:19am

Final Fantasy XIII, it’s not a game. It’s a lot of game. In the season where big games are releasing faster than my bowels after hot curry, you have to be prepared to invest a lot of time into this one. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, in fact if you’re in the market for a long lasting title then you’ll get your money’s worth with any Final Fantasy game. Just try to sit still for a few minutes while I explain the intricacies of the most famous JRPG.

Snow sports a tattoo, lets call it Rain or Hail.

Explaining the storyline in FFXIII is like trying to explain where babies come from. You want to tell it right but you don’t want to spoil the best bits. The game centres around six main characters that all have their own story arcs that intertwine. When you start off Lightning and Snow are the first familiars, both of which have a connection through Serah who is their sister and fiancé respectively. The overarching world in which this takes place is made up of two opposing factions, Pulse and Cocoon. Pulse is the mysterious world beneath whereas Cocoon is considered sanctuary to all humans. The mythology of Pulse is based on the fal’Cie, abusers of magic and all things powerful. The fal’Cie have the power to infect humans with their mark which turns them into L’Cie. The L’Cie are shunned by citizens of Cocoon as the Sanctum, i.e. Coocoon’s government, have everyone convinced that Pulse and anything to do with Pulse is bad mojo. They even quarantine people that come in contact with the L’Cie, presumably to preserve the idea that the fal’Cie are evil. The story then revolves around the six characters that traverse through Cocoon and Pulse searching for a resolution to their problems. It gets fairly complicated from there on in so I’ll stop before I get confused. I was fairly impressed with the complex story and the ending was very satisfying. I think this is the first Final Fantasy where all the main characters get a fair amount of air time.

There’s something that smells of paedo-musk with the main love story. Snow looks like your average buffed twenty something hunk whilst his girlfriend, Serah, looks as though she’s about twelve. Maybe it’s a Japanese fetish thing but it creeps me out from the get go. It’s probably going to be all lovey dovey until Snow’s name show up on the national paedophile register. Two of the other main characters, Vanille and Hope, remind me of Wiley Kit and Wiley Kat from the Thundercats. If I’ve lost you then you are obviously too young or a deprived 80’s child. Being the kids of the clan they have no real connection to each other except for the fact that they’re young and naive. They’re not your usual energetic playful teenagers, infact Hope is a mopey little runt that you want to shove antidepressants into. Even though I hate on this character it’s still good to have a genuine feeling towards them as it shows how engaged I am with the story. Make sure you listen when cutscenes take place, or turn subtitles on, as there is much about the story you’ll pick up and appreciate. There is a datalog in your menu where you can visit for an in-depth explanation of the story as you progress. Speaking of subtitles the game does not come with optional Japanese voices, a bit of a downer for Japanphiles. It does however have a nice story spiel when you’re loading a save file. It gives you a small account of the scenes leading up to where you last saved which acts as a quick refresher. It’s a minor feature but none the less a worthy addition.

Apologise for my bad acting voice? Nevar!

Aesthetically you can’t fault FFXIII. Everything you see in this game is just stunning, as long as you’re playing it on a HDTV. Colours are very vibrant and character models are top notch. I have to applaud Square Enix on catering to the English version as they’ve done a great job in synching up the lip movements with the words spoken. This wasn’t done very well in the past FF games and given this game only came out three months after its Japanese release it was an impressive feat. Some of the creatures in the world of Pulse do share similarities to those in James Cameron’s Avatar, in terms of their design and movement. I’m not sure who copied whom but there beautiful in both cases.

I’m amazed at how games like Kingdom Hearts, that came out 8 years ago, managed to secure quality voice actors yet they managed to get it wrong for a colossal game like FFXIII. Most voices are executed well but the ones you remember most are the bad ones. Lightning, for example, is an expressionless waste of sound bytes. The first ten hours of the game have you feeling disjointed with her character. In fact the only scene where I thought she did a good job was in the ending. You can tell the game tries to mould her into a military soldier type with a hard exterior and a soft spot for family but that isn’t conveyed through her voice. Also she’s voiced by someone that starred in Beverly Hills Chihuahua, I’m pretty sure that explains the lack of quality. The rest of the support cast is done fairly well even the surprising voice of Fang, which sounds like something between an Australian and New Zealand accent. The narration of the game is done by one of the main six characters, Vanille, which was a good choice as she’s vibrant and expression-filled. One thing you do seldom is interact with NPCs. Their voices only act as background chatter which means your interaction is based on a handful of characters outside of your main party.

It may be part of the norm these days but digital surround sound within a JRPG sounds great. When walking around in dungeons your allies walk behind you and you can really hear their footsteps and chatter coming up from behind. The musical score is the most diverse it has ever been, Leona Lewis’s song isn’t the only lyrics based tune with many others to be heard whilst traversing Pulse. In fact you don’t even hear “My Hands” or it’s musical score throughout the majority of the game. One tune sure to get on everyone’s nerves is the new rendition of the chocobo theme. It now has lyrics which will have you leaping to your remote control and mashing the mute button. Chocobop fail - do not want, did not need. Please turn off the sound when you get to these parts of the game. Your ears will thank you for it.

It's all kind of Taxim on you

Let me be clear, I don’t think this game is for someone looking to break into the JRPG scene nor do I think it’s a game for kids. The battle mechanics are not simple so unless you think you’re heavily familiar with turn based battles you won’t ease into the fast pace action of a battle. The reason why I don’t think it’s for kids has nothing to do with violence or gore but more so the themes and, again, the battle mechanics. The ways battling take place are very different than any other FF game before it. The first difference you’ll notice is that you only control one character. During a battle of three characters on your team you only have full functional control over one character. In the first half of the game this character is predetermined but you get the choice later on. As your other characters are considered ‘AI’ you get to play a role in influencing their move sets through something called a paradigm shift. This allows you to change their crystarium role, which is a fancy name for job classes, on the fly. It’s not a micromanagement tool of selecting the character then their role, you cater up to six combinations of roles to switch between during battle. It is a necessity to paradigm shift through majority of your battles. For example the most common combination I kept with was the Relentless Assault which consisted of two Ravages and a Commander (i.e. two black mages and a soldier). By having that combination there would be no healer so I would switch to another paradigm that was called Combat Clinic where two of the characters would turn into medics and one into a sentinel (i.e. a shock absorbing defender). Then your characters would continue to heal each other till you decide to paradigm shift again. In the early part of the game you can get away with just having one medic in your team at all times but once you get to the harder battles you will need to vary your strategy to include two medics when health is low. Just be careful as you can easily die in the heat of battle, even if you’re up against a simple opponent. Ignorant attacks can mean high risks so don’t get too cocky or you’ll get the boot.

To top it all off your enemies have a stagger meter which is like a shield breaking measure. Magic, whether status changes or HP reducing, will increase the meter and get to the point of where your enemy will be vulnerable. If you have a pre-emptive strike (i.e. sneak up on an enemy) then all enemies start with a high stagger meter. Usually one more magic attack will put them into stagger mode so that you can start a heavy assault quicker. So the basic strategy in battles is to use magic to max out an opponent’s stagger meter and then assaulting them with everything you can. Throw this into the mix defending, healing and paradigm shifting and you have yourself a complex strategy that is well rewarded.

An important staple in FF games are summons, which in this universe are called Eidolons. They’re small in number this time but you do get to see your other traditional summons in various cutscenes. During the heat of battle an Eidolon is usually summoned as a revival tool. If your party is mostly dead or heavily wounded you can summon an Eidolon and when exhausted all your party members would be revived to full health. Speaking of full health there is no need to heal yourself after battles now as every battle will commence with 100% health. That is a big yay from my corner as I’d get sick of using potions and cures in menus after battles in past FF games. I think that one is a keeper Square Enix. Anyway Eidolons remind me of the Aeons from FFX. They replace all your characters, except for the main character that summons them, and they take over battle from there. From time to time you’ll bust out an Eidolon simply to watch the battle tip into your favour. I only wish they had more varying summons and the ability to choose which Eidolon rather than tying them down to specific characters. As I never used much of Sazh it was very rare for me to bust his summon out.

Little girls don't ride ponies no more

Word on the street is that people are bitching about the linearity of the first 20-25 hours. My message to those who think like that is to pull their Western RPG stick out of their backsides and take it like a man. The dungeon style game play for the first half of the game is necessary to learn the best techniques for battle. I much prefer a game that does this than one that makes me back track at a later date when I’m of a higher level. The learning curve of battles is not steep but its long drawn out over countless hours. Try not to think of that as a bad feature, more so a different RPG learning style. You will need patience and perseverance to make it to an open world style gameplay. RPGs of late have given you this freedom from the get go but it didn’t necessarily make them better, nor would an open style in the beginning of FFXIII. The fluidity of the story meant that scenes needed to play out the way they did. It wasn’t a mistake in my eyes but it has been in so many others so it would be safe to say FFXV will involve a lot less linearity.

I could harp on and on about FFXIII. In fact I probably will in the forums. Normally I’d play a game like this once and stow it away till a portable version of it gets re-released ten years later (FFVII/VIII anyone?) but there’s something that is trying to lure me back in to finish all the side quests and max out my characters. Maybe it’s the trophies, maybe it’s my genetic predisposition to ‘collect them all’ or maybe it’s just a really good game. I’d say the reason is spread amongst all of those. You can’t simply watch a person play FFXIII nor play a demo to help you decide whether you like the game. If JRPGs are your thing and the FF series has been an interest of yours somewhere in the last two decades then invest is this epically long game. The rewards are plenty and your love for chocobos, moogles and Cids will live on through this experience. Now it’s time for me to resume a normal life after using my bedroom as a bunk shelter to save Cocoon.

Pros

It’s pretty oh so pretty.
Battles are fast paced yet engaging.
Learning curve for battling is well paced and explained.

Cons

Chocobop fail.
Some voice acting takes away the personalities.
Lose 45+ hours of your social life.