Review: Final Fantasy XIII

Since 2005 the promise of a next-gen Final Fantasy has lived feverishly in the hearts and minds of gamers the world over. Finally after years of silence, a huge megaton announcement at E3 of the title making its way to the Xbox 360 and the PS3; the title has finally found it self on shelves. Sadly the wait and anticipation was not worth it.

Developer: Square-Enix
Publisher: Square-Enix
Platforms: PS3/X360 [X360 Reviewed]

Much criticism has been laid at the feet of Final Fantasy XIII and for good reason. Gone are the hours of exploration and level grinding. Summons have now become nothing more than cheap visual attractions which serve no real purpose in battle and combat has become painfully boring. FFXIII tells a very interesting story of a world split between a battle of ancient and powerful god like beings called the Fal’Cie. The Fal’Cie similar to the Greek gods are petty beings constantly warring and using humans as their weapons of choice. FFXIII delivers a tale about a group of characters fighting their chosen destiny and trying to write their own. Premise wise, Square-Enix delivered a pretty unique mythology, just one that lacks the punch of previous Final Fantasy entries.

It delivers all the emotional weight of a wet-nap. FFXIII is not fun. It’s a grind, and not in the fun way that JRPG fans expected. Linear and boring is the best way to describe FFXIII’s game-play. Long to explore vast open fields and towns? Well you’ll get the vast open fields, but only after sludging through 22 hours of narrow walk-ways, interrupted every 15 mins with a cut-scene. Towns are gone, shops are gone, finding hidden items are also gone. Shopping is now done via any save point at an online store resembling Amazon.com. Here’s where your party can stack up on potions, phoenix down ect.

Everything has been streamlined for better or worse. You’ll head down a path, encounter enemies, fight, see a cut-scene and repeat. Combat for instance is no longer controlled by the player for each party member. A.I. now controls your party members attacks based on a particular class or “paradigm” set up. It works well but lacks the personal approach that I’ve come to love from past FF’s.

Combat moves at a much faster pace than in previous entries in the series, which can be enjoyable at times. But to be honest it slowly becomes tedious due to battles taking 10-15 minutes just for random low- medium powered enemies. Even more tiring are boss battles that can last up to an hour at a time, which can be an exercise in patience when you’ve finally whittled away their life only to be struck down by a Doom timer. The only impulse that kept me playing for as long as I did was simply because I loved the series and kept wanting the title to redeem itself. It didn’t. As for those vast open fields I mentioned, you’ll eventually get to them and they are glorious, but its all too little too late. FFXIII is by far the worst entry in the Final Fantasy series. Its only redeeming value is the amazingly beautiful graphics. But just like a hot blonde with no brain and personality; it only goes so far. Some will love FFXIII for its no frills approach and dedication to forward thinking story telling and visual splendor, but as a long time fan of the series I was immensely let down. FFXIII steers so clear from what has made Final Fantasy - Final Fantasy that I could have easily surmised this was another franchise altogether. I really wanted to like FFXIII, I really really did! FFXIII is ultimately beautiful but simply isn’t a whole lot of fun.

 By: Michael Torres