Game Review: Final Fantasy XIII
It's been two weeks since I borrowed this game (Japanese version) from a friend. He gave up 7 hours through the game saying it's too boring so I might as well play it for him, from the beginning of course. =) It took me a total of 60 hours, and that includes completing a little less than half the total number of side quests. Anyway, here goes my humble review (the first in a long time...):
Story - C (No spoilers)
I'll be fair. The language can be a barrier sometimes, especially in the last third of the game, so naturally this affects how much of the story I can understand but! From what I can understand I'm pretty sure those parts I don't understand are prolly just crap anyway so it doesn't quite matter in the end. >_>;
  
The general plot can't be any more simple and clichéd, and to be honest it's OK to be clichéd cos' it's not like anything is original anymore these days, but the story's presented in such d~r~a~m~a that it's hard not to cringe at it. Most of the main cast other than the Dante-lookalike (aka Snow) are emo in their own way and the lines they spill...! Oh god... It's almost worse than the most typical of anime crap. None of them have any charm or charisma, including all the other supporting characters that you won't even remember. These characters don't make me laugh, they don't make me sympathize, and I definitely don't feel love/attachment for them. There's nothing attractive about them and no bit of their background stories is remotely interesting. Balthier from FF12 doesn't contribute much to the story either (other than practically being their pilot) but at the very least he has his charm and brings some light humor to their conversations. The things he says can be pretty smart, not to mention the hawt accent. But FF13... my god... *Shuts ears*
Oh yeah, speaking of humor, there is no humor in FF13. I thought Sazh was gonna be the comical relief but turns out no one is. He's just a guy with a chocobo chick in his tuft. Snow vomits most of the most boring lines any three year old can come up with and all his sentences begin and end with SERA, the prepubescent girl of his dreams. Vanille doesn't talk; she just squeaks. And Hope, that half girl-boy, just whines. And after he's whined enough he starts repeating the things others say as if Square Enix is afraid we'd figure out he has in fact no purpose in the team. The main character herself is some of the most boring protagonists. Like a typical tsun character she's angry and confused half the time, and busy looking dolfie-pretty the other half. There's no real solid character development for her (and anyone else for that matter), unless you count a single moment of realization that she's been in denial as one. They have no substance.... =/
Anyway, sorry to steer away. Back to story, it revolves around these few keywords - コクーン (Cocoon), ファルシ (Farsi ?), パルス (Pulse) and ルシ(Rushi ?). For 30 hours straight I've wondered WTF Cocoon is and when I finally saw it, it made perfectly no sense. Basically nothing makes sense. Period. Sorry I have no idea how else to describe this epic failure.
Graphics - A+
  
As expected of Square Enix. That's all I can really say. It's not like any of you don't already know of their graphical standards. However, this only applies only to character, summon (yes, especially the summons. They are the best thing in FF13) and enemy designs, as well as anything that is pre-rendered CGI. Their level design, however, is far too questionable. There is not a single town in FF13 you can visit. And by town I mean a place where you stop by to rest at an inn, or buy weapons and items from. Every single place you go to is a dungeon, and these dungeons are super blah. If you've tried/seen the FF13 demo, you'll get a pretty good idea of what 8 out of 10 dungeons in the game look like.
Gameplay - B+
Be. Aware. This game. Has such a. Sloooowww. Pace. That by the end of 17 hours you'll STILL be getting in-game tutorials, I kid you not. The first 8 hours are gonna be the most boring. If you can't get past those 8 hours then it'll really be too bad, cos by then you haven't actually reached the point whereby you play the game the way it really should be played.
In FF12, the battle system is called Gambit. In FF13, this system is called Optima (it seems they call it Paradigm in the English version... wtf). It's basically a much simplified version of Gambit, which is actually very noob-friendly for RPG weaklings like me. In FF12, you specify exactly what every single character does in order of priority. In FF13, you simply assign a job for each character, and the A.I. will automatically take care of the character(s) you're not in control of.
These are what each character will do when assigned a job (please note that these job titles are based on the Japanese version. The English version uses different titles):
- Attacker
The job for warriors/tanks. All they do is "attack", mostly with raw physical attacks, but there's also an option for "magical physical attack".
- Blaster
Casts black magic like Fire, Lightning, etc. Blaster is also the job required to raise the enemy's break meter. I'll get into this soon.
- Healer
Casts white magic like Cure, Esuna, Live, etc
- Defender
You'll rarely use this, but it's basically a decoy role. As a Defender you provoke enemies into attacking only you and you take much less damage when hit, which gives you time/a chance for your healer(s) to heal the team in desperate times.
- Jammer
Casts weakening status magic like Slow, Weak, Poison, etc.
- Enhancer
Casts support magic like Protect, Shell, Haste, etc
Each character in FF13 is initially given three jobs so for example not everyone is capable of healing. Later in the game, all 6 jobs are unlocked for everyone but those that aren't their original three jobs cost a lot more experience points to level up so you'll still find yourself sticking with their first three jobs until you beat the game.
The game allows you to set up a maximum of 6 different optima combinations. For example if your team currently consists of Lightning, Hope and Fang, this is what you can do:
You can set any of them to be your default Optima and you will begin your battles with it, but you can change your Optima anytime during battle, which is why as a player all you really need to do is mash the O button for your character to automatically do the stuff s/he does for her job and then switch your Optima whenever you need to and mash O again all the way to victory. The A.I. will know exactly what to do against every single type of enemy as long as you scan for their info once using 'libra'.
Also, this game has no MP (magic points) meter. Blasters and Healers can repeat any magic anytime without the worry of depleting your MP gauge. Instead of using MP, the game simply requires you to wait longer (the ATB gauge) before you can cast a stronger/higher level magic spell.
Your HP is reset to full at the beginning of every battle no matter how much damage you previously took. A KO'ed character also doesn't lose his/her experience points when you beat the battle without reviving him/her. As long as the battle is won, the entire team (all 6 characters) gains equal experience points. If you lose a battle and it's game over, you don't ever have to worry about restarting all the way from the last save point (there are a lot of save points btw) The game will actually bring you back to the moment right before the battle you just died in. In fact, you can even restart the game at any point in time to right before your current/last battle for possible reasons like testing the boss/optimas/changing your team members/going for a preemptive attack. Truly very convenient. =) Also, casting/using a summon in a battle revives/fully cures the team when the summon ends, which is very helpful during super desperate times.
 
Summons cost 3 TP stocks to use per time. As you can see in the pics below, the TP gauge is shared by all in the team. Although to put it more accurately, only the leader (you) can use the TP gauge. A full TP gauge only gives you 5 stocks, which means you can only use summons once in a battle. The TP gauge can be refilled in three ways (1) breaking a lot of enemies battle after battle (2) winning battles fast (you're given a rank for every battle) (3) using a TP-refilling item (rare) outside of battle. The first two methods take a while to refill the gauge, which is why you won't be able to use summons very often although they're really cool. The third method is instant but the required item is not exactly common.
 
Next, the break system. Enemies in FF13 have long lives near the start of the game and ridiculously long lives near the end of the game. The break system enables you to double, triple and further multiply your damage in order to take down these long lives. The break meter always starts at 100%, indicating that you're inflicting 100% of your original damage. The more you attack the same enemy, the higher that percent will increase. (Blaster is the job to increase this break percent) Now every different type of enemy has its own break point. For example, the first image above shows that the enemy Ectopudding's (LOL) break point is at 600%, and the player has only reached 405.8% at that moment. (In the 2nd pic above, you can see that the enemy and the break meter glows when you've reached the break point.) If the player manages to raise the break meter up to 600%, the enemy will then be "broken" and may finally be stunned, which means you can launch it up into the air and cease all its movements and turns, as well as earning an even higher break percent for you to deal even more damage, which is essential to beat bosses in the game. Breaking an enemy also interrupts its immediate next move, hence canceling it out.
Before entering a battle, however, approaching an enemy from the back results in a preemptive attack, and this gives you an immediate break advantage which would help you defeat enemies a lot faster, which then gives you a higher rank at the end of a battle, which in turn refills your TP gauge.
Linearity
It's not like you didn't see this coming, but yes FF13 is a linear game, as with most JRPGs if you ask me. Unlike FF12 all the dungeons here are literally one long tunnel with perhaps a fork or two. They are very repetitive and boring and there's nothing to explore (to be honest I'm not keen on exploring anyway). The one and only place/dungeon in the entire game that is wide open is in chapter 11, the one and only chapter that is fun and addictive (if ever). It will take a good 27 hours or more before you get to this chapter so those of you who might already got bored to death before that may miss out on this.
Side Quests/Replay value - B+
 
I'm not big on side quests but I must say that FF13 only truly gets interesting in chapter 11 and chapter 11 alone because of the wide open level as well as all the optional dungeons and missions you can take on. There are a total of 64 side quests (I think) and less than the first half can be accessed in your first play through. The others will only be unlocked after you beat the game and return directly to this area for your post-game adventure. This level is gonna feel very familiar for those of you who've played FF10 and FF12 and if you've liked it before you will most probably like it this time as well, especially for the side quest-hungry and OCD gamers.
Difficulty
This is an odd aspect of the game to judge. The battle system itself is easy to learn and understand, but the enemies are not always the most forgiving. Most enemies are tolerable in the first 10 chapters but once you reach chapter 11 (why are we not surprised?), things just change. Regular enemies you encounter can easily rip you to shreds despite swearing you didn't slack on training all this time. Since chapter 11 is the time you can go around doing optional missions, it's a great place to level up and prepare for the upcoming chapters. I, for example, completed every single mission I can access (except for one but I won't get into that) before continuing with the main quest, but even then I was almost trashed in the immediate next dungeon. I spent nearly 20 hours in chapter 11 alone leveling up. Imagine what'd happen to those who didn't (wanna) do the optional stuff and put in all those extra training?
And that's not the end of it. The game gets unbelievably brutal by the last chapter/dungeon and trust me when I say brutal. Almost every single enemy encounter feels like a boss fight, and I could die any moment not knowing what hit me, no kidding. If you think you just encountered a really tough enemy, expect to see it come back in a more cruel enemy combination (a group of enemies) and it gets even more cruel every single time. Thanks to this I really hated the game in the last chapter. The enemy combinations get so ridiculous that at one point I had no choice but to run past them and skip their battles altogether just to make it to the next area. It so stressed the shit out of me.
Sound/Music - B-
Not too impressive. I'm not a music expert; my idea of what's good and bad music is prolly as different as heaven and earth compared to others. But what I can say is that I remember going "Oh my god, someone shut this up please!" in a good number of dungeons throughout the game. A lot of the BGMs involve vocals and I personally much prefer full instrumentals. Some of these vocals are also incoherent (prolly just the style) and it's just... annoying. Even one of the chocobo themes has vocals! Like...WTF?? =_o As for the main theme, well, I don't exactly remember how it sounds like for now so lemme skip that. ^^;
Overall -  , B
It's not a super horrible game, but neither is it super awesome. If you don't feel anything for the story and characters like me, all this game has to offer is gameplay, and even then you have to make sure you can last long enough through the first few chapters of the game to get to the part where you really learn to utilize optima before you can start enjoying your game. And even then, you may stop liking the battles by the later chapters when enemies rape your ass like no tomorrow. It's like the game has mood swings. It makes it hard for you to decide whether you actually like/enjoy it.
But hey, at least there's still one very cool thing about FF13 that amazes even someone like me - the summons! Their design and transformations caught me entirely off guard and man was I impressed. ^_^ (I don't follow/watch trailers and spoil myself beforehand you see =P) That's a really smart move. Now all the transform-loving maniacs and otakus would be drooling their face off over buying the summons' really expensive toys/figures. XD |
