Second Opinion: Final Fantasy XIII (A, 90.00%)

Original: Miracles Are Things We Make For Ourselves (April 10, 2011)

There are a couple of unofficial reviews floating around my blog which I figured could be updated to conform to my recently adopted review format quite easily. In addition, I feel like having the opportunity to provide some second opinions about some of what I have either played or watched after a hype period will be helpful in creating a genuinely accurate review of my experience.

During Spring Break last year, I completed Final Fantasy XIII. I had been following this game since eighth grade as I turned back to Final Fantasy to curb my Kingdom Heats crave. After seeing the first trailer for the game, I was hooked and I would constantly check up on IGN for new updates. When I purchased the game last year with my dad I was overjoyed. Thankfully, at that time, I had practically finished AP European History and only had to look forward to my daily dose of Mrs. Larson and Mrs. Vanhorn, two of the most relaxed teachers I have ever met (Mrs. Larson actually isn't that relaxed).

I spent countless hours gobbling up this massive masterpiece. If you play Final Fantasy games, many of you know that FFXIII was more linear than most of the previous installments in the series, offering almost no towns or NPC's to interact with along the way. In fact, most of the game consists of moving down long hallways toward an exclamation point on your mini-map to watch a cut scene or fight a boss. While many may condemn this aspect of FFXIII, I enjoyed this aspect thoroughly. By focusing more on story development and character interactions, FFXIII allowed me to slowly be drawn into the game before shaking things up.

SECOND OPINION: After playing FFXIII-2 and seeing how NPCs and towns could have been easily integrated into FFXIII, I feel like the linearity was somewhat overbearing in FFXIII. The lack of the ability to really freely travel around the world until the final chapters was actually significantly restricting, and I found myself spending a lot more time just exploring in FFXIII-2 instead of farming like I did in FFXIII as a result. However, if you are a fan of the series or JRPGs like me, linearity shouldn't be much of a problem.

And what a story! FFXIII had, in my opinion, the most emotionally gripping storyline of any other installment. With the other installments I have played, like FFXII, FFX, and FFVII, I wasn't able to become emotionally connected to characters because of awkward interactions. The beautifully crafted backgrounds, character models, and smashing soundtrack didn't hurt either. While there were many scenes with cheesy character dialogue (yes, this is a Japanese RPG), I was surprised most of the time by how dynamic each of the characters were. The only thing that pissed me off was Vanille's accent (are you Russian or British?).

SECOND OPINION: Okay, to be honest, the narrative in FFXIII is not "the most emotionally gripping storyline of any other installment" (I don't feel like this makes grammatical sense anyway). However, I have to say the characters in FFXIII were some of the most memorable and the party had fantastic chemistry fleshed out in some gorgeous cut scenes. While some cut scenes are melodramatic, FFXIII features very human and moving cut scenes as well. Given the narrative clusterfuck that is FFXIII-2, FFXIII does a good job and holds up even now.

As for the actual game play, the fighting system was not the most interactive, but the fights were some of the most stressful I have ever fought. Even if your characters are automatically healed after each fight and they automatically fight with a single click, the enemies in FFXIII are brutal and can tear you to shreds if you make a wrong move. While none of the enemies up until Chapter 11 pose a real threat, when you reach the Archetype Steppe things get spicy quick. I honestly used a Paradigm Shift every 20 seconds on some bosses. The only thing I felt was missing was really powerful finishing moves or summons (Eidolons suck nuts) but I guess that would throw off the fighting system.

SECOND OPINION: The level of complexity in the FFXIII fighting system is often masked by the auto-selection system which allows you to stack commands at the push of a button. You get out of FFXIII's battle system what you put into it. You can complain about the simplicity of battles and just keep pushing auto-select with an overleveled party or you can make your own strategic choices, experimenting with movesets and equipment in order to maximize the role potential of each of your characters to make battles less of a waiting game and more of an accomplishment. The same is true of FFXIII-2.

Overall, I am extremely satisfied as of now. The game was just the right length with a decent pace (except for the massive learning curve at Chapter 11), and I feel like almost all of my questions were answered. One annoyance to note however is that at Chapter 11, the cut scene quality decreases substantially and the characters barely move during forced pieces of dialogue (FFX all over again). Maybe the game developers just didn't care anymore. Oh well. The beautifully crafted CGI cut scenes and fight animations more than make up for this small annoyance.

Story: 8/10 - The overlaying narrative of fulfilling a focus is compelling; The history of Cocoon and Pulse isn't handle superbly; A lot of questions remain concerning the fal'Cie.

Characters: 9/10 - Interesting, while somewhat one-dimensional characters in the party; Melodramatic narrative but fleshes out humanity well at numerous points.

Gameplay: 8/10 - The linearity is somewhat disappointing and restrictive; Battles are fast-paced and fun, but require you to put in the extra effort.

Graphics: 10/10 - The game is beautiful; Square Enix isn't afraid to show off fantastic production value with a great focus on details; Experienced very few frame rate issues.

Music: 10/10 - Masashi Hamauzu delivers with fantastic orchestral pieces; The background music is appropriate and the battle music is a delight to hear.

We Live To Make The Impossible Possible,
Noel