I have been waiting for this game for ages. A long time ago, back when I was still very young and didn’t know any better, I sold my soul to Squaresoft for Final Fantasy VI to come to America. As a result, I have to relentlessly buy every Final Fantasy Square produces (even though they are Square-Enix now) no matter how many times they disappoint me. The rushed story of Final Fantasy XII didn’t turn me away, the insistence of pushing into the MMO genre with Final Fantasy XI and now Final Fantasy XIV didn’t turn me away. The wholly lukewarm response Final Fantasy IX got and the largely negative response Final Fantasy VIII got didn’t turn me away. So I certainly wasn’t going to be turned away by Final Fantasy XIII.

Though there are some that say I should have been, because of how different Final Fantasy XIII is from every other game in the Final Fantasy line. There is very little exploration, no towns, and no MP. Outside of the Chocobos, familiar Final Fantasy elements seem to be absent. If it weren’t for the familiar music and the random appearance of Afro Chocobo, I would have never known I was even playing a Final Fantasy. The game is so different that I find myself lost at where to begin the review, so let’s just start with the gameplay.

Whereas other developers are using current generation technology to stretch the limits of gameplay through glorious non-linear RPGs that stretch on for hours, Squeenix has said “fuck that shit” and has finally stopped lying to themselves. They have always made interactive stories more than true games. Their unique brand of JRPG was always known for being very linear with few choices along the way, simply ferrying the player on until the story’s inevitable end.

Final Fantasy XIII is as linear as ever, in pretty much every sense of the world. There is no world map to traverse, no thrill of flying around the world on an airship. Instead, you are simply brought from one locale to another as the story permits. The different areas of the game are very pretty and stunning to look at, but in reality they are little more than corridors with a few short branching paths that lead to treasure chests (or weird floating item pod thingies as the case seems to be in FF XIII). The game opens up in the middle with some mission based gameplay, but at this point you become so used to the linearity of it all that you feel de-motivated to do much other than advance the story.

The story itself, is pretty damn complicated. There are a few very small elements of discontinuous narrative, but mostly you are pushing the story forward toward the end at all times. Characters move in and out of your party according to what role the story has for them, and although you are introduced to all of the key characters very early on, you have very little control over who you use in your party for a majority of the game. The story starts out assuming you know the back story of the Final Fantasy XIII world, and if you are as obsessive as I am, then you probably do. For everyone else, there is an in-game datalog that continually keeps you updated with all the latest important information. It’s pretty long winded though, so you may spend as much time reading up on the game as you do playing it.

If you really want a run down, here you go. There is a floating technological world called Cocoon that floats over the primal, more naturey, world called Pulse. Cocoon good. Pulse bad. There are machine gods called Fal’Cie, that hang around. The good ones made Cocoon. The bad ones curse people by giving them a focus, a task they must complete, and magical power to do so. These cursed people are called l’Cie. If they complete the task they turn to crystal, and this kind of sucks. If they fail the task they turn into horrible ghoulish monsters, and this too kind of sucks. In fact, this sucks so bad that the government of Cocoon is basically killing everyone who has had any sort of contact with Pulse. Your party, which consists of Lighting, our badass fighter chick main character, Snow, a dude who really wishes he was the main character, Sazh, a man with a baby Chocobo nesting in his afro, Hope, a kid whose mother dies in front of him and who hates Snow because of it, and Vanille, THE MOST FUCKING ANNOYING HAPPY-GO-LUCKY CHARACTER IN EXISTENCE, is out to save Serah, Lightning’s sister and Snow’s fiancé. However, in the process, all of these characters end up getting turned into l’Cie (and meet up with another one later in the game to round out the party to six) and now they have to deal with their fates.

At the very beginning of the game you can’t even level up. Once you go l’Cie though, you can level up via Crystogenesis via the Crystarium menu. Don’t let the big words fool you, it’s basically just the sphere grid from Final Fantasy X all over again. You spend points to advance on a path and activate nodes, and while there are a few branching paths, progression is pretty linear. In fact, progression is way more linear than you originally might have thought, since enemies are all present on the map, and they don’t respawn once you defeat them. This means that you can’t actually grind, even if you want to, until you get to the later more open parts of the game.

The battle system is kind of like what would happen if Squeenix took a crack at the Persona 3 battle system. You only control your main character in battle, and if your main character dies it is game over. The ATB bar is back, however it is broken up into segments. Different abilities use a different amount of the bar, with more powerful attacks using more bar. There is no MP whatsoever. Magic spells are free to cast, as is almost every other ability in the game. HP recovers after every battle and recovery items pretty much affect the entire party. You can choose your own actions, but most of the time you can also just choose “auto battle” and the computer will choose the best possible actions for you.

This may make battles seem easy, but that is actually not true. Unlike other Final Fantasies, Final Fantasy XIII seriously ups the damage dealing ability of both you and enemies alike. Individual combat action choice matters little, but managing the Paradigm Shift system matters quite a bit. “Jobs” are back, but this time they are called “roles” and they can be switched in the middle of battle. Switching role layouts at the right time is key to winning battles. When you are low on health, it’s better to switch to a role with a medic (white mage) and a sentinel (knight) to soak damage and heal your party. When high on health, it’s better to switch to commandos (fighters) and ravagers (black mages) to lay the damage on thick and attempt to stagger the enemy for a damage boost. If an enemy seems unbeatable, a creative Paradigm Shift might just save the day. Some enemies with high defense are very susceptible to debuff, and other powerful, slow enemies falter once you buff your own party. The Paradigm Shift system (along with occasional item use and summoning) is where the meat of the battle system lies. In truth, you will actually, more often than not, simply be clicking “auto-battle” and focusing on your paradigms, than choosing individual battle actions.

Though every commando in the game focuses on attacking and every ravager in the game focuses on magic, each individual character differs in his or her given roles. For example, when Snow acts as a ravager, he casts blizzard magic, while Vanille casts aero. Careful managing of what character uses what class is crucial. As you reach the endgame, characters become able to take on any role they want, but there are certainly paths that are better for specific characters to follow. It’s pretty obvious that a character that carries around a sword in her back pocket is better off swinging it than trying to use it to cast spells.

God, there is so much more to go into about the system of the game. Let’s see, all your shopping is done at save points, so the notion of RPG towns is no longer applicable. Save points are very frequent so you never feel as if the game is forcing you to play it for extended periods of time. Weapons and accessories can be upgraded to provide greater benefits to the characters equipping them. When you max out a weapon or accessory, you can use certain materials to turn it into a whole new item that can then be maxed out all over again. Much like Final Fantasy XII, you don’t get cash from winning battles. Instead you have to sell monster loot to get your hard earned Gil. Unfortunately, it is this same monster loot that powers up your weapons and accessories, so you will be playing a bit of a resource management game there.

Outside of the system and story you have the graphics and sound and all I can say about that is wow. Just … wow! The game is absolutely gorgeous. The characters are animated very realistically, and somehow, the game finds a balance between realism and animation that totally bypasses the whole uncanny valley thing. Honestly, I think it’s the outrageous RPG outfits. The environments are stunning, and they are all just so pretty to look at. The music is great, as it has always been, and the voice acting is believable. Perhaps the only thing that this game lacks, is the dialogue itself. The melodrama is pretty heavy, and you’ll see characters go through life changing events and deliver inspired monologues after no more than a few minutes into the game. Its inspiring at first but eventually runs on a little long.

To wrap this all up, I have to say I am not disappointed by Final Fantasy XIII in the least. I know I am not, because as soon as I got the game I played it for 9 hours straight without pausing for food or water. It does exactly what JRPGs do best, linearity. It tells a story and makes all of its systems revolve around that story. If you like the sort of RPG that gives you freedom to do whatever you want, then this game isn’t for you. However, if you are looking for Final Fantasy once again distilled down to its best parts, then go out and pick up Final Fantasy XIII.

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