Final Fantasy XIII (Xbox 360) (Video Game)

A high quality RPG for Xbox 360 This is an extremely good looking game, as an RPG it's pretty straightforward to play, but the sheer aesthetic quality of the art and graphics is fantastic. Also contrary to what some say, the Xbox 360 version is really good, it runs smooth, looks fantastic...if you don't like Japanese RPG's you won't like it, but if you like them even a bit i'd certainly reccomend getting this.

A game you can spend many hours on it Final Fantasy XIII was undoubtfully one of the most anticipated games of this year. I have recently bought the game and in 3 days of playing it I have spent more than twenty hours on it. I really like the game and I strogly disagree with my co-gamers that the game is bad. The story line is really interesting. It's true that it is a bit complicated as you will definitely need a lot of play-time in order to fully understand what is going on with the story but it definitely worths your patience and time. The continuoysly developing plot and the extraordinary cinematic scenes are two of the strongest aspects of the game. For the battle system now it is true that is not same as the previous FF games as it is not turn based and it has an expected time limit to finish the battle in order to rate your battle efficiency and gain points. I understand that this may make the game a bit stressful but If someone sees it as a challenge is going to gain more out of the game. Further more on the battle system it has the Auto battle button the aim of which is to give a sequence of actions in order to destroy your enemy. With the easy enemies is definetely dull and boring to use it so I strongly recommend not to use it in the beginning of the game at least as all the battles will be done with the press of only one button. As the enemies get stronger this button is more than helpful as you have to concentrate on the strategy and tactics of the battle leaving you little time to build your own action chain as you will be under heavy battle damage most of the time. Finally, as far as I'm concerned about the develpment of the players during the game it is a bit boring as the characters do not develop very quickly but the new abilities they will learn during their quest is more than rewarding. In my opinion it is a very good game with many good points and definitely an entertaining one too as far as I'm concerned from my personal experience.

Final Fantasy XIII - Big Disappointment [Remastered and Expanded] (Go to the comments section to see what I mean by that) OVERVIEW: Well. Final Fantasy XIII is the worst entry in the series by a long shot. XII was a little disappointing, however it did have many redeeming factors, this new entry wants to distant its self as far from what made the series great as possible. Now, before I begin, I'm a big Final Fantasy fan - played most of the games, loved most of them. This one however is just bad. I never thought I'd use that word for an FF game. By the way I'm not one these idiots who goes off on one when they change an aspect or gameplay mechanic in a game - I welcome change and innovation as this is how the industry must move forward, and indeed, Final Fantasy has built itself around this over the course of the series - every new change welcomed something new. However, every single change in this game is poorly implemented, leaving the player with little to no control over their character and the gameplay in general - essentially it boils down to just "push forward and press A". This lack of gameplay leaves the player isolated and frustrated. We are forced to watch a very boring and expensive (I paid £40 when this first came out!) Anime movie, all while the game literally plays its self. After a 30 HOUR tutorial, walking down linear, boring, lifeless corridors, and watching boring melodrama, the over world is unlocked! And it sucks! But I'm getting way ahead of myself here but there is so much wrong with this game that I don't even know where to begin - let's try and break this down. STORY AND CHARACTER: Now story and character is one of the most important aspects of any Final Fantasy game. The story and characters must be strong enough so we feel encouraged to continue on our quest and face any obstacle to see what happens next in the story and how the characters develop - it's a fundamental element of a good RPG. In XIII, I cared for neither the story, nor the characters. The plot is ridiculously over cumbered, slow, and to be frank, tedious. It assumes too much of the player's knowledge of the world - we're expected to know after about an hour's worth of gameplay what a L'Cie is, a fal' Cie is, what Cocoon is, who controls the city, who the leaders are, how the politics work, what the L'Cie's job is, what the character's backgrounds are - and it goes on like, and for the sake of boredom I'm going to stop there because there is way more to say! The game doesn't actually tell you this information through character interaction and stuff like that. No, it's done through an encyclopaedia tucked away on the main menu. You are expected to stop playing the game for about 30 minutes to soak in all this information, and the worst part is the plot never addressed these issues - this isn't good story telling!!! It's like if you went to the cinema to go see a film, and the attendants gave you an instruction booklet before hand, made you memorise all the character's names, back stories, location etc, and then never addressing these elements in the film and leaving it to the viewer to sort out! Some may say it's throwing you in the deep end, and it's good to try and keep us on our toes, in XIII it's so poorly done it's laughable. While obviously film and video games are completely different mediums I still say story telling of this kind should be handled in a certain way. Ok, here's a good example - remember The Terminator? How did we learn the plot? How did Sarah Conner learns about Judgement Day, the future wars etc? Through the character of Kyle Reese - as he tells Sarah the back story, we as an audience learn and grow sympathy - better still this is done on the run, with plenty of action to keep us excited. Sarah is known as a "fish out of water" character - someone totally separate to the plot, who comes into the story and as he/she learns the plot and back story, so do we as a gamer/audience/reader - look at Sarah Conner or Marty McFly, or even a bit closer to home Cloud in Final Fantasy VII, who joins the rebel group, and the characters tell him through conversation and character interaction what's going on, who the bad guys are etc. Like Terminator better still it's all done while they are trying to infiltrate the Shinra Building - it's exciting and instantly hooks. Now not all games should follow this story structure, but it does work best in this heroic fantasy genre. Final Fantasy XIII fails in every respect to tell a compelling and exciting story, lacking in the most basic of human emotions, leaving you in the cold, and unattached to the world and characters. And "emotion" seem to be what Square are aiming for here in the story - even the back of the box states this - however, and I'm not kidding, every single cutscene has a character breaking down or re judging their emotions in an over dramatic way. Again, this is a very poor way of telling an "emotional" storyline. Look at Casablanca - I'd describe that as an emotional film - doesn't mean Humphrey Bogart breaks down every 5 minutes! This leads me in nicely for the characters; they are the worst line up of characters ever in a Final Fantasy game. No character development or interesting 3D personalities. Flat, lifeless, dull and annoying. At many points during the game, they practically say "I'm a whole new character now" - with no development to back it up we don't buy it! How can we care about a character who acts illogically and with no heart - good stories let us see the development of the characters - go through their struggles so when they become a better character we actually feel for them and understand why they've become a better person- look at Squall in VIII - from a mopey emo kid at the start, who we borderline don't like, goes though through some rough patches with his friends, fights to save the world, falls in love and come out at the end a stronger, more articulate character. But in true XIII style, they just state it. And let me tell you, these characters are beyond annoying. Two words - Hope, Vanille. They are anime stereotypes 101: the cringe worthy emo kid who thinks he's misunderstood and the cringe inducing air head. As for the rest of the cast they range from mildly annoying to acceptable - Sazh being my favourite as he doesn't act like an irrational alien! As for Lightning she makes for a pretty weak main protagonist. Square Enix just attached a stereotype to each character and tried to make a convincing character arc. They failed in all respects. Oh, and the villains are pathetic. They have no presence, lack characters and depth, and many die left right and centre with dramatic music, meaning we must feel sad, for them (One of the villains who appears for about two scenes has this pretty funny death scene where this melodramatic music is playing and he collapses in slow motion). Most I don't know their names, nor do I care. You get the twenty hour mark and we still don't know who the villain is. In the older Final Fantasies we go after bad guys who turn out to be buying into the hands of an even stronger enemy = The Emperor to Kefka, Shinra to Sephiroth, Edea to Ultimecia, Queen Brahne to Kuja to Necron, Sin to Seymour to Sin/Yevon. It's classic! XIII does not do this. You may they are trying to shake things up a bit - well how about in the new Start Trek TV series they don't say "Space. The Final Frontier...", or in The Legend of Zelda you never meet Princess Zelda - it's just part of the series and makes it more exciting - the prospect of even powerful enemy pulling the strings - XIII again doesn't do this. GRAPHICS, PRESENTATION and MUSIC: Well, the graphics are very pretty and detailed and vibrant, but the problem is the world Square created is so lifeless that graphics actually feel empty - similar to the Star Wars Prequel's effects - we feel distant from the world as the characters it inhabits are dull and lifeless, and the gameplay means that we can't go off and explore and get involved in the culture of the world. In a sense, the story and the gameplay have killed perhaps the only saving grace of an otherwise mediocre game. Heck, on the Xbox 360 port the frame rate actually drops at some points during the game, such as during a Sazh/Vanille level, with Chocobo farm, it drops dramatically. Some of the cut scenes are blurry and hard to focus. Now, if the story was stronger and the world fully explorable, then I would be saying the graphics are great - but it's an empty spectacle lacking in life or humanity. The music is average at best. And the music can't be average in an FF game - these soundtracks are some of the most revered in video game history - they're classic. XIII's is instantly forgettable. Leona Lewis' song is pretty ok, trying to give the game a theme, but biggest tragedy of the soundtrack is the addition of lyrics to some of the songs. Trust me; they are ghastly and irritating. GAMEPLAY: As many of you have heard, the game is linear. For 30 hours. Just push forward and press A. For 30 hours that's it. No exploration or interacting with town folk to get quests. Nothing. Now don't say that they're trying to change things up a bit, because that's like saying in the new Mario game, he can't go back to older levels. Or in Ocarina of Time Link can't become a kid again. Exploring is a key part of an RPG, and helps us to soak in the world, and make further connections with the characters. It's almost as if Square wanted people to see how bad the story was and pushed it right into our face with everything possible. Now, the game does open up a massive over world, but by the time it arrives, I just didn't care. Exploration can actually help save a game - XII for example had a weak story (though miles better than this) but the exploration was excellent, in a deep vibrant world that actually helped to make the story a bit better as we actually care for the world and characters we've encountered. XIII has none of this. Maybe the battle gameplay will save it. No. It's clunky and unresponsive. You can now stack attacks for combos, which admittedly is a cool idea, however the execution is just awful. For one thing you only have control over one character - the others rely on the game programming through "Paradigms" which controls how different characters fight in a battle - you have no control over this at all - sure you can pick what style they go for - but situations change and AI is unable to respond in a logical way to this. Now you can shift Paradigms at any point and this can help turn the tide of battle, however it completely destroys the flow the programmers were trying to create. Say you've ran out of Potions and need to be healed by Cure and you're in a battle centric Paradigm, where the classes can't do Cure - you have to swap to a paradigm that does heal, wait to be healed, then swap back to the original Paradigm you were using. Very tedious and slow! Again, look back at XII - it had a similar style to XIII in the battle - while you only had control of one character at one time you could programme the characters to react any way you wanted, in a variety of situations all at once - no swapping paradigms and you could swap characters at any point in battle - say one character is low on health, you could instantly swap to him and use a potion - easy. In XIII everything has to become a project to overcome something - most of the time bosses can only be defeated by one paradigm but that completely takes the fun away from finding your own way. Linear, again. Again, I've got no problem with change - I would have welcomed it if the programmers thought about it some more for ease of play. Now you may say that it makes the game more of a challenge, and I've got no problem with challenge, but when the challenge is based on how broken the control is then that's just unfair and takes all fun away. So there is no exploration and the battle gameplay is terrible. Great. Then we come to "Stagger"....when you repeatedly hit an enemy, their "stagger" gauge goes up slightly - the more you fill up the bar the more damage you do - when you get it to full you can do mega damage. And that folks is the flow of pretty much all the boss battles in the game. Sure you have to change your paradigms every now and then, but that pretty much is it. It's repetitive and slow and dull. The worst part is the Stagger can gauge actually decreases meaning you've always got to be hitting the enemy, all while one character is desperately trying to heal THREE characters, and while one guy is trying to take down the monster, and the other doing nothing at all. This paradigm system is awful!! Remember in older Final Fantasies when YOU, the player, had full control over all the party, issuing commands whenever you needed to? Again, Final Fantasy XIII fails again - every single aspect of the game kills another - it's like the Ouroboros symbol, which shows a snake consuming itself! XIII is consuming itself with its rubbish factor (Trying to keep profanities back!) The Eidleons are back this time, and they are useless. First you have to engage one in an incredible tedious battle to meet set criteria (which WILL frustrate). After we defeat one, and try to summon it we get an incredibly flashy, unnecessary cut scene, and the summon appears on the field of battle. This destroys the flow of battle completely, and, as the summons barely do any reasonable damage, they can actually destroy your "Stagger" which you've been desperately trying to fill. Remember the summons in the older Final Fantasy games? Remember how awesome they were, or how quick the battle animations were? Well, Final Fantasy XIII fails to get another aspect of the series wrong. So we come to the end of the review. Now, I know some of you like the game, and that's cool - I respect that, just don't slam me because I'm expressing my opinion, but I just don't like this game (But hey if you feel like talking about it just post a comment below!). Everything about it annoys me - nothing gelled together - the story was horrible, the gameplay was shocking, the graphics an empty spectacle. Final Fantasy XIII is an RPG with all the best parts taken out - no exploration, mediocre story, poor uninteresting world, lack of side quests etc. Maybe I expected too much, maybe I got over hyped, but to be fair I did expect only the highest standards from such a beloved and revered series - this is Final Fantasy after all! Instead I got a messy, incomplete game, with no charm or character, lacking even in the most basic of gameplay features and story beats. Shame it looks set to be the last. I'm actually stumped-how are they going to top that? Where do go from there? Well, like Batman & Robin to Batman Begins, Final Fantasy may need a long rest, and a reboot... But hey it's just a game - just a shame it was a Final Fantasy game.

What an experience! OK, first things first, and I know you probably hear it all the time, but this is not an RPG and is far from any of the other games in the series, and you know why? It wasn't meant to be. Square Enix always bring us games that immerse us and make us empathise and express emotions with the characters they create, FF13 pulls that off superbly with a cast of many different personalities and points of view which all twist and turn together in one epic storyline and game. This time around SE have endeavoured to make a game that sucks you into the story and focuses, pretty much, solely on that. Now this of course will have a major effect on how the game is played, the big one being that it is very linear and story heavy: 1. This may seem to be the case at first, in which the gameplay is a bit enclosed and trapped in pre-determined routes, but only for the first 2 discs, after you reach the 3rd you will be catapulted into a huge (and I mean huge) plateau of astonishingly beautiful landscapes and creatures with the clear blue sky over head and a vast number of decisions to take. 2. As I said before, the 3rd disc has probably the most impact on the game and even more so with the introduction of missions which take a break from the harcore linearity of the game (is linearity a word? I dunno?), and allow the player to win some fabulous loot and gear to intensify the gaming experience. There are 64 missions in total, higher missions being, at most times, harder (and the higher missions can be hard trust me), with some amazing monsters and beasts to kill and execute from the land of Gran Pulse. 3. If you haven't bought it already and are a little apprehensive, please do! I too was on the fence of whether I should buy or not and when I did, wow I was glad! Even if you've never even heard of Final Fantasy (please come out from under your rock, the world misses you) getting it will be a sound investment and will be thoroughly enjoyed by pretty much everyone! GRAPHICS 10/10 Square Enix still setting the bar well and truly in the clouds for their amazing graphical capabilities and beautiful scenery. GAMEPLAY 10/10 Gameplay is incredibly smooth and awesome to watch at the same time with quick thinking and lots of fun times! PLAY TIME 9/10 Could have given this a 10 but the story frankly won't take that long to finish if you stick to it but I easily spent 70 hours doing the missions and getting the achievements. STORY 9/10 OK, this may get a little cheesy at points but hey! Who doesn't want the old work together to save the day! EH! Overall 10/10 Another Final Fantasy which will stand proud on my shelf!

A fantasy too far? The final fantasy series has been one of my most beloved series of games for the past 15 years - Final Fantasy 7 of course being one of my most treasured gaming memories - unfortunetly I won't be able to enjoy another FF game if this (FF13) is anything to go by. I won't go into detail as to why this game is so bad, just take it from me that you do not want to waste your money or your time on this game. It is mightily sad to see how far this once brilliant series has fallen.