Final Fantasy XIII Full Review [Spoilers]

[Earnest]

I realised we were all posting bits and peices of our thoughts in a thread about the game's production. Lol. Makes sense to make an offical thread.

I want everyone who has completed the game to give their opinions on the game. If you haven't completed it yet, hurry and finish and give us a full evaluation. The game constantly fluctuates and whilst you might be "really liking it so far" or finding it "bland at the moment", that will probably change.

This thread will have no spoiler limitations, with the exception of a review I posted on IGN. Other than that, don't look further.

http://rr.ps3.ign.com/rrview/games/final...43/120332/

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I'm going to do another review here which is extremely casual and features comparisons to other Final Fantasy titles.

Firstly, Characters.

For Final Fantasy, I would say that throughout the franchise, the average character is an 8.0/10. Here's how the characters shape up.

Lightning - 8/10

Lightning is a pretty solid character. At the start of the game I wasn't really feeling her badassery, but she started to grow on me. She has some pretty good lines. I wish she had assumed more a leader role. Not because the game needed one, but because she would have personally made a great leader.

Snow - 9/10

Snow probably is the best character in the playable party. He's totally up himself, but that's endearing. He does a lot of cool stuff in the story and has a great voice actor. The way he cares about Serah is nice.

Sazh - 8/10

Sazh is a pretty cool dude and plays as a perfect balance to the rest of the party. He makes some pretty funny remarks and has a cool backstory. The scene he shares with Vanille was pretty emotional, even though I was constantly wanting him to stop pointing his gun at Vanille. He's a solid character.

Fang - 8/10

I wasn't sold on her first, partly because her Australian-Country accent is pretty ugly. But I got over it and started liking her. Her back story with Vanille is really confusing at first, but becomes a great sub-plot.

Hope - 8/10

Like most, I wasn't crazy about him at first, but he becomes a really good character. One of my favourite scenes was when Snow was lugging him on his back. It was pretty touching. He has some really great dialogue at the end of the game and is one of the best voice acted characters.
"Alexander!!"

Vanille - 7.5/10

Vanille could have been a bit better, but she's nowhere near as bad as Reviews made her out to be. She's cute, if nothing else. I was really glad that she avoided just being an airhead tag-along, as she contributed strongly to the story.





So that's the wrap. A really strong, well rounded class. I liked every character, which is a first for me. I really didn't like the cast of X and VIII, so this was nice.

The Non-Playable characters in this game were really weak though. Barthendulus.... I suppose was okay. I was instantly turned off by how old he was, but I thought to myself. "Cmon don't be that predictable. Give him a chance."

So I did, and he wasn't that bad. But that superficial part of me that gets turned off by especially old villains still hung around. I would have preferred if he was a fal'Cie in a younger body, even middle aged. Plus his voice acting was pretty crap.

All the NPCs, from Cid to Serah, were medicore. There were no people that I thought were REALLY cool, like in XII. There were no Gabranths or Larsas, but they did the part.

CONCLUSION ON CHARACTERS - 8/10

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The only other thing I want to discuss is the story. My IGN review really covers how feeling on the battle. If you want a short review, I'll say that it's solid. It has some excellent features, but is ultimately annoying and battles are too long.

And for the linear maps, they didn't bother me really. THey only bothered me when they were packed with hard enemies that took ages to beat and could not be bypassed.

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Throughout the franchise, I believe the Final Fantasy Story Average to be a 9.5/10

The story of Final Fantasy XIII is terrific in my opinon. Its pretty weak at the start, particuarly during those chapters where you control only 2 characters and you're basically just running and running.

But it really picks up when the party come together. I can't remember the name exactly, its like Balhumpolon or something, but that town that Hope lives in. That's when the story came to life. It was awesome.

All of the characters had interesting back stories, and the plot twists were really suprising at times. Of all the personal stories, I liked Vanille and Fang's the most. It was connected to the central plot afterall.

At times, as has been discussed here already, I thought there were periods were the story was unrealistic a little. Why Lightning disbelieved Serah being a l'Cie didn't make a lot of sense. Is Serah a chronic liar? And why didn't she just show Lightning the mark? Why didn't Snow suggest gently to his fiance.

'Babe, show her the mark.'

Who knows. It didn't really matter in the end because its only a small part of the story. At times I thought it was a little melodramatic, moreso than the games ussually are. Sazh pointing his guns at Vanille, a child, seemed a little unessecarry. What happened to his son was a complete accident, and only came about because Vanille wanted to get rid of her focus, just like Sazh. Again, not a big deal because he realises that it would be pointless to shoot her, but why even consider it?

One of my favourite parts is when you come to Eden and the place is in havoc. When the cavalry kill Cid, I flipping loved that! Very unexepected and cool. The entire end sequence of the game is amazing. I loved how the fal'Cie used illusins to tricking Fang, because it tricked me too. And I love that they decided to kill Orphan, because the world wasn't worth living in if it was ruled by fal'Cie.

When I realised what the game's logo was at the end, |I was so thrilled. I was trying to figure out what it was the entire game, and it was finally revealed. The game ended so well. It's definitley open for a sequel and they're discussing it. Ultimately I would say no to a sequel because of how X-2 went, but if they make one, ill get it. They might even fix the mistakes?

CONCLUSION ON STORY - 9/10

Anyway let's wrap this up. Amazing soundtrack, one of the best yet. I'd rate it as a 9/10, compared to a 9/10 average of the series. Leona Lewis's track wasn't that bad. Hehe.

My favourite track was The Sabre's Edge, boss theme.

Anyway, very long post.

I want to hear what you guys think in similar length. Give me a score too.

My score for the game is..

8.8/10

And the Final Fantasy average for me, is 9.3/10. So yeah a slight step back, but still a lot of fun.

And again, if you want something written more intellectually that discusses the gameplay more, I wrote a lengthy review on IGN. I discuss the battle about halfway through.

http://rr.ps3.ign.com/rrview/games/final...43/120332/

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[Ephemeral]

Fang's picture totally makes her look like a dude.

[Najirra]

Well Fang was originally planned to be male...

[Jaxartes]

I thought it was a good game for the most part, although I did feel that it often seemed a bit too abstract. Although the cast of characters were generally decent for example, it was hard for me to view them in any kind of context outside of the party.

I got no real sense of who they actually were and what they did before the game, beyond some very broad strokes (usually from the beach town scenes).

Likewise, Cocoon and its society, culture etc was so closed off, that it was hard to get a true feel for the place and what kind of place it actually was.

It basically meant that I had to view the game purely with regard to the party dynamic and the individual personalities and take them for what they were.

I couldn't therefore care all that much about what was happening on Cocoon, and the intricacies of the plot were largely lost on me.

Because as much as my moral conscience was saying 'Killing world is very bad', I didn't feel any kind of connection to that world at all (much less did I feel the characters had any connection to it).

Yes, Snow's gang was there etc, but we see them what - maybe 7 times ever?

And on the flipside, I really liked Dysley's reasoning for what he was doing - I love the idea of evil angels etc.

Potentially, I liked all the villains, but they didn't get much to do and Dysley and Nabat were written pretty ropily at times (did they really need to be such sneering, willfully cruel and OTT villains?)

But still, I thought the main story on the whole was interesting in an academic sense (i.e I loved the basic idea of everything that was going on), but couldn't convert that into a truly moving and absorbing experience.

Basically I thought it was a good story that was badly told. The pacing was all to pot, and I could only view my team's opposition to Dysley as 'We'll stop you because you're the Bad Guy and we're the Good Guys!'

Even at the end, they do not engage with the inhabitants of the world they have just saved (as Dahj and Serra are basically characters 7 and 8 of your 6 strong team - Serra is even listed as such in the manual!)

But don't take this to mean that I didn't like the game. Far from it - I really enjoyed it, start to finish. The linear sections merely gave the game time to establish character connections, so a big thumbs up there.

And finally getting a big space to run around in was great on Pulse. I went beserk capering around (until I got cocky and challenged one of the big AT-AT walker tortoise things...)

The lack of decent treasure was a bit disappointing though. A little more looting to go along with my levelling wouldn't have gone amiss.

On a party characters front, I thought the cast was pretty solid. Vanille was the only one who grated a bit. I actually quite liked her as a character, but her voice acting... Gah!

Lightning and Snow were okay. It was an interesting idea to have the Raijin and Fujin characters of the game be the main characters this time.

True to form therefore, Snow is very hard, big hearted and obvious, but also a bit goofy and prone to terrible blunders.

He's a good figurehead for the team, usually setting the party objectives (even if he doesn't realise it - he'll give some stock 'Never give up. never surrender' lines, and Hope will interpret what that actually means they should do next).

Lightning is more calm and someone you feel can get the job done, but lacks people skills and is better in a 'Sergeant Major' kind of role.

I.e She rarely sets the party agenda (her forceful determination at the sfart extends only to herself, and as she softens up, she adopts the role of getting everyone focused and ready on the plan they've agreed on - like Balthier did in FF12, after Ashe had decided generally speaking what they were doing next).

I liked both characters about as much as I usually like such characters. That is, I tend to like the 'Boisterous hearty guy and reserved but capable woman' templates.

But I can't say that I absolutely loved either of them. When you get down to it, there isn't all that much to Lightning, following the pattern of such characters, like Fujin and Lulu, etc.

And Snow... well, he's got a great voice actor and I like the fact that he's got so much heart. But although in keeping with the template, his constant blunders and the fact he gets so roundly thrashed by so many people, make him seem a little *too* goofy and ineffectual, at times.

And he really needs to stop bellowing 'I'm a Hero!' (and there's no need to abase yourself on the ground quite so much to show remorse and regret...)

But yeah, they were all right.

Fang was sort of good-ish. She was very forceful, and only the fact that she had a fatalistic 'This'll never work' attitude to their journey to lose their marks, stopped her from taking over from Lightning completely.

But her story's pretty good at the end, and the writing was pretty solid for her throughout (I can't remember any cringe inducing scenes with her - or not because of something she'd done anyway).

Hope was a real find. He went from a 'oh no, not this kind of character again!' to actually being one of my favourites. A very wise and sensible young man - a career as a main hero in a spin off RPG surely beckons.

Sazh was ace for the first half of the game, but didn't get much to do later on, sadly. Good voice acting and sensible storytelling make for a winning combination though, IMO.

And Vanille... had that voice actress. Seriously, she was a real pain, especially as like I said, I quite liked Vanille. I couldn't forgive her also, for being such a woeful Synergist - I wanted to put her in my team with Lightning and Fang, but it was no go.

So scores then. Well let's see...

Characters: 7.5/10.
Like I said, good group and decent connections forged (but not necessarily maintained - Vanille and Sazh barely say two words to each other in the second half - ditto Lightning and Hope).

Underused and underwritten villains, but crucially, all the characters heroes and villains are all at least acceptable.

Story: 9/10 for the core ideas, 6/10 for actual execution.
As an emotional experience, the game makes unreasonable demands on you, asking you to care about places, cultures, institutions and entities that you know basically nothing about (and only the vaguest notions of how your characters feel about them).

Although understandable in their situation, the team's lack of direction and a true sense of what to do, does also become quite frustrating. I understand that it's supposed to be like that, but we at least need credible reasons why they go where they do etc.

And their trudging around on Pulse just seem like a absurdly ill-advised whim. There was nothing that compelled them to go there, nor did they seem any likelihood they would find a way to remove the marks there.

It's probably also not the best way to win hearts and minds in Cocoon, by signalling your return with an all out massacre of public security forces at a televised event (and openly displaying their L'Cie markings and powers as they do so).

And when confronted by Orphan, why do they fight it, knowing it will destroy Cocoon? (Alright, Cocoon survives, but they had no way of knowing that would happen with Vanille and Fang).

They had to come there to find and kill Bart, but once done, it was an outrageously dangerous gamble to kill Orphan. Another Fal'Cie may have filled Bart's shoes and done this again, but isn't there the possibility that a more benevolent, reasonable (or at least non-genocidal) one would take control?

But at the end of the day, I liked the ideas on offer, so I'm willing to (and did) focus on the core framework of the story, whicn I greatly approved of.

Music: 7/10.
I didn't really notice it, which some may say is a bad thing, but an old movie saying has it that 'You only notice the music, when its bad' so...

I liked the main theme music a lot, with its whistling march and the music for the flowery hills place in Pulse was certainly memorable, if not exactly cool!

It did the job.

Overall score:
So overall, we're looking at about a 7.5 or 8 of 10. (I haven't included what I thought of the battle system - suffice it to say, I'd give it 7.5/10).

Just going on averages, it should get 7.5, but it felt like an 8/10, if I'm honest. Basically, I thoroughly enjoyed most aspects of the game, so it seems wrong to give it the lower score.

So... 8/10.

[Earnest]

According to the strategy guide's story analysus, one of the FAQ's is.

'Why did the party attack Orphan if they knew it would destroy Cocoon?'

And I was like.. 'Yeah why did they?'

The answer is a long the lines of.

'The reason they attacked Orphan is because they knew that to live under Cocoon's corrupt fal'Cie, would not be a life. The fal'Cie would surely make someone else a l'Cie and destroy Cocoon anyway.'

etc. It wasn't very long. That makes a bit of sense I suppose. They came to the decision pretty quickly without discussion though. Hehe.



And I totally agree with what you said about Cocoon. I totally cited that when I finished the game. The ending is great, but I could care less that I'd saved Cocoon. The whole idea of the story was to save a world that didn't want you. But because we rarely go through towns and there aren't any likeable NPCs, I just didn't care about the fate of Cocoon.

Take Midgar for example. The death of Biggs, Wedge and Jesse was traumatic. The death of the Black Mages in IX, or of the Ronso's in X. I care about those people, but not about the citizens of Cocoon. All they needed to do was make the NORA characters more likeable, and give us more towning and some sidequests involving people in towns and stuff.

It was hard to pull off, as you said. I didn't like how we never experienced the perspective of the villains once. The only times we saw them, was when we were with them. That annoyed me, given most of the time you see the villains of FFXII, you're not with them.

[Sanity]

Just beat the game. Overall, I enjoyed it. It's a tremendous step up from the crap shoot of 12. Though, I don't think that's exactly a huge accomplishment, seeing as how the game could have had 6 clones of Hope and it still would have been better than 12. I had a lot of fun with the game, though my excessive grinding kind of made me squash everything in the last quarter of the game.

I liked the battle system. I kind of see it as a streamlined 12 battle system. Instead of Gambits that you create, square does the creating for you, giving your partners very specific parameters to go with the jobs that you assign. They also gave the control back to the player, unlike 12 where all you really had to do was walk towards the enemy to kill it. Some people have complained about the lack of strategy in fights. I disagree to some extent. Tougher mobs and boss fights generally do require strategy to beat it. Jamming auto attack on some of the tougher mobs is a quick way to get wiped.

Am I the only one who felt that Pulse was really underutilized? Aside from going out and doing your own thing, you literally go to three places within the story before you're back on Cocoon for the finale.

Solid cast of characters. Really enjoyed most of them.

The "Best character" award goes to: Fang
The "Thank God Square took him out of the story after leaving Cocoon" award goes to: Hope

A couple of parts dragged, but I really enjoyed the journey for the most part. Easily an 8.5/10. The ending made me smile.

[Jaxartes]

Yeah, they do cheat a bit with the lack of towns and NPCs. It artificially makes the option to destroy Cocoon seem a far more viable option than it really would be to any of the characters who live there.

Because surely even Lightning has some friends there that she wouldn't want to see killed. And only the most truly cold blooded person would speak of world destruction as 'one of their options' anyway (it's more understandable for Fang, seeing as how she's from Pulse).

I think it is a conscious creative decision precisely for this reason. They wanted it more abstract, so they could explore the will they/won't they destroy Cocoon with a little more freedom.

And they don't completely cheat on it, because they do have the NORA members and Hope's dad etc. But then, these show up very rarely, as was said earlier.

The issue of attacking Orphan to rid them of Fal'Cie rule is far too abstract. It tars all Fal'Cie with the same brush, when we have absolutely no idea if they are all even remotely as bad as Dysley.

Most in fact seem to have no real interest in humans one way or the other.

But then Jap RPGs usually take a pop at organised religion and institutions etc, so it's hardly surprising that they just pull the 'They're the baddies - end of' card.

I still think it was an atrociously dangerous plan, but there you go (and like you pointed out, the ending is pretty great, with Orphan/Dysley proving to be a superbly dasdardly villain.

I also missed that you don't hear the villain's perspective. Dysley really needed an 'Agent Smith' moment, where we can see how much he's suffering and wants it all to end.

I get that he's putting on a bit of a show for the characters, making them hate him so much that they'll kill him and/or Orphan, but I was hoping we'd get a chance to hear his true feelings on the matter.

There is a brief moment at the end when he's sighing 'Free at last' when the party kill him, but still...

One other niggle is that there was no urgency about the L'Cie marks. A nightmare scene or some occasional physical signs of the impending transformation starting to take hold etc would have made their plight seem far more real.

It's easy to say 'Don't do it - you're the heroes!', but faced with the threat of becoming some festering monster, they could have played up how terrifying a prospect that is.

I thought the battle system was okay, but the game pretty much plays itself. As long as you hit your targets in the Crystalium, filling up as far as you can go each time the branch extends to the next level in your 3 specialties, the game is an absolute breeze.

Having the battle screen back separate from the standard exploration screen was very welcome though (the boss battles are good again now).

And let's be honest - the battles even against regular monsters are pretty exciting towards the end.

Plus the game has Behemoths that not only transform into Iron Giants, but they've got circular saws as well! I practically danced with joy...

But yeah, a sporadically great game, that has been treated very unfairly by some reviewers (the british press gave it a bit of a mauling - Edge gave it 5/10, Gamecentral 6/10 etc).

Perhaps it isn't the greatest FF ever, but it's still a damn fine game and a hell of a lot better than some people are giving it credit for.

[Tidus1979]

All of you who are talking about characters and how they are good and not great really doesn't sit well with me. Forget about all the other final fantasy's. What they were trying to do was improve from FF12. In comparison to 12, 13 is a beast. It's a completely different team working on these new final fantasy's so it's not fair to say that you'd give the overall final fantasy rating 9.3.

[Earnest]

Well as character's, they're basically al 9s and 10s. Because you really won't get many cooler casts than this one, outside of Final Fantasy. Like only real heavy weight characters like Solid Snake can take down a Final Fantasy character.

But I thought it'd be fun to compare them to the others. I get what you're saying though. It's important we be mindful that they are their own games. Afterall its because of reviewers comparing XIII to the rest of the series that it got bad scores.

[Tidus1979]

I think it should only be compared to FF12. Were coming from that.