Final Fantasy 13
I picked up the 360 version of the game on tuesday and I must say I’m really enjoying myself so far. This game is the POLAR opposite of final fantasy 12, so if that game bugged you then you will probably feel far more at home leaving the world of Ivalice and entering Pulse/Cocoon. Where as 12 sacrificed interesting characters and a tight narrative to try and tell an open ended political/plot oriented tale, final fantasy 13 is ALL about the character depth and development of its main cast. And they are quite a main cast, the game developers put in an obvious amount of effort to elevate them above the final fantasy cliche character types (cloud/squall/Cecil types), (Sabin, Zell, Wakka types), (Vincent, Amarant, Shadow types). These elements still exist but the characters of 13 are far less one dimensional.
The other place this game really shines is in its battle system, which exists as a sort of conglomerate of previous final fantasy systems working together. First and Foremost (and something that I’ve noticed hasnt really been touched on in game reviews) is that final fantasy 13 is based in the job system of FF 3/5/11 fame. This means that your characters are free to develop in certain roles in combat. Development of these roles takes place on what is essentially a sphere grid system a la final fantasy 10. Each job has its own individual sphere grid where stat bonuses become universal for the character and abilities stay specific to the selected job. The big twist is that jobs can be switched on the fly inside of battle, which is similar to final fantasy X-2, but worlds better in execution. First off the jobs of the characters in your party can be arranged in customizable sets called paradigms, and when you shift to a different paradigm in battle, everyone changes a job. The basic jobs are as follows: Warrior, Black Mage, White Mage, Paladin, Buffer, and De-buffer. Each character in the game only has access (so far) to three of these jobs. Snow Villers for example can choose between Warrior, Black Mage, and Paladin.
Oh and another thing about combat in this game: it is tough. You can very easily be wiped out by a run of the mill enemy in a random encounter. The key is switching paradigms to suit the situation at hand. Let’s say you come into a battle and cannot seem to cause an enemy very much damage, and then he quickly wipes you out and its game over (which is relative because ff 13 allows you to restart immediately and try a battle or change your strategy after death). So anyway what you would do is come in to the fight with a paradigm that has a paladin (to provoke away from the weaker mages) a buffer (to cast protect) and a debuffer (to remove protect or shell from the enemy). After this paradigm has gotten its buffs up, we can switch to something more agressive like warrior, black mage, black mage, and just nuke the enemy to smithereens. Timing of attacks is also critical, because it is possible to counter or interrupt an enemy to protect an ally and an enemy can do the same to the player. This timing of attacks works just like Cyan from final fantasy 6, with a bar charging over a length of numbers to determine what attacks will be executed (its not exactly exactly like this obviously, but if you played 6 then you will have an idea). But the main point of all this combat talk is just to say that THE COMBAT IS SUPER FUN. You will actually want to get into battles. After every fight the game ranks you on your performance and give you bonuses accordingly, so it behooves you not to win at any cost, but to when well with a solid strategy to get a good rank (you also heal after every battle automatically).
The game also looks fantastic, and all of the cutscenes were obviously redone to match english dubbing which really goes along way to making the characters really stand out.
I have only covered the basics of combat here (there is a lot more and every hour or so the game adds another layer or twist to how combat plays out, I’m about 6 hours in (so basically the game doesn’t try to overwhelm you with intricacy all at once).
Anyway I highly recommend the game, it feels like everything from final fantasy that I used to love is back in a big way (this is the FF team behind 7,8, and 10, all of which I have fond memories of). So have you guys got it? I would love to hear your impressions if you do.
