Final Fantasy XIII Game Review

Of all the Final Fantasy games that Square Enix has made, Final Fantasy XIII has by far impressed me the most.  At June 9th 2011, this game has sold over 6.5 million copies world wide.  And there's a reason why.  This game has astounded players in gameplay, artistic design, muisic, story, and world creation.  

Let's start with artistic design.  One of Square Enix's prime objectives is to be really imaginative.  And by far they have done a grandiose job at it.  Compared to all the other games, Final Fantasy XIII has surpassed all other games in graphics.   The clarity and amount of detail in the cut scenes and gameplay has by far surpassed all other Final Fantasy games.  It is treated like a Blue Ray HD movie.  The detail I cannot describe with words only that the scenery in the game is by far the most beautiful, most stimulating, and most captivating art in the gaming industry.  The following images are promotional artwork.  I rate the artistic design in the game 5 stars.

Let's now talk about music.  Final Fantasy XIII's music strikes at the heart in various styles of music such as Rock, and classical.  I am amazed at the high quality of music Square Enix has put into their game.  Not many games have such grand orchestrated music.  Here are some examples of the music. 

This music leaves me with images of all sorts, in my mind, especially the last two.  And that's just a few of them.  Massashi Hamazu composed Final Fantasy XIII music and he has earned my honorary respect for creating astounding pieces of music.  I rate the music 5 stars. 

Let's now talk world creation and Story.  The world in which the game resides is actually apart of a group of video games in the Final Fantasy XIII saga.  The collection is called Fabula Nova Crystalis.  In a Youtube video it displays the core theme of the Fabula Nova Crystalis series.  They at one time had an English Dub of  the video, but it no longer exists for some strange reason.  We do however, have and English Sub.  So this is the video of the Fabula Nova Crystalis Mythology.    

In Final Fantasy XIII we have divine god like machines with crystal hearts called Fal'cie.  It is actually a Latin  text to Famulus caelum, meaning sky servant or servant of the sky, which they are nothing like.  According to the Final Fantasy wiki, Pulse and Lindzei created more fal'cie.  Those created by Pulse became Pulse Fal'cie and those created by Lindzei are the Fal'cie that late build Cocoon.  In Final Fantasy XIII we have two worlds, Cocoon, the utopia in the sky, and Pulse, the lower world.  The cocoon fal'cie become known as Sanctum Fal'cie.  Here are some images of fal'cie

In this world Fal'cie have the power to create L'cie, humans that are branded by the fal'cie with a tattoo.  The tattoo is a focus.  The Focus is basically the quest or goal the fal'cie gives the human L'cie.  If they succeed and complete their Focus, they gain eternal life.......as a crystal.  If they fail, they turn into a mutilated monster called a cieth.  That is the main conflict of the game.  Here are the images of the Pulse and Sanctum L'cie brands.  

Sanctum and Pulse fal'cie wage a war against Cocoon.  Pulse was determined to destroy Cocoon but failed.  After that war, several centuries of peace began, and fear of the unknown barbaric world of Pulse grew.  Where the game starts is during an active Purge, deporting humans who had been living unknowingly next to a Pulse Fal'cie, for fear of contamination of Pulse L'cie.  That is another conflict in the story.  

In the story, we witness innocent victims of the purge lose loved ones and become Pulse L'cie.  As the story continues they struggle to move on when they know that death is inevitable since one either becomes a crystal or a cieth.  They also struggle to defy their fate from the curse they possess, ignoring their focus but coming to grips and believing that they were chosen to save Cocoon.  Another theme explored in the game is the idea of fear of the unknown and how it makes people to vile and immoral acts such as purging innocent victims for just being near something so feared, and waging a pointless war.  It shows how peace can also turn into violence through the act of fear.  

Characters in the story I find are incredibly round.  Each character we see change and develop in the game as each character has their own grudges, desires, hopes, and back stories that shape who they are and what they do.  Each main character has a unique personality, including the villains.  We see them struggle, feel that all hope is lost, but get back on their feet to save the day.  I rate the Story and World Creation 5 stars.  

Now comes the trickier and more harshly judged part of the review.  Unlike the other turnbased system games of the previous Final Fantasy games, Final Fantasy XIII has a unique turnbased system called the Command Synergy Battle system.  It is more real time but still turn based.  The single player has an ATB gauge where the player stocks up on commands and then selects the target it wishes to unleash all the commands on, allowing a faster pace of gameplay and allows a decent amount of time to kill an enemy.  

The game also features a unique set of roles.  Commando, Ravager, Medic, Sentinel, Synergist, and Saboteur.  

Commando = Attack Commands

Ravager = Magic Commands

Medic = HP recovery and removal of negative stats

Sentinel = High Defence and protector of players

Synergist = Status enhancements

Saboteur = negative stats on enemies

In gameplay, the player must strategize his paradigm - the arrangement of the Roles for three characters, in order to defeat certain enemies and bosses.  

We also have the Crystarium, where characters level up their stats and gain commands and abilities along with HP, Strength, and Magic Points.  There are no Defense points in this game, making it more difficult to stay alive.  

The negative aspect of the game play is its difficulty.  I would not recommend this game to first time gamers who are new to the RPG genre.  There is no Beginner's or Easy mode, nor is there a Hard mode.  It's just plain difficult.  Although it is a very fun game play, the game is in fact slow and annoying.  It is in the sense that it takes forever to defeat enemies.  The player has to struggle and spend more time gaining Crystogen points(EXP points), and even then it takes forever to kill the enemies, especially the bosses, making it rather difficult and extremely frustrating.  Since there is no Defense, the player has to worry about gaining more HP than anything else.  Some of the enemies are rediculously difficult to beat, with loads of HP and extremely lethal attacks, and some bosses have the Doom Counter making it even more annoying and worrisome to defeat a boss, especially when the player is almost close to defeating the enemy he has been fighting for 20 minutes.  If the player does not have the right amount of stamina strength and magic, the gameplay will be slow and boring, and soon the player will be so bored he'll put down the game and never finish it.  I haven't even beaten the whole game.  

But despite these minor downsides(actually, I wouldn't call them minor), the gameplay is still fun filled with spectacular graphics, unique combos, and of course the famous summons.  Each character has their own summon, and can first fight along side it in order to charge the summon's gauge.  Then the player can enter Gestalt mode and perform unique moves to the summon.  There are also minigames, but those should be played after the player defeats the final boss.  I still have fun playing them.  But it can get rather boring doing the same ATB gauge system over and over and over again.  I rate the gameplay....3.5 stars.  

Overall, the game has a unique game system, spectacular artwork and graphic design, mesmorizing music, and amazing world full of plot elements, story lines, characterization, and themes.  I rate this game 100% despite weaknesses in the gameplay.  It has impressed me through it's ability to stimulate my mind through the artistic beauty, passionate music, and an amazing complex story.  Square Enix is unlike any other game company in the world.  And so, I recommend this game to all game lovers who value a game for it's artistic beauty, storyline, and gampelay.  I hope this review statisfies any wonders about the game.  Thank you for listening.  

,Starvix Draxon