Final Fantasy 13 Review Posted by gooster on Apr 28, 2010 - 5:18pm EST (Apr 28, 2010 17:18) |
I have the most peculiar on-again, off-again relationship with not only the Final Fantasy series, but the JRPG sub-genre as a whole. Final Fantasy XIII did not sit in a personal list of highly anticipated titles. I never finished Final Fantasy XII, released in 2006, despite having devoted nearly 35 hours into a game that practically played itself. I do, however, join fellow geeks in fondness of the two treasures of the 16-bit era: Final Fantasy IV and VI. Every spring, however, I am in the mood for a game in a genre that is crippled by a lack of progress, a genre where the East once reigned supreme, but now munches on the dropped leftovers of success enjoyed by studios such as Blizzard, BioWare, and Bethesda. Final Fantasy XIII enters the market in an attempt by studio Square Enix to keep the JRPG alive and interesting at the risk of alienating dedicated fans.
The story begins in a world called Cocoon, led by a theocracy known as the Sanctum, where its inhabitants are forced into trains if they are suspected of being agents of Pulse, a supposedly dangerous world of malice. Cocoon and Pulse are creations of the fal’Cie, a machinelike race that warred with one another in an event known as the War of Transgressions. Through these events, the six heroes of the game come together, each with their own personal stories, and face a destiny of surviving after being marked as “l’Cie” and must now fulfill a certain goal, or “Focus.” L’Cie are seen as enemies of Cocoon and is considered a cursed ritual in whether an individual fulfills his or her Focus or not, as the punishment and reward are one and the same.  The very core of FF13, in addition to its storytelling, lies in the new battle system known as Paradigm Shifts. Characters in a party can be assigned multiple roles in combat, and allows the player to form a strategy against enemies with very different weaknesses. You can create a shift dedicated to healing, or defense and buffing, or pure aggressive combat, or any mixture of them. The leader of the party has Active Time Battle slots that allow the player to set a number of chained combos in their current Paradigm to their own liking. If you don’t feel like thinking about it that hard, you can instantly hit the Auto button and the game will choose the best pattern based on the current Paradigm that will benefit the player the most or to the most damage to the current enemies. While the player is in battle, the goal of each fight is usually to fill an enemy’s chain meter to cause them to Stagger. Once an enemy is in Stagger mode, the player can launch a strong offensive and do more damage as the enemy sits idly by and takes the hits. Despite the option to put battles on autopilot, the challenge of thinking fast on your feet is a welcomed one. At the end, the player is rated based on how long he or she was in battle and how often Paradigms were shifted. They also earn Crystarium points that are spent on adding more Hit Points, increasing strength, or learning new moves for a particular role, such as the Commando, who makes use of physical attacks, or the Saboteur, who launches status ailments on enemies.
Trying to figure out new, better strategies feels refreshing, especially as you try to decide where to spent Crystarium points and long to try out new spells or attacks. Should your party fail, the game is obviously over, but you can simply hit the Retry command and start over. There is no returning from the last save point from the last town, because as you may have heard, there are none.
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May 5, 2010 13:53:48 (May 5, 2010 13:53)
