Well, it’s here.  After three E3 presentations, several trailers, countless columns on how it might compare to its predecessors, and even a few bus tours, Final Fantasy XIII is here.  After fans have had to make do with spinoffs and even a crossover fighting game, the colossal Final Fantasy series has finally released the much anticipated thirteenth installment.  Do I even need to explain this?  Read on if you want to know how it fares!

Developer: Square-Enix
Publisher: Square-Enix
Genre: JRPG
Console(s): Xbox 360, PlayStation 3

The verdict: Final Fantasy XIII is a great game, representing the pinnacle of what JRPGs do – but it also stumbles into some very familiar problems.  I think it’s safe to say that if you’re part of the Final Fantasy fandom you’re already familiar with these problems, in which case Final Fantasy XIII is still very well done.

It’s difficult to believe we’ve made it to this point.  I still remember when the initial screenshots of Lightning and Sazh surfaced and when Lightning was being compared to a female Cloud Strife.  Final Fantasy XIII has hit shelves, and I can tell you right away that the trademark lengthy, epic opus of Square-Enix remains consistent.  Time commitment aside FFXIII is an excellent game boasting exciting, fast paced combat and memorable characters.  You just need to work your way through a long prologue to get to the meat of the story.

Six warriors arrive, each holding a brand

The setting of Final Fantasy XIII is within the worlds of Pulse and Cocoon.  Cocoon is a paradise city constructed for humanity by godlike beings known as fal’Cie.  Cocoon is overseen by Sanctum, a government that rules with an iron fist.  Pulse is allegedly a dangerous place, and anyone who has had contact with it is cast out of Cocoon.  Enter codename Lightning, our main heroine, who along with associate Sazh is out to find a particular fal’Cie involved with Lightning’s sister.  Serah happens to be the fiancé of tough guy Snow, who leads a resistance group called NORA against Sanctum.  Through a series of quintessential JRPG events, two exiles (known as l’Cie) named Vanille and Hope come into play as Lightning and her party are branded as enemies of humanity.  Thus the journey begins to unravel mysteries of Pulse, fal’Cie, and the illusive entity Orphan.

The first thing that FFXIII gets points for is the surprisingly mature story.  Just looking at the summary doesn’t do Square-Enix’s opus justice because a lot of dark themes are covered with more attention to detail than most previous iterations of Final Fantasy.  I can’t delve into too much detail but Sanctum and Cocoon lend themselves very well to a variety of topics including propaganda, naivety, discovery, betrayal, loyalty, and knowing what to fight for.  The fal’Cie are ominous, intimidating beings and the different environments of Cocoon and Pulse lend themselves to a creative setting with a lot of twists and turns.

As stirring and emotional as the story can be, FFXIII is guilty of one of the longest prologues I’ve ever seen in a video game.  There’s a solid 15-20 hours of almost nothing but exposition and fleshing out the admittedly interesting characters (more on them in a minute), as well as introducing us in almost excruciating detail to the world of FFXIII.  There’s a very dull stretch around ten hours in where the plot goes almost nowhere, and this crops up fairly often in the prologue.  The amount of padding is frankly shameless, and it takes a huge time commitment to even get to the meat of the story.  When you do it picks up considerably, but you’ll find yourself longing for a fast forward button.

Meet the crew

Final Fantasy has always been known for memorable character casts, and the thirteenth iteration of the series is no exception.  Lightning is a strong, determined heroine whose mysteriousness makes her all the more fascinating.  Snow is impossible not to like; his bravado and roguish mannerisms channel macho heroes of the past like Zidane, although Snow takes it to a more believable level by demonstrating much more concern with his mission as well as his fiancé, Serah.  I’m not going to run down every character, but relationships are developed well and even the romance between Snow and Serah seems logical rather than being shoehorned into the quest.  Tension between characters leads to some dramatic moments which do make the excessive prologue more enjoyable.  A character that would seem overly angsty from an outsider’s perspective like Hope is handled a lot better than one might imagine.

The only weak link in the chain – and the fact that she gets her own paragraph is a testament to how annoying she is – is Vanille.  Unless you’re a fan of the iconic hyperactive, sugar high, scantily clad, girlish heroine who seems present in virtually every Japanese media product ever made, Vanille is about to annoying the living hell out of you.  Everything from her over the top expressions and ridiculously high pitched voice must have been deliberately intended to irritate us.  The nicest thing I’m prepared to say is that she shuts up about ten hours in, although that mostly means I stopped wanting reach through the TV screen and deck her.  I am loathe to admit it, but once the game gets started there are even a few surprisingly poignant moments with Vanille once she stops desperately trying to be quirky, though again, I can’t offer spoiler-free details.

Mixing up the formula

Where would a Final Fantasy game be without combat?  Every game has made an effort to mix up the combat, and FFXIII continues the series’ transition to real time.  The game blends real time and turn based combat, and while this is often a sticky formula, it actually works surprisingly well here.  You only control one character which eliminates excessive micromanagement and the game features the ATB gauge prominently, though it has a different role from previous games.  Your ATB gauge fills during battle by segments, and you stack abilities that your respective character subsequently unleashes.  Cost points are used in lieu of mana, and these points determine how many times an ability can be used per turn, somewhat similar to Final Fantasy VII’s materia.

While the first half of the game is generally easy, the second half spikes up in difficulty, and this is likely where you’ll make the most of the Paradigm system.  As is often the case, FFXIII characters have what are known as Roles (classes).  The Ravager, for example, specializes in offensive elemental magic, while the Synergist uses positive buffs to boost your team.  A Paradigm, in a nutshell, is a combination of Roles for your party, since each party member can be equipped with one Role at a time.  During fights can you subsequently do Paradigm shifts, or transitions into a different method of fighting with new Roles.  The greater difficulty on the second half of the game will insist on your taking advantage of the Paradigm system, meaning you won’t be able to Auto-Attack your way past every fight.

This isn’t really a critical element of combat but there are some nifty touches that make the combat easier and more fun for players.  A lot of information pops up about your fight after it finishes including a rank for how well you did and the highest number of combos executed, and you’ll have a lot of fun seeing if you can break old scores.  Health is immediately replenished after every fight, which means you won’t individually heal everyone after a fight and waste items.

Overall, combat looks and feels great.  Menus are easy to navigate, moves are a lot of fun to pull off, and the auto-attack option is great if you’d prefer to just end a fight quickly.  That’s not even getting into Crystariums, which allow characters to gain new abilities similar to the Sphere Grid or License Board.  Then there are summons.  Basically there’s a lot to do here, and while it all fits together well the complexity of the system does border on mind-numbing at times.  A lot is thrown at you very quickly, and it can have a steep learning curve.  Once you get the hang of it, combat is a lot of fun; which is a relief, since you’ll be doing a lot of it.

Straight line sightseeing

The world of FFXIII is easy to traverse outside of combat, owing to the linearity of the game, which has polarized reviewers and audiences alike.  I mentioned this in my Bad Company 2 review, but linearity isn’t necessarily a bad thing and in JRPGs it tends to keep gameplay progression more focused.  There’s nothing really wrong with the linearity in FFXIII, since it keeps focus on the combat and doesn’t let players get side tracked.  What players will notice is that there are no more towns or non-playable characters, as all of your saving and shopping is done from your linear pathway.  This has also been a very polarizing issue, but to me it removes the pretention of having a vibrant, living world but only between linear stretches of combat.  With few very exceptions JRPG towns do little to present a functional world, and its better that the game just does away with them altogether.

High production values and a lot of practice have really paid off for Square-Enix, because the presentation in this game is astonishing.  Character details like the individual strands of Lightning’s hair or the design of Snow’s coat are rendered impeccably well.  Models themselves are crisp and extremely expressive, owing in part to the lip-synching that matches up perfectly with what characters are saying in the English dub.  Details on monsters and fal’Cie defy any verbal explanation, but I’ll settle with saying the detail, color, and scope is spectacular.  I reviewed the Xbox 360 version (yes, I know, sue me) but I did have a chance to compare it with the PlayStation 3 version.  Sony’s version definitely looks a little smoother at times, not to mention the 360 has several discs due to the DVD format.  Still, the 360 version is virtually every bit as grandiose and visually stunning as its counterpart.

Emoting and conducting

Voice acting is stellar all around; I hate to admit it, but if the idea behind Vanille was for her to be the grating, relentlessly cheery girl who gets on everyone’s nerves, I can’t fault the voice actress for being consistent.  The voice actors all bring out their characters’ personalities well.  Whether it’s Lightning’s coldness, Snow’s bravado, Sazh’s determination and lightheartedness, everyone audibly got into their characters in a significant way.  The writing can be as good as the voice actors who deliver it, but the script flails around and often takes refuge in cheesy, clichéd one liners about being true to yourself, making your own miracles, blah blah, we’ve all heard this before.  Music is sweeping and orchestral, managing to hold its own against the extremely high competition from FFXIII’s predecessors.  Battle themes are particularly engaging and ambient background themes synch up well with their respective environment, though a few dungeon themes come across as being a little too cheerful given the setting, and Leona Lewis’ “My Hands” may seem out of place to some players.

As much as I enjoyed FFXIII – and I did enjoy it – as I played it I couldn’t help but notice the proverbial elephant in the room.  My biggest problem with the game is that we’ve all seen this before.  Astonishingly high production values and fun combat can’t quite hide the fact that we’ve been at this exact same place in prior Final Fantasy games, albeit in different settings.  To me, FFXIII represents an identity crisis for the Japanese RPG as a genre that can’t seem to evolve.  With the exception of a few neat ideas like the removal of towns, where do JRPGs go after this point?  Final Fantasy has always defined the JRPG, but not every JRPG is going to be this good because unfortunately, very few teams have this sort of development time or production budget.

Conclusion

As is always the case with new installments in the main franchise, Final Fantasy XIII underwent a significant redesign that pays off in a lot of ways.  Combat is much more strategic and involving than that of its predecessor and the removal of towns streamlines the gameplay.  Characters are memorable (mostly) and the scenery is dazzling, even though the game has some very familiar problems.  JRPGs are becoming increasingly static, and while Square-Enix worked to get around this to some degree they didn’t do enough to make this feel like a different experience.  It’s still a good experience, and if you’re looking for the best of JRPGs you’ll have a great time.

Disclaimer: This Xbox 360 version of Final Fantasy XIII was provided for review purposes.