Final Fantasy XIII
Square Enix invite us to take part in hectic battles featuring a bunch of great characters. But is this really a welcome evolution to the classic RPG series?
Thirteen ... Not many game series reach this bad luck number. At least they don't admit it, instead they try to hide it away with fancy under-titles. That Final Fantasy has survived this long can partly be explained by the high quality of the games, but also by the fact that Square Enix never has settled for tried and tested. Each time a new game has been released, it has seen massive changes to the formula.
From simplistic to complex RPG dialogue systems and complex skill upgrades, from a huge range of characters to a focused story with a few playable characters, from steampunk fantasy to modern science fantasy, from a gigantic ultra-linear road movie to an online role-playing game. Because of the constant changes to the series it comes as no surprise that Final Fantasy XIII is also something completely new.
This time the innovation mainly consists of a basic idea: to strip away as much as possible in order to create an as quick, smooth and easily played role-playing game as we possibly can. Mass Effect 2, which also is very action-focused, feels infinitely complex in comparison. The story is linear, character development is linear and the fighting is fast and smooth. There are no cities in the normal sense of the word, not a wide selection of mini-games or secrets to hunt for. You buy new stuff through a kind of web shop at the save points, and if you survive a hectic battle you are always fully charged and ready for the next. It feels strange and unexpected after the super-detailed Final Fantasy XII, to say the least.
The game revolves around a bunch of colorful characters, as it should be. Lightning can probably be seen as the main character, but all of them get the opportunity to stand in the spotlight at some point during the story. They're all interesting once you got to know them, even the two teenagers Vanille and Hope (the former being an unstoppable pep-machine while the latter is extremely depressed and emotional). I also like the devoted hero Snow and the very sympathetic Sazh.
The problem is that I recognize all of them from the previous games in the series. Lightning is more or less Cloud plus Squall plus a pair of breasts, the quiet soldier who slowly thaws in her relationship with the others. Snow is Seifers' motivation (and wardrobe) mixed with Zidane's everything-is-possible attitude. Sazh is Barret and Cid, with a Chocobo hidden in his afro. Their styles have been changed, but you're not fooling me.
The fighting system is built from the ground up to look as much as the movie Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children as humanly possible. You no longer have to load up a Firaga or jump forward to make a single sword attack. No, we're not talking about long combinations and lots of stuff happening at once. Ideally, someone or something will also jump high into the air at some point. Hopefully while being on fire. Prior to each "move", you select a number of attacks and then which enemy you're aming for. If you can't be bothered to make these choices, the whole procedure can be automated for you.
To get any kind of overview of all this chaos, you only control a single character. You can give the other two general orders according to predetermined roles. For example you can pick on to get the attention of the enemies, while another one lowers their defenses. Or one can heal you while the other one helps you build combinations. You can change these roles at any time, something that you often need to do.
The whole idea is to do as long combinations as you can. If you get a sufficient number of attacks in the enemy goes into a so-called Shatter-mode, which means that they take a lot more damage and allow you to finish the fight within a reasonable amount of time. If you pull it off you get high points and get to run twenty meters down a corridor before it's time for another battle. If you fail you can look forward to a longer fight, defensively trying to get shots at the enemy and having the whole fight end with a degrading grade for your efforts.
Final Fantasy XII had a combat system deeply inspired by MMOs in general but also inspired by Bioware's classic Baldur's Gate II. In it, you had the options to both set strategies outside of fights and the possibility to adjust those strategies once combat had started. Final Fantasy XIII has rid itself of all that, instead opting for an "all or nothing"-system where you constantly have to exploit enemy weaknesses and switch tactics, similar to Shin Megami Tensai: Persona 4. It is also just as unforgivingly, and something unfairly, difficult as in Atlus' RPG masterpiece. What Final Fantasy XIII lacks though is a sense of control.
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- System:PS3, Xbox 360
- Genre:RPG
- Developer:Square Enix
- Publisher:Square Enix
- Offline players:1
- Age limit:From 16 years
- Release date:09 March 2010
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