Final Fantasy XIII

The Final Fantasy series first gained international popularity with Final Fantasy VII in 1997, although the series has been popular in Japan since its inception. It's well known for two things - amazing visuals and each title in the main series being markedly different from the previous. Final Fantasy XIII is the latest in the series, and it is so different some may find it upsetting.

Final Fantasy XIII starts you off in Cocoon, a giant satellite floating in the sky above Gran Pulse. Cocoon is inhabited by two main species - Humans and Fal'cie. The Fal'cie are godlike creatures who provide everything for the human inhabitants - from the food they eat to the light in the sky. Humans generally live a happy existence in the various cities of Cocoon, although they live under constant fear of war with the residents of Pulse below. When a Pulse Fal'cie is found near the beach side town of Bodhum, the military quickly start rounding up everyone in the area to begin what is known as 'The Purge' - evacuating all of the citizens who possibly came in contact with the Pulse Fal'cie out of cocoon and down to Gran Pulse.

This is where the action kicks off as your group of unlikely heroes all head towards the Pulse Fal'cie for an assortment of reasons. When they are then turned into Pulse L'cie - humans given a mission by a Fal'cie and forced to carry it out at the risk of being turned into monsters, they have no choice but to evade capture and come to grips with their new lives as fugitives and enemies of their home world.

It's a pretty confusing start, and it's not helped by the poor method of delivery. FFXIII employs an encyclopaedia similar to the kind found in Dragon Age: Origins, revealing back story and extra information about the characters and places throughout the game. Unfortunately, it also retells whatever cut scene you just watched - and occasionally adds just enough extra information to compel anyone who wants to know the story to read the walls of text. It's a confusing choice for such an incredible looking game - 'show, don't tell' is the most basic rule of story telling.

The cut-scenes look amazing, although thanks to the anime style they have gone with, characters seem to only manage two facial expressions. The character Hope is an excellent example - he spends a lot of time consumed with loathing and hatred, and since he apparently isn't a sociopath it seem strange not to see that rage and loathing on his face.Outside of cut-scenes the graphics are still impressive and a casual glance wouldn't see any difference. Character models are sharp and well designed and the environments throughout Cocoon are jaw-dropping at times. Character animations are well done both in battle and in the field and the enemies throughout the game look and animate well.

There is very little life throughout Cocoon though, and this works together with the single path nature of the level design to hammer home the linearity of the game. The mini-map also helps emphasise this - the world around you might look large and expansive, but a single glance at the top corner of your screen reminds you you have a very narrow path to run from A to B. This is actually no different from any other Final Fantasy game - any dungeon you enter (dungeon in the 'place where you fight bad guys' sense) generally had only a single path, with the odd branch leading to a treasure chest. The difference here is in the lack of towns - while in previous games the dungeons were broken up with a trip to a town for some background info or , in FFXIII the only breaks you get are watching your party members talk among themselves.

It's a lot worse at the start of the game, as the first part of the story seems dedicated to fitting your characters into various clichés and stereotypes. Lightning (the female Cloud) and Sazh (the black man with the afro) are the only two really tolerable characters - while Sazh's looks are the epitome of the black man in Japanese zeitgeist, he is actually a decent character, often the sole voice of reason in a group of seemingly suicidal young adults.

Snow (big blond slacker with chin whiskers) is less tolerable with his constant 'hero' talk, but actually not that bad. It is Vanille (red haired girl) and Hope (generic anime boy) who fit into the most tired clichés - Hope going down the 'I want to be tougher so I can get my revenge against that friendly man I hate unconditionally' which can only end one way, and Vanille playing the part of 'saccharine sweet bundle of happy with a sad secret.' Fortunately at a certain point in the story they both drop those clichés - and at the same time join the rest of the cast in being somewhat decent characters.

When this happens the story changes significantly - the characters' motivations are all tolerable - even Hope and Vanille. Once Hope drops his angsty tough guy routine and Vanille drops the fake happiness, they develop real personalities and you don't feel like sighing every time they open their mouths. Vanille's voice acting changes as well - whereas previously her accent was a mix of Australian (that's right) and squeaking, it changes to just a girly Australian accent. Almost all of the voice actors did an excellent job, with especially stellar performances by Ali Hillis (Liari T'soni from Mass Effect) as Lightning, Troy Baker (Yuri from Tales of Vesperia and Abaddon from Darksiders) as Snow and Reno Wilson (Orlando from the Crank films) as Sazh. Maybe I'm noticing connections that aren't there, but this is also when the kick-ass babe Fang joins the party.

Still, while the story changes at that point the gameplay doesn't. You still run from point A to B fighting monsters along the way, there is no one but your party members to talk to and you still have to read the datalog to read a novelisation of the scene you just watched. Why play it then? The story? Some people might find the story a good enough reason, it is why I've played every other Final Fantasy (except 11.) It wasn't the reason I kept playing this one however. The story is interesting, no doubt about it, but for the first time since I started playing JRPGs it isn't why I kept playing the game. The thing I kept coming back for is the battle system, and it is brilliant.

It doesn't look brilliant at first glance. You can only control your primary character, your health replenishes after every battle, you can only level up a specific amount per chapter and if your primary character dies it's retry or Game Over. Also retry sets you to just before the battle, as opposed to sending you back to the previous save point. It seems like a spit in the face to all of the previous systems, both annoyingly difficult and easy at the same time. Gone is your ever increasing heart rate when you run out of potions in the middle of a dungeon, and some people see a retry option as a ticket to not bother trying. Controlling a single character seems like it takes away from the strategy of the game - and it puts you at the mercy of the AI. What's good about it then? Well, for the first time in an Final Fantasy game, you actually need to have skill as well as strategy.



Characters all get three main roles from a choice of Commando, Ravager, Sentinel, Saboteur, Synergist and Medic. These are set out from the beginning - Lightning for example, is a Commando a Ravager or a Medic. Check out the Breakout box for a run down of the roles, suffice to say Commando and Ravager are your attack units, Sentinels are your tanks, Saboteurs and Synergists change status effects and Medics are, well, medics. By hitting the L1 button you can switch between these roles in what is known as a Paradigm Shift, switching your roles and the roles of your party to whatever is best suited for the current situation. You can set up a number of different Paradigms in the menu outside of battle, setting your characters up for a huge combination of roles, preparing for any situation. One of the ones I used the most often was a Ravager+Ravager+Commando Paradigm - designed to successfully stagger my enemy and do major damage.

Staggering enemies is vital in the game, especially if you want a good rating - a five star rating in a fight gives you better drop chances and raises your technical points. Every enemy (except for excessively difficult endgame ones) has a percentage based break point - a point where they stagger and you can do massive damage. As you fight your enemy the percentage goes up, but if you stop fighting for too long it will drop back down to zero. Ravagers boost the percentage dramatically, but the percentage drops very quickly and in contrast, Commandos barely do anything to boost the percentage but make it drop a lot slower. Combining the two ensures the rating boosts and has long enough for the Ravager's ATB bars to fill up again, allowing you to continue building the percentage until they stagger.

The ATB tracks how many moves you can make in one turn. At the start of the game you can only use two basic attacks or spells, and as you progress through the game you gain additional slots and chances to attack. More powerful moves like Fira or Cura take up more than one spot - giving you less to do that round and taking longer to charge up. While your character will attack as soon as all of your slots are filled, you can start an attack early by hitting the Triangle - necessary if your enemy is close to death and you want to finish it quickly, or if you don't have much time before your enemy recovers from staggering. It is also very useful when you get the ability to launch staggered enemies into the air - time your attacks correctly and you can juggle them indefinitely.

As for your team mates, they are almost always excellent. If you don't use Libra on an enemy to find out its strengths and weaknesses your team mates can still learn what works best, and if they see Fira doing massive damage, Thundara doing ok damage and Blizzara healing your enemy they will switch to Fira only for the next round. Medics will only use enough healing to get you back up to full health, leaving any other ATB slots free to try again next round. It would improve the game significantly however, if they allowed you to turn off certain spells - if your entire party is sitting on 100 HP, Vanille will use the AoE healing spell Cura instead of just curing me - the only one whose death can't be healed.

The most disappointing part of battles would be the summons. While fighting them is fun and puzzle-like in nature, they are almost universally useless to summon. They do barely more damage than you do, but they do heal your party to full health when they leave - which is pretty much all they are good for. Their animations are awesome for the most part - except when they transform into various vehicles for no reason at all.

20 hours into the game you'll have learned all of the above - you will have earned the right to experience what Final Fantasy XIII truly has to offer. After such a long time in Cocoon you'll be heading to Gran Pulse. With its creatures that will destroy you in seconds, it's enormous plains and its residents' accents, Gran Pulse - like its obvious inspiration, is awesome.

I won't say much about Gran Pulse as I'm sure most would appreciate the surprise, but it negates a lot of the arguments levelled against the game. There still aren't towns but there are sidequests, the main area is massive and full of sights and secrets, and some of the fights are a real challenge. No game since Shadow of the Colossus to match the mixture of wonder and terror as you carefully run through a herd of Adamantoise thirty times your size. While once you've left the plains you will be following a path again, you can return to the steppes at any time - even once you've finished the story (which is recommended for a lot of the tougher side quests.)

If you don't have time for an incredibly long game, don't buy Final Fantasy XIII. However, for what first appears to be an incredibly shallow game it has an astounding amount of depth, and the battles and graphics are good enough to keep you running down that tunnel. Any fan of the genre would be a fool not to pick it up, and Square-Enix have gone a long way to making it more accessible to those not familiar with JRPGs.