Review : Final Fantasy XIII

Finally my Final Fantasy XIII review can be made. After days upon days of playing the game I can bring you the review of the latest Final Fantasy. Trust me this game takes a while to get used to and doing the review requires a lot of time to be put into the game.

Final Fantasy XIII is a story heavy RPG like all the others in the franchise and it isn't easy to stray from the story like in previous entries. The story is about 6 people who have been chosen as L'cie to complete there Focus. The 6 character Lightning, Snow, Hope, Vanille, Sazh and Fang are all crucial characters to the story unlike another Final Fantasy that shall remain unnamed because I hate it. The writers really knuckled down on making each characters story both intertwine and be crucial to the events going on. The Focus is what the L'cie have to complete to become a crystal and gain infinite life and if they fail they become a Cie'th which are zombie kinda things. The characters each have a different start but become intertwine at the end of Chapter 1 with the exception of Fang. After defeating a Pulse fal'cie (a kind of demi god or something) everyone other then Fang who isn't to be seen until a later chapter, gets branded or in the case of Vanille re-branded (spoiler I suppose) and find that they're focus seems to have something to do with Ragnarok who is and evil that must be stopped as far as they know. The story has to be experienced because I just can't tell you the story and I'm having troubles holding myself back too. Battle is back to basics in one way, but changed everywhere else. The ATB(Active Time Battle) has returned with a twist where you can only use one character and input multiple commands depending on how many command bars you have and what commands you use and accompanying it is a new Paradigm system where you choose roles for you character to fight with in battle. The roles are kind of like job classes but are sooo different at the same time.The roles are necessary to making strategies in battle and each roles purposes are different. The role are Commando which is a physical fighter with non-elemental magic, Ravager which cast elemental magic and can attack physically with magic endowed weapons... kinda, Medic which cast healing and recovery spells, Synergist which cast stat boosting spells, Saboteur which casts status inflicting spells and stat decreasing spells and Sentinel which provoke enemies into attacking them plus can take large amounts of damage and counter enemy attacks. The leveling system in this is similar to the Final Fantasy X sphere grid, but it's more linear and harder to bring up in comparison in one way but is ultimately easy then the sphere grid. It works on a ring of crystals you cash CP for. Every character gets a summon in the form of Eidolons who like the Aeons fight along side the summoner and can be transformed into a ride on vehicle of some sort. In the vehicle form known as Gestalt mode where the Eidolons combine with the summoner to perform attacks to the enemies until the gauge on the left side of the screen goes to zero.Obtaining the Eidolons is hard work, you need to battle them and it can be a pain and even if your at the current maximum you can still lose. To try and extend the game and try and remove the linear veil Square-Enix also added some missions which you can partake in after you reach Gran Pulse which takes 25 hours or more to reach. These missions are just monster hunts so it's not exactly something big and it's only good to get rare items and CP. Money in the game is almost impossible to get since nothing drops Gil and you'll have to sell a lot of stuff to get even a small amount.

Final Fantasy XIII is a good game, in fact it's great. Compared to the good Final Fantasy's it's just good but it's still worth your money to buy. The story is almost as good as older Final Fantasy's and the combat may seem overwhelming after the roles come into play but can be interesting and tests how good of a strategist you can be. I have to admit the lack of money is a problem but you can always grind for items to sell. If you are going to buy this and your not a fan you may like it a lot but fans will have things to complain about. I give it a 4/5 because even with it's problems, it's still a great game that almost anyone can enjoy. Also both the 360 and PS3 version look good but the PS3 version is better visually.... Yes I do own both.

Score 4/5