As I mentioned in my last article, I wanted to ‘revisit’ Final Fantasy XIII in a review sense of the word. Retrospectively, I do feel that despite the majority of my feelings about the game remaining the same, it deserves a reflection of its highs and lows, its flaws and strengths, that just couldn’t be properly given after a mere 17 hours of play. That amount of play time was certainly enough to get a decent grip on the sort of game that FFXIII is, but nowhere near enough to fully appreciate its twists, its turns, its humour and the challenges that it presents to the player.
A sum total of 44 hours game-play after my original review, I completed the epic title. After about 20-25 hours of the battle difficulty ramping up, I eventually came face-to-face with the game’s final area… the Narthex. I’m certainly not going to allude to any story-line development nor dump any massive spoilers into this article but I’ll gladly give an explanation of things. Apologies if it seems vague, but for the people who persevered with playing after the understandably frustrating opening hours, I’d rather not spoil storyline.
The Paddraen Archaeopolis. Haunting...
I have to say that the final boss sequence (a massive three boss battle that can take anywhere from half an hour to well over an hour depending on party level, your handle on the paradigm system, and luck as to the attacks that are launched at you by your enemies.) is a pretty intense experience. It goes without saying that these fal’Cie bosses have a massive amount of hit-points, some astonishingly powerful attacks and they will take all your effort to beat. Don’t be surprised if it takes you several attempts before you actually make it (or… like me… you manage it perfectly well the first time, but when a family member asks you if they can see the ending, it takes you a sum total of 7 attempts at the second boss before you actually manage to progress… surprisingly frustrating).
As I’m sure I mentioned in my previous review of the game, it is interspersed with beautiful fully rendered cut-scenes that grow lengthier as the game goes on. One of the most astonishing of these is at the point where the game’s linearity takes a hike and you are introduced to a massive open-world area. This occurs at the very beginning of Chapter 11. It is safe to say, though, that if you were to attempt to carry out any major exploration of said open-world area, you would find it very challenging. In fact, it has been acknowledged that the numerous enemies and side-quests that the area holds are best left until after the completion of the game’s main storyline.
Gran Pulse, with Cocoon off in the distance.
This is another aspect in which Final Fantasy XIII breaks from the norm: the fact that you are able to continue playing the game after the destruction of the final bosses. In fact, you could go so far as to say that the game only really opens up to you after you do this. Beating the final three enemies opens up the final stage of the game’s levelling system – the Crystarium. It is only through post-storyline battling and gaming that you have access to the final Role Level crystals for each character (and the achievements/trophies associated with them).
Rather than being able to return to any area of the game, as you would have been able to in some earlier games (Final Fantasy VII, for example), you are restricted to the two zones that were played through in Chapters 11 and 12. This is not to say that these are meagre places to return to. Chapter 12 contains some of the games most challenging and CP (Crystarium point) rewarding enemies in the entire game and the lower-world open area of Chapter 11 is the true proving ground of the game. It actually contains a handful of enemies who are stronger and more difficult to beat than the game’s ending bosses. This is not a new idea for a Final Fantasy title but it does certainly sate the gaming appetite of FF-addicts such as me. (I’m fully intending to claim the full 1,000G gamer-score that this game holds, but I do enjoy aiming for 100% completion with games like this)
Regarding the story of the game, it does truly all ‘come together’ in the latter stages of the game; the player will be come to terms with how the playable characters are interlinked. They all seem to grow during the game and become progressively more tolerable as time moves on. Towards the start of the game, the main character, Lightning, was an utterly intolerable b*tch, but as time wore on, you got to see her slowly begin to understand her plight, and grow as a person through the support of the other characters. This even rings true for playable character, Vanille. She got a lot of bad press from a great number of other journalists (websites and magazines included) for being the games “overly quirky anime-girl”, an accolade that she truly deserves in the opening chapters of the game. Again though, as the game progressed, you were able to see the reason behind her bizarre outlook and scary positivity. She became quite endearing after a while. I’ll jump to her defence and wholeheartedly confess to liking her.
Oerba Dia Vanille. You too will grow to love her. <3
I personally found the games plot to be easier to follow than any of the previous FF games. The tying up of the games storyline, through the closing cut-scenes is spectacularly moving. Having spent upwards of sixty hours with the characters by that point, seeing things coming to a conclusion actually managed to invoke emotion in me – something that I was frankly surprised by.
After all this positivity, I feel obligated to draw attention to two issues with the game; one major and one minor. Starting firstly with the minor, (and this is something that was also noted in a Zero Punctuation review of the game too) while playing the game, I can tell you that you will be driven bloody insane by Lightning’s incessant clippity-clop footsteps. Presumably, the woman is wearing New Rock boots or something similar. Either that or tap shoes. Something has to be producing that weird metallic clicking. Despite having noticed this though, it remains a minor gripe as I really stopped noticing it after a while, especially when we moved off solid stone or metallic surfaces and onto grass/earth. It stopped being an issue for me.
Oerba Yun Fang... but you can call her Fang.
As for the major issue, it would be the fact that you now only control a single member of the battle party. Newer players might welcome this as a way of being eased into combat. But for a seasoned player of FF games, as I am, it feels quite odd to leave decisions for your attack in the hands of the games AI. That being said, the aforementioned AI is surprisingly good at holding things together and up until now it has rarely let me down. It just felt a bit weird for a good 25 hours of play. On the other hand, it also aids the fast pace of battle that this game has, that comparatively makes the earlier games in the series seem very slow.
I’ll sum up by noting that Final Fantasy XIII is certainly a game that has torn the community asunder. Many have loved it; many have hated it with a passion. As I fall firmly into the first category there, I find it difficult to find very much at all to criticise about the game aside from the glaring linearity issue and the lack of battle control. For those without the will to persevere past the games slower points and get past the 20-25 hour mark, it is fair to say that the game could be viewed as a disappointment; but for gamers willing to go all out and embrace this game for what it is and put the effort into it, it will reward you with an extremely deep gaming experience. It is an epic juggernaut of a game.
(Kudos to Coheed and Cambria. I used a new song title as the article title.)
