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I won't waste my time with an overly long intro and I'll just get right to it.
When you start a New Game, you're greeted with the expected opening scene. I was actually surprised at how short it was. Not only that, but the game thrusts you into battle minutes into it. There's no 30 minute cutscene or anything.
I played the 360 version of the game, and I can say 2 things about the graphics. First, they are definitely a huge step down from the PS3 version. Low-res textures, jaggies, etc. It's all there. However, the game still manages to look really good. Backgrounds are gorgeous, character models are really nice, and FMVs look very pleasing.
I also quickly noticed how good the music is. Seriously, this game has an incredible soundtrack. Lightning's Theme and the battle song are two of my favorites, and they are both excellent. I'll definitely be getting the soundtrack asap.
I'll address this now just to get it out of the way. Yes, the game is linear. It's not exactly a straight line path, but... yeah, it's pretty damn linear. You're not gonna be exploring huge open fields or anything. At least, not until much, much later on. I honestly don't mind it much, but I know some people will really hate it. I've been playing the game for close to 4 hours, and although it's so linear, I've been pretty entertained all this time. As long as I'm having fun, I don't really care if it's linear or not.
As far as gameplay goes, I'm not gonna lie; the first hour or two of the game are incredibly boring. However, I'm pretty sure that there's not many RPGs that start out with fun battles. I really like the new battle system that FFXIII employs. For those of you who haven't seen any gameplay videos, I'll try to explain it briefly. Basically, you have a bar at the bottom left of the screen that is divided into sections. Every action you want to do in a battle, whether it is attacking or using magic, will take a certain amount of "chunks" of the bar away. For example: at the beginning, Lightning starts out with 3 "chunks". A regular attack takes out 1 chunk, while a wide-range skill takes out 2. Once you select one of the actions you want, the character will execute all commands you have him/her until the bar is depleted. After that, the bar will start to slowly regenerate, and the process starts all over again.
Like I said, all of this is very boring at the begging. You only have the regular attack command and one skill. However, once I was past the 2 hour mark, a certain event happened in the game which introduced me to the fabled "Paradigm Shifts" and the Crystarium system.
Paradigm Shifts are basically battle strategies that you can change to suit your needs in real time. Wanna finish the battle quickly by having everyone focus on specific enemies? There's a preset paradigm for that. Want to take a more careful route and have one character as the attacker, one as the defender, and a healer? Change your paradigm and do that. What's great about the paradigms is that you can quickly and seamlessly change from one to another without disrupting the flow of battle too much. Also, it allows you to make your party into a really versatile team, where you can have 3 attackers, 3 healers, whatever. Each class comes with different skills, and part of the strategy is using the right skills at the right time. If you've ever played FFX-2, you'll know what to expect.
The Crystarium system is basically the leveling system of the game. It's a bit hard to explain... but if you've played FFX before, you'll be facing nothing too out there. It's basically a more user-friendly version of FFX's system. I'm not gonna go too into it, but it's pretty much like a game board. You use CP (obtained after battles) to move your "piece" around and land on different spots. Each spot gives you a permanent perk. Some spots have stat bonuses, some have skills. You move around and choose what perks to go after. It may sound a bit complicated, but its actually not, and it's really fun. I like it a lot.
I forgot to cover one of the most important things about the game... characters and story. I'm actually liking the main characters quite a bit, especially Lightning and Sazh. Sazh is probably my favorite, since he's the most composed and down to earth character of the cast. Snow is just "meh", only because of his annoying hero attitude. Vanille is a mysterious character, but I have to admit, her voice actor is terrible. Hope is probably the worst character personality-wise. You know that bitchy emo kid that cries about the death of someone close to him and is pretty much a cancer to the team? That guy that somehow makes his way into every RPG and EVERYONE hates? That's Hope. Although I'm sure his character will probably grow out of it eventually (hopefully).
Speaking of voice acting, I'm actually really pleasantly surprised. The voice acting is, in my opinion, pretty good. The only character who I cannot stand is Vanille, because her VA has some weird ass accent that doesn't sound like anything I've ever heard, and it's annoying as hell. The other characters have great voices, though. Lightning, Sazh, and Hope come to mind.
The story seems pretty interesting too. From what I've gathered so far, it's about this place called Cocoon. It's like a little fortress that keeps humans away from Pulse, which is the surrounding land which is said to be like "hell on earth". Pulse is plagued by a being called the Pulse Fal'Cie (I think?), who is apparently the "antagonist" of the game. It's this big huge... machine... thing. Whoever encounters it is forced to become a L'Cie, who is basically a slave of the Fal'Cie. lLCie must fullfill a certain requirement to be set free. This requirement is usually something that has to do with Cocoon, such as "destroy Cocoon". If they fail to do this, they become a big black zombie thing.
One thing that really pissed me off is that the characters will throw around terms like L'Cie, Pulse, Fal'Cie, etc, and not even try to explain what they are. It's like the game EXPECTS you to have some background on the lore of the game. Sure, there's a section in the menu where you can learn all about these terms and stuff, but you really shouldn't be forced to read about these things on the side just to be able to clearly understand what's going on. It's not really a huge bother, but it would have been very nice if all these terms and background story would have been addressed in a cutscene or something.
Well, that's how it starts off anyway. I know I did a terrible job, but trust me, the story really does show some promise. Another thing I wanna mention is that Square did a really nice job with the "acting" that the characters do. I don't know how to explain it, but the characters feel "real". Their expressions, tone of voice, and actions are, for the most part, executed really well. I feel attached and can even relate to some of the characters.
Overall, the game is pretty good, although it takes a few hours to pick up the pace. Once a certain event happens though, the game really picks up steam. You begin using Paradigm Shifts, the Crystarium system, and the story advances at a nice pace. I can't wait to see what's in store!
Quick summary:
Liked:
-Great graphics
-Really fun battle system
-Fun and intuitive leveling system
-Challenging
-Great voice acting
-Compelling story
-Great characters for the most part
Disliked:
-First 2 hours are way too linear, horribly paced.
-Some characters can be very fake and "anime-ey".
-Characters are too vague and throw around terms which have not been introduced.
I'm sorry that it's such a disorganized mess. It was nicer before, but the power went out for a minute and I lost everything I had written.
If you have any questions or anything about the game, let me know and I'll do my best to answer them.
When you start a New Game, you're greeted with the expected opening scene. I was actually surprised at how short it was. Not only that, but the game thrusts you into battle minutes into it. There's no 30 minute cutscene or anything.
I played the 360 version of the game, and I can say 2 things about the graphics. First, they are definitely a huge step down from the PS3 version. Low-res textures, jaggies, etc. It's all there. However, the game still manages to look really good. Backgrounds are gorgeous, character models are really nice, and FMVs look very pleasing.
I also quickly noticed how good the music is. Seriously, this game has an incredible soundtrack. Lightning's Theme and the battle song are two of my favorites, and they are both excellent. I'll definitely be getting the soundtrack asap.
I'll address this now just to get it out of the way. Yes, the game is linear. It's not exactly a straight line path, but... yeah, it's pretty damn linear. You're not gonna be exploring huge open fields or anything. At least, not until much, much later on. I honestly don't mind it much, but I know some people will really hate it. I've been playing the game for close to 4 hours, and although it's so linear, I've been pretty entertained all this time. As long as I'm having fun, I don't really care if it's linear or not.
As far as gameplay goes, I'm not gonna lie; the first hour or two of the game are incredibly boring. However, I'm pretty sure that there's not many RPGs that start out with fun battles. I really like the new battle system that FFXIII employs. For those of you who haven't seen any gameplay videos, I'll try to explain it briefly. Basically, you have a bar at the bottom left of the screen that is divided into sections. Every action you want to do in a battle, whether it is attacking or using magic, will take a certain amount of "chunks" of the bar away. For example: at the beginning, Lightning starts out with 3 "chunks". A regular attack takes out 1 chunk, while a wide-range skill takes out 2. Once you select one of the actions you want, the character will execute all commands you have him/her until the bar is depleted. After that, the bar will start to slowly regenerate, and the process starts all over again.
Like I said, all of this is very boring at the begging. You only have the regular attack command and one skill. However, once I was past the 2 hour mark, a certain event happened in the game which introduced me to the fabled "Paradigm Shifts" and the Crystarium system.
Paradigm Shifts are basically battle strategies that you can change to suit your needs in real time. Wanna finish the battle quickly by having everyone focus on specific enemies? There's a preset paradigm for that. Want to take a more careful route and have one character as the attacker, one as the defender, and a healer? Change your paradigm and do that. What's great about the paradigms is that you can quickly and seamlessly change from one to another without disrupting the flow of battle too much. Also, it allows you to make your party into a really versatile team, where you can have 3 attackers, 3 healers, whatever. Each class comes with different skills, and part of the strategy is using the right skills at the right time. If you've ever played FFX-2, you'll know what to expect.
The Crystarium system is basically the leveling system of the game. It's a bit hard to explain... but if you've played FFX before, you'll be facing nothing too out there. It's basically a more user-friendly version of FFX's system. I'm not gonna go too into it, but it's pretty much like a game board. You use CP (obtained after battles) to move your "piece" around and land on different spots. Each spot gives you a permanent perk. Some spots have stat bonuses, some have skills. You move around and choose what perks to go after. It may sound a bit complicated, but its actually not, and it's really fun. I like it a lot.
I forgot to cover one of the most important things about the game... characters and story. I'm actually liking the main characters quite a bit, especially Lightning and Sazh. Sazh is probably my favorite, since he's the most composed and down to earth character of the cast. Snow is just "meh", only because of his annoying hero attitude. Vanille is a mysterious character, but I have to admit, her voice actor is terrible. Hope is probably the worst character personality-wise. You know that bitchy emo kid that cries about the death of someone close to him and is pretty much a cancer to the team? That guy that somehow makes his way into every RPG and EVERYONE hates? That's Hope. Although I'm sure his character will probably grow out of it eventually (hopefully).
Speaking of voice acting, I'm actually really pleasantly surprised. The voice acting is, in my opinion, pretty good. The only character who I cannot stand is Vanille, because her VA has some weird ass accent that doesn't sound like anything I've ever heard, and it's annoying as hell. The other characters have great voices, though. Lightning, Sazh, and Hope come to mind.
The story seems pretty interesting too. From what I've gathered so far, it's about this place called Cocoon. It's like a little fortress that keeps humans away from Pulse, which is the surrounding land which is said to be like "hell on earth". Pulse is plagued by a being called the Pulse Fal'Cie (I think?), who is apparently the "antagonist" of the game. It's this big huge... machine... thing. Whoever encounters it is forced to become a L'Cie, who is basically a slave of the Fal'Cie. lLCie must fullfill a certain requirement to be set free. This requirement is usually something that has to do with Cocoon, such as "destroy Cocoon". If they fail to do this, they become a big black zombie thing.
One thing that really pissed me off is that the characters will throw around terms like L'Cie, Pulse, Fal'Cie, etc, and not even try to explain what they are. It's like the game EXPECTS you to have some background on the lore of the game. Sure, there's a section in the menu where you can learn all about these terms and stuff, but you really shouldn't be forced to read about these things on the side just to be able to clearly understand what's going on. It's not really a huge bother, but it would have been very nice if all these terms and background story would have been addressed in a cutscene or something.
Well, that's how it starts off anyway. I know I did a terrible job, but trust me, the story really does show some promise. Another thing I wanna mention is that Square did a really nice job with the "acting" that the characters do. I don't know how to explain it, but the characters feel "real". Their expressions, tone of voice, and actions are, for the most part, executed really well. I feel attached and can even relate to some of the characters.
Overall, the game is pretty good, although it takes a few hours to pick up the pace. Once a certain event happens though, the game really picks up steam. You begin using Paradigm Shifts, the Crystarium system, and the story advances at a nice pace. I can't wait to see what's in store!
Quick summary:
Liked:
-Great graphics
-Really fun battle system
-Fun and intuitive leveling system
-Challenging
-Great voice acting
-Compelling story
-Great characters for the most part
Disliked:
-First 2 hours are way too linear, horribly paced.
-Some characters can be very fake and "anime-ey".
-Characters are too vague and throw around terms which have not been introduced.
I'm sorry that it's such a disorganized mess. It was nicer before, but the power went out for a minute and I lost everything I had written.
If you have any questions or anything about the game, let me know and I'll do my best to answer them.
