VIDEO GAME HENCHMEN: First Impression

First Impression - Final Fantasy XIII

I'll admit, I'm a little, well, maybe more than a little late to the whole JRPG scene. I've never played a Final Fantasy game, or any JRPG for that matter. There's just something about the battle system, in Final Fantasy, that never really caught my interest. It seemed very slow and boring, and didn't look very fun. However, as I got older, I grew more and more interested in the Final Fantasy series, and after much convincing from my friends, I finally decided to give it a whirl with Final Fantasy XIII, and while I'm nowhere near finishing the game, I thought I would share some of my thoughts on my first Final Fantasy experience.

When I opened up the case to Final Fantasy XIII, I wasn't quite sure what I was getting myself into. Here were 3 shiny discs full of content waiting to be played, and to say that I was a little intimidated would be an understatement. The last game I played with multiple discs was Mass Effect 2, which is a completely different series, that I was already familiar with. The only thing I knew about Final Fantasy was that it had beautiful cutscenes and the characters looked like they went through a whole bottle of gel and hairspray per day. Thankfully, the Final Fantasy games, while linked in their lore, aren't really sequential and so far I haven't had a very difficult time understanding what is going on, thanks to the datalogs.

After starting up Final Fantasy XIII, I was greeted with, what else, but an amazing, and beautiful cutscene of a fight scene taking place on a train with Lightning and Sazh. The graphics are nothing short of stunning, and surprisingly, the in game graphics don't drop as drastically as I thought they would. In fact, the game does a great job of transitioning from in-game to cut-scene graphics, which really surprised me. Shortly after the cutscene I'm introduced to my first taste of the combat system in Final Fantasy XIII. It was pretty straightforward, you press this and the character attacks the enemy you select and your teammates/AI auto-attack, choosing the best fit options. I was worried that this would be too simplistic, however by hour 3, or so, the game's combat really got interested once Paradigms and Techniques are introduced. These provided a whole new level to the combat and added a very strategic and puzzle-like aspect that really drew me in. I'm still not as enthusiastic about the "level-grinding" everyone talks about, but we'll see how that does once I get to it.

I was relieved to find that I actually, kind of enjoyed the combat, however if the game was going to keep my full attention it needed to have a good story. Story has always been an important part of games for me and Final Fantasy XIII certainly doesn't disappoint. It may not be the most original concept, a group of unlikely heroes bands together to save their world, but the lore and setting they've created around these characters certainly deserves some praise. I don't think I've ever read as many datalogs and backstory briefings in a game as much as I have in Final Fantasy XIII.

However, as good as the story seemed to be, I was a little worried, at first, about the characters. The writing was lacking in certain areas and the voice acting, while not terrible, could use a little work. However, as I got to know the characters and progressed further into the game, the cliche dialogue didn't seem too bad anymore. Now, I'm actually pretty interested in these characters and, oddly enough, the character I know the least about, Lightning, is probably my favorite so far and I'm interested to see the choices she makes and how the other characters interact with each other as the story unfolds.

All in all, I am pleasantly surprised by Final Fintasy XIII. I'm currently about 9 hours into the game and plan on sticking it out for the remaining 40 hours, as long as it stays interesting. The combat is much better than I expected and the story is really, quite intriguing. I'll save my final judgment for when I beat the game, but at the rate this is going, Final Fantasy XIII is turning out to be a wonderfully, unexpected find and I can't wait to see what happens next.

Posted by Lance Monday, July 12, 2010

1 Responses to First Impression - Final Fantasy XIII

Saiko Says:

July 13, 2010 at 10:47 AM
The open world will really destroy you. Be careful not to bump on those huge ass monsters because you won't stand a chance with them until you are like Level 99999. :-\