So on Thursday I rushed out after school to go pick up my copy of Final Fantasy XIII (FF13). To say I had been waiting for this game for a while is an understatement worthy of some sort of unnecessary reward. I can’t remember exactly when the game was announced but as soon as I realized how much I wasn’t enjoying Final Fantasy XII I knew I wanted to see the next game. I don’t know if it was desperation or just wanting to know if my beloved Square had lost it or not.
Well, after a few hours with FF13, I am more than happy to say that no, they have not lost it and in short, Final Fantasy is back.
Some of us who were upset that Final Fantasy XI was an online game took solace in Final Fantasy X-2. Now, that game was home to a Japanese pop infused mess of craziness but it had a gloriously fast battle system with a job system to die for. FF13 takes these concepts and expands upon them in completely delightful ways. And for those of you at home still cringing at the thought of FFX-2, don’t worry, FF13 isn’t infused the pop music zaniness that made you pause the game when your mother came in your room to take your dirty dishes. The game is safe in that regard.
If you have been following the media for this game it is likely that you know more about it than I, but if you desire the thoughts of the untainted mind, proceed onward. I had played the demo months prior and was enjoying the battle system as was shown to us which simple and yet intriguing. Your Active Time Bar (ATB) filled up as in many a Final Fantasy prior but it had segments. You can use a segment when it is full to perform one attack but the main idea behind the system is to perform multiple actions in one attack to do lots of damage and also work towards ‘breaking’ the enemy. Once ‘broken’ the enemies have a time bar ticking down indicating how much time you have left to deal extra damage to them. Breaking some enemies is easier than others, it seems.
This was pretty much the entirety of the demo and the first hour and a half of the actual game. Less options were actually given to us in the real game as only the basic attack commands were available at this point. I’ve heard some claim disappointment for the simplicity of the opening to FF13 but I enjoyed fiddling around with the timing and such of the battle without the stress of too many options.
As a game should do, as I became comfortable with what was available, it opened up to me even more options. What it opened up seems to be a mesh of Final Fantasy X and X-2 in glorious splendor. Characters each have several Roles1 to chose from and progression uses Crystal Points to proceed in a similar way to FFX’s Sphere Grid. The main difference being each Role of each character has its own ‘board’ to go through unlocking skills and stat upgrades. That’s where the similarities to FFX die off and FFX-2 comes in. Now, the playe can, like in FFX-2, switch Roles mid battle. But! Instead of changing one character’s Role at a time, you select from a user created list of setups for your party. That is to say, perhaps your leader is an Attacker2 and your two party members are Blasters3 with a tap of L1 and a menu selection you can change one member to a Healer, one to a Defender and perhaps your leader to a Blaster so they can stay out of enemy fire and still deal damage. The Roles available right now are limited, but as has been the trend with this game I expect more and more to open up as I progress. I’ve already seen one character get a new Role, so I know this isn’t just a wishful gamer’s desire.
Things opening up over time seems to be a trend for this game. Since the beginning of the game I’ve noticed weapons and accessories have XP values but that portion of the game is still locked to me at this point. It seems they decided to throw in many different systems into this game but have slowly been giving them to the player in order to prevent an overwhelmed feeling. Even as a veteran RPG player I’m enjoying it. It gives a sense of more to come in the actual game portion and that to me is exciting.
So to sum it up there’s a whole lot going on in FF13 and it’s all very pleasing to me. To be honest, I haven’t been this happy with a game in a good while.
Good impression, although I am wondering how bad the replay value is going to lack in this entry at this rate
And there, you got your comment!