The following review may contain spoilers.
Final Fantasy XIII is the latest installment in the Final Fantasy series developed by Square Enix. It was released in North America on March 9, 2010 for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. It follows the main storyline of a woman named Lightning.
The basic plot is that a man named Snow Villiers and his group of friends, which is known as NORA, is attempting to stop the purging of many citizens and save his fiancee. Meanwhile, Lightning and Sazh, a man Lightning met on the train she boarded, are trying to find the Pulse fal'Cie and destroy it for turning Lightning's sister into a l'Cie. A l'Cie is a person who is given a job, or Focus, to complete in a certain amount of time. Once they complete their Focus, they turn to crystal. If the person doesn't complete their Focus, they become a monster. During a number of events, Snow, Lightning and Sazh, along with the two exiles Hope and Vanille, become forced by the fal'Cie to become l'Cie. Although, their Focus they are given in unknown.
Altogether, I liked the storyline. I've always been a fan of the Final Fantasy series. The only thing I didn't enjoy was how you switched to different characters a lot, though I did enjoy switching around from Snow and Sazh. Their story lines are enjoyable. If you didn't have to play as Lightning, I wouldn't have a problem with the constant switching.
The graphics were top notch. There's this one scene at a beach where one of the characters gets up from the beach and you can see the sand run off their clothing. It was awesome. Enough said.
There was good characterization and many different personalities, but some characters were just annoying. I'm not gonna mention any names, but the characters are Lightning and Hope. After a while, Hope's complaining gets annoying, but who wouldn't complain about what he's been through. I'd tell you what happened to him, but you'll just have to play the game to figure it out. Lightning is a big meanie. Square Enix tried to make it so she had no weaknesses. They succeeded, but in the end, she was basically a robot.
The fighting style was enjoyable. It was like playing a better version of Final Fantasy X/2. It wasn't exactly turn based, but it was still somewhat boring to wait for your attack bar to fill back up. But what was cool is that you could mix up your attacks, such as use ice, fire, and thunder one after another, making combos easy to pull off. I also liked how the characters each had their own summon. I'm not going to spoil it for anybody, but they're familiar faces for the many Final Fantasy fans in this world. There's also this new level up system called "Crystarium." It seems to be heavily based on the Final Fantasy X sphere grid. In the Crystarium, you use the Crystogen Points (CP) to move your character around the grid. Altogether, I enjoyed this unique battle system.
An all around good game, I recommend it to anybody who enjoys a good RPG. It's an amazing game with some amazing characters and a creative, new battle system that you'll want to play over and over again.
Score: 9.2/10
Wed Mar 03, 2010 10:26 pm by 
Subject: Final Fantasy XIII 
