Final Fantasy XIII is coming out in US in less than a month & few friends of mine are askin' how's the game (cuz I bought it recently)... I have played it bout 25~30 hrs now, so thought to give some lil Love & Hate reviews. K, before start my review, just let you know my ranking of my fav FF series
1. Final Fantasy Tactics
2. Final Fantasy VIII
3. Final Fantasy X
4. Final Fantasy IV
5. Final Fantasy XIII
5. Final Fantasy III
Yes sorry, VII isn't in my top 5, due to a lot of reason, but don't worry, VII isn't the dead last.
so now you know what kind of taste I have for FF series.
Oh and BIG WARNING! There are few spoilers of FFXIII. I'll try to hide it best as I can, but some parts cannot be helped.
Loves
Graphics: Really, do I gotta explain much bout that? It's BluRay disc with Square Enix, so of course it's amazing. Yes, that's true, but I'm talkin' just game playing graphics. Some part of the clips are just using regular game graphic. They're just amazing
Jobs: It's like X, each chara has their own kinda skills. Yuna = White Mage, Lulu = Black Mage and so on. This time, they break it down to: Attacker, Blaster, Defender, Healer, Enhancer, & Jammer. They have their own skills that help w the battle and while in the battle you can change their jobs. This will determined the battle.
Loading Time: Sony is well known for taking forever to load the game. Specially FF series. Amazing enough, loading time is faster than recent games that came out on PS3. I was really surprised with it. Good Job SE!
Characters: This one, it's kinda love and hate thing, but I can say that I love Lighting! She kinda reminds me of VIII's Squall. Don't talk much and just pinch of cockiness to bring out the coolness! lol Of course there are several chara that I'm not too fan of, but after a while I got over it (but that doesn't mean I like em).
Sphere System: Yup, Sphere system is back! If you don't like it, too bad. IMO I like it more than leveling up and learn new skill kinda thing. You can choose what you wanna learn first and later. Sphere also grows bigger and learn different skills more further you go into the game and makes me want to farm, but...
Map: IDK why ppl are bitchin' bout this, seriously? What? It's Linear? Man, there's no time to worrying bout side areas cuz, you're busy worrying bout how the battle system and other system works. Took me, give or take bout 10 hrs later, I've finally figured out how battle system properly works. After you thought, it's all figured out, now you gotta worry bout other system. So seriously thank SE that they made the map linear in the first part of the game.
Guardians: They really thought bout this one. Can't spoil much, but when it summons the guardian (like VIII, you gotta fight em through to get em... maybe Pokemon might be easier to explain?), it's not bout how to beat the guardian. It's really interesting and I really like it a lot (even though I died so many times), so be patient and use your brain.
Hates
No MP Gauge: Wait, wait, wait, wait! No MP?!?! Yup, you read it correct. There's no MP gauges. there's only 3 gauges you need to worry bout. HP, ATB & TP. ATB & TP gauge, you'll learn in the game and it's not hard to figure out. How to do all the magic attacks? With ATB gauge. Pretty much you can do infinite magics. Only thing that stopping you is your enemies HP gauge.
Monsters: Yeah... do you remember this monster?
...or other FF monsters? Yeah, you can throw all those pics in your mind in the garbage. They're not even close to what they look like. Yes, that includes Guardians... but Guardians have been always different, so wasn't really big deal... BUT THE MONSTER IS DIFFERENT STORY! Also upset that Ifrit isn't playable! C'on SE! What were you thinking!
Leveling Up: Leveling up? What's that? Yup, there's no more lvls anymore... so what's to lvl up? Your weapons & accessories. Kinda get the idea, why weapons & accessories... but still isn't FF series was all bout having lvl99 before hitting the final boss and beat the crap out of em?
Nowhere to farm: Bout close to 30 hrs of playing there was been only one spot that I can farm to lvl my weapons & accessories and BGM was ridiculously annoying that made me stop farming after 30mins. So far, there's no farming for sure.
No more random battles: Yup, they took off the random battles. You can actually see the enemies before hand. To certain level, it's nice, so you can set up your weapon, skills, & other etc to match best for the battle... but at the same time, it's kinda boring.
Actual Playing Time: So First 10 hrs of the game, I actually played less than 2 hrs. What's the rest? Movie clip, movie clips and more movie clips. I guess, it has the feeling of FFX to it. Cuz that series had so much movie clip parts than other ones for sure.
Out of 100, I would give FFXIII a 85. As a whole game, I love it! There are several classic FF series flavors that are missing, but as a game itself, without a doubt it's worth spending the money.
That's all I can think top of my head right now. If you have any Q, let me know I'll try to answer em best as I can without spoiling it.
