Final Fantasy XIII: First Impressions

Final Fantasy XIII

In 2008, I was still on Mat leave and got to watch the "Big 3" E3 conferences live. Microsoft had ended their spiel... or had they? The lights went down and Final Fantasy XIII was announced for the 360. I freaked. I am an unabashed FF fangirl. I cut my teeth on Japanese role playing games (JRPGs). I was seriously thinking of buying a PS3 for one game and one game only. That game was Final Fantasy XIII

But I have my eyes wide open. My love of JRPGs has waned for a number of reasons. I find the stories complex, but not compelling. Characters are often tropes and not realized. Gameplay can border on tedium. JRPG women are atrocious and make me weep for womenkind.

So how would this game fair? I've played a couple of nights, so about 6 hours total. For a working woman, that's about all the gaming time I can get in two nights. The bottom line: If you love JRPGs: it's great. If you are skeptical about RPGs in general, but want to give one a try: stay the hell away and send me a PM: I can guide you on your path, grasshopper.

Game Mechanics

The game mechanics for the first 3 hours are exceedingly simple. Press "Autobattle" to win. You have a timer that fills up: the higher it fills, the more actions you can take. Pretty simple stuff. You only control the party leader and you cannot choose your party. The standard "attack or item" menu will be familiar to any fan of FF.

When it gets interesting is later in the story when you get to use the "paradigm" system. Your own party is controlled by AI, and a paradigm controls the AI "scheme" of each party member. For example one paradigm sets each member to a "Ravager" or what we all know as a black magician. Ravagers concentrate all their hits on one enemy. Another paradigm might set your party to one medic (healer), one sentinel (tank) and one commando (damage dealer). When I read other reviews, I was under the impression that you could individually change each party member's individual paradigm. That is not the case: you change the whole party at one time. You *can* customize your list of paradigms any way you like.

At first, I didn't think that paradigms would really matter. I prefer a defensive style game, so when the game's tutorial recommended that I use a certain paradigm to "stagger" an enemy in order to deal critical hits, I ignored the advice. And did zero damage. Turns out... you gotta switch up your paradigms to win. I see lots of potential here. Since there is no penalty to switching paradigms, it turned out pretty fun to do.

You may have heard that the game is linear. That's not true. It's *extremely* linear. It's as close to on the rails as you can get without actually being... well... on the rails. Your party travels down corridors with no branches. I have heard that the game opens up later, but for now... go forward... beat on enemies. If you see a tiny branch: that's where treasure is located. Easy stuff.

RPGs can rise or fall by their leveling mechanics, and like the level design, Final Fantasy XIII's leveling up process is on the rails too. And yes, while there may seem to be some decision making, there really isn't. I haven't played enough to see how all the paradigm types fit, and how well they match against each other, so let's wait and see.

But JRPGs are necessarily about gameplay, they are about story. Or so I've been told...

Story and Characterization.

All the JRPG tropes are here. Strong, but silent woman with iron balls. Some dude who tries wa-AY too hard to be a "hero," the kid, comic relief and the chick that you want to remove her voice box. For a bit of variety, the annoying chick is also a bit of a pedophile! Yup: the chick who wiggles when she walks gets the pre-pubescent boy to do what she wants by giving him a rather long hug... and she doesn't stop touching him.... It's creepy.

In all seriousness, only two of the five are cringe worthy. Another party member shows up later, I believe and if that character is okay then only one third of the members make me weep tears of blood. Not bad for a JRPG.

In my mind, SquareEnix gets a huge miss on their female characters. One of the mains, Lightning is the exception. She is a strong, steely-eyed realist who has to deal with a painful situation. She is a woman that is going to get shit done, and beat those who get in the way. The other one, Vanille, is your typical stupid as a ton of bricks JRPG stereotype. No one walks that way, no one talks that way, no one acts that way. Lightning's sister, Serah, plays a minor role, and sadly is regulated to a simple "damsel in distress" with zero backbone.

The lads don't get a pass either. Serah's fiance, Snow is a boy pretending to be a man, overly concerned with telling everyone that he's a Hero without demonstrating why others around him should consider him one. It's typical JRPG: characters tell you what they are: "I'm a HERO!" instead of demonstrating it, or letting others do the talking. I would rather see a NPC say something like "Snow has helped me and my family out of some tight spaces, I would follow him wherever," instead I have to deal with this moron. I can't tell if Snow's boneheaded actions are due to grief or because he's stupid, or because the writers need his idiot actions and speeches to make the story to move forward.

Much has been made out of Sazh, the black character in the game, who keeps a Chocobo in his afro. I am going to completely sidestep any controversy of race here and just say that he is the most real of the characters. Yes, he's the comic relief, but has a much juicier role. He's a realist, even more than Lightning. He's confused. He doesn't know what to do, but given the circumstances of the story, it's forgivable, understandable and it rings true.

Hope, the young boy that was touched by Vanille (it's okay sweetie, it's not your fault...) is... neutral in my mind. However his character is not written as strongly as it could. After a (SPOILER ALERT) major loss that he blames on another party member, I couldn't tell if he was consumed by grief and sadness, or by anger. I suspected the former, until my "datalog" recap of the story told me the later. Perhaps another sign of poor storytelling? Let's see how this plays out.

The story itself is intriguing so far. Lots of diverse characters with no previous history are thrown together by fate. They don't have the same motivations and so they want to do different things. The world itself seems rich, the history is interesting. However, once again, my datalog tells me more about the story, than the story. Granted, the story catches up, so perhaps the datalog wasn't written "properly" in that it's a bit ahead of the game. Either way, it's a bit of a ruiner.

Visuals and Sound.

Excellent. It's a SquareEnix game... they are gorgeous. Music, in my mind is over the top. Swelling Orchestra? I guess this is a dramatic scene and I should feel something, huh?

What I want to see by the end of the Game.

* I want to be wrong on the horribleness of some of the characters. I want them to get better. That may not mean likable, but give me a fleshed out realistic person... not a 2-D cut out.

* I want to see more information on what the AI paradigms actually mean. Will my medic only ever cast variations of a heal spell, or will she also provide buffs? When will my tank provoke the enemy, and will he ever actually do damage?

* I want enemies that force me to think and use my paradigms to their fullest extent. If I find "the perfect combination" and I never switch paradigms again... I'll be mad.

* I want SquareEnix to realize that a great story doesn't have to be complex, it has to be compelling. There is a difference, and in the past they have gotten it wrong.

Bottom Line

This is a harsh first impressions, but JRPGs have been losing me as a fan. I see them making the same mistakes in character time after time and so it's easy to see when they do it again.

All this being said... I am enjoying it. I really am. I was looking for a "lite" RPG after Mass Effect 2 and Dragon's AGe Origins. And this fits the bill. Not a lot of customization. Not a lot of side questing. It looks pretty. The combat is fun. I'm having fun. It's not a great game... but there is nothing wrong with "good".