A Pseudo Return To Glory After an Epic Fall From Grace

About 6 weeks ago I finished Final Fantasy 13. I went into this game with low expectations and had no idea what to expect. The previous installment in the Final Fantasy series (Final Fantasy 12) came out in 2006 and literally took me 3 and a half years to play. There's a number of reasons for this. I generally lost interest in video games and had a lot of other things going on in my life that I prioritized above gaming. But the game itself was still a massive disappointment. The storyline was boring and the characters had no personality. The game was saved by strong, albeit repetitive, gameplay. For all my criticisms of Final Fantasy 12 I still managed to sink 90 hours into it (mainly due to side quests that allowed me to fight all kinds of strong monsters). So really, I guess I can't complain too much. Either way, the game didn't live up to my expectations when it comes to the Final Fantasy series. In fact it failed to meet my expectations to such a degree that I made the decision that if Final Fantasy 13 also failed to meet my expectations that I would pretty much be done with the series as a whole.

Enter Final Fantasy 13. I have mixed feelings on this game. My first impressions were not all that positive. On one hand, the characters instantly had more charisma and more personality than the cardboard cutouts of Final Fantasy 12. However the game itself seemed to lack soul right from the beginning. What I mean by that is that we had a world that was slowly but surely shaped over the first 10-12 hours of gameplay, and that world appeared to be interesting. There were distinct locales, there was mythology, there was an artistic beauty to the areas you did visit. However, despite all this the game never really capitalizes on it. Instead you run from point A to point B hearing about the next area you visit, and get little snippets and facts about the area you're currently in, but they never go beyond that, and you never get to explore because you are constantly moving in a straight line. It's a tragic flaw in the game. Areas like Nautilus, the Vile Peaks, and Eden never get fully fleshed out. They're beautiful, but that's all they are. It's nothing more than a skin deep beauty. I liken it to going out on a date with a super model. At first you're excited because you're going out on a date with a super model. But after you get to dinner and get into conversation with her you realize there's not much there and you might have been better off spending your money elsewhere. That's Final Fantasy 13. It's a pretty package that looks amazing and throws a lot of different features at you. Some stick and some don't. But beyond that, there's not much depth. There's enough there to satisfy the masses, but for people new to the genre and long-time fans, you won't find what you want.

Despite the somewhat shallow exterior Final Fantasy 13 throws at you, I ended up satisfied with the game overall. I found the mythology of the world to be interesting enough to draw me in. The characters, while also shallow, at least had some semblance of personality which was a huge upgrade from Final Fantasy 12. The battle system was fun, and fast paced, which I liked. However I have two complaints about it. The first one being that I feel it just likes to throw big numbers around for the sake of doing so. When my characters are doing 80,000 damage in one round, I tend to feel that you're simply making numbers big and giving bosses a lot of hit points because you think that people are going to be impressed with it. My other problem with the battle system is the lack of control over your characters. You only control one character, and have to rely on AI for the others. While the AI isn't necessarily bad, I would have preferred to have control over my characters.

When all was said and done I would give Final Fantasy 13 an 8/10 rating. It's a very flawed game, with the flaws largely being driven by linearity, lack of ability to explore the game world, and some minor story problems that result from this, but it's easily a step in the right direction from its predecessor. I will be interested to see where things go from here. I am cautiously optimistic about the future of the series, which is something I couldn't say after finishing Final Fantasy 12.