After nearly 25 years, Final Fantasy has evolved from hardware to hardware; keeping things like story telling, longevity, and pushing the envelope of graphics per generation even further. Today, those elements haven’t changed much; but a lot of other things have.
Fang is on a chocobo -- too bad this doesn't come in the game for 40+ hours
XIII starts off in the middle of a governmental quarantine. The Cocoon army is told to kill off all civilians who may have had contact with a being from Pulse. You soon find out that the woman you control in the beginning was almost one of the soldiers doing the killing. Her sister is the being from Pulse that started all of this fuss (or so they make you think.) The story is filled with drama, however, there are many aspects missing. Among these missing cohorts, we have no non-cliché characters. Everything is very cliché. The only thing out of the ordinary is that the hot main character is a bad ass with stern emotions, who will stop at nothing to do what she wishes. Even smacking her sister’s fiancée square in the kisser a few times when she feels like blowing off some steam.
Snow, the hero, is very predictable - but is a bad-ass
There is very little comic relief to keep you interested, and the main path is the only path to travel. There is no exploration, not like Metroid. Literally, No Exploration. You are constantly running through caves, and straight paths that may demeanour of to a treasure chest for a few steps. I will admit, I was glued to my seat for the first 30+ hours, but after that… it felt like a job. I rarely compare games to hours that I could have been working. This was one of those rare times. Continuing in a straight path, dodging a few enemies here and there. Battle time. Continue the path, cut scene. It wasn’t until 15 hours in to the story that I was actually hooked. You find out about characters back story’s, etc. There are no mini games to keep you entertained through out the game until the end (other than one small segment where you control a mech-like machine early on.) And the side quests that are there are not very entertaining, still feeling like work with the occasional fun feeling.
Bombs in this game look more like a mathematical geometric shape
The battle system. Oh lohrdy have mercy on me. The pinnacle of this game. The reason this game is bearable. I haven’t had this much fun since the day I was breaking down walls in a trailer with kicks and punches… No… seriously. Virtually speaking, It’s reminiscent of Grandia for the Playstation 1, which was the first time I ever played an RPG with action elements. (I never played Star Ocean 2 until 5 years later) — It is a lot different than any other battle system of its kind. Not only are the words Latin to most (Paradigm shift, Gestalt mode), they are also very different functions from any other game, especially an RPG. Paradigm shifts allow you to change up your party to be in specially formed classes that were set up before battle. For instance, a healer (medic), with an attacker (commando) and a black mage (ravager) — or all ravagers in another case. There are six jobs in all, and the most amusing part is someone took the time to name every single combination. A team of three commandos is named cerberus. A team of a commando, a ravager, and a medic is aptly named diversity. There is also special bonuses for each class. A ravager fills up the stagger meter the quickest, where a commando stops the stagger meter from depleting so quickly (and gives an extra +atk %)
As mentioned above, there is a stagger meter which causes more and more damage based on the amount of damage that has already been dealt. This is very crucial in many boss battles near the middle to end of the game. Summons are different this time around too; each person has their own Eidolon, some are achieved much much later in the game than others. Gestalt mode transforms the Eidolon into a transformer, doing massive damage (depending on the monsters stagger meter) sometimes well over 100,000 HP.
It is a step up from Final Fantasy XII, don’t get me wrong. But it’s still missing so much that was in Final Fantasy I through X. Ever since they created that on-line game, XI, story line and character development have been lost. My only hope from here on out, lies in that of Mistwalker. Hironobu Sakaguchi-San… please, save us from this mess. Here’s three cheers that The Last Story is the Final Fantasy of the 2010′s.
Lightning rocks, the graphics in this area are awesome, and that monster is about to die
Overall, it did manage to keep my attention for the whole span of 70 hours, but it isn’t a grade A Final Fantasy. It does, however, have the best looking graphics (1080p) out of any game I’ve ever seen when it’s in CG mode. It’s really a huge mixed bag of rocks and skittles. some people only see the rocks, and the other people only see the skittles. I see both and gladly sort them out. And although I’m getting tired of being constantly let down, I can not wait for the next helping. Final Fantasy Versus XIII (especially since it is being directed by Nomura)
Nomura is the man with the fucking plan
Story : C
Battle System : A
Music : C
Longevity : B
Average : B-
