Final Fantasy XIII is the latest upcoming release from the world wide, award winning series of the same name. Square Enix has apparently cooked up yet another epic tale that will once again suck in gamers for an unknown number of hours. No exaggeration, this may well be the “final” Final Fantasy of this type for a while. In an interview with Edge Online Square Enix President and CEO Yoichi Wada said “”I believe Final Fantasy XIII is going to be something special, and that it’s going to be well received by the audience, but whether we are going to continue to internally create this type of game remains to be seen…” Wada would go on to say, ”We don’t want to be seen as the company that only has Final Fantasy, or Dragon Quest, it’s true, but we would like to maintain the prospective of the audience thinking when they hear the words Square Enix that they would only think of high-quality games.”
That all needs to really be taken with a grain of salt. Wada and his shareholders will have to consider the imminent blockbuster that they have on their hands. Final Fantasy XIII has been out in Japan since December of 2009 and has been garnering some pretty hefty review scores, as most of the Final Fantasy games usually do. Slated for a release in the US on both the big systems [PS3 and 360] on March 9th 2010, you could easily say that in the US market FF13 is easily one the most, if not THE most anticipated RPG release in this console cycle.
Getting down to the game specifics, one thing stands out by far as the biggest change since the last game: graphical prowess. This game looks amazing! For those of you like me that will be getting this for PS3, you will be happy to know that it is running on a single uncompressed BluRay disc in glorious 1080p, well at least the cut scenes are. The 360 version will come packed onto 3 DVDs and cut scenes will be rendered at 720p. Either way, the graphics will be a giant leap forward from the previous release on the PS2.
Much of the rest of the game isn’t so much different, as it has evolved from different sections of previous games. For instance the “Crystarium System,” which is the way that your character gains new abilities or increases attributes, is an evolved version of the “Sphere Grid” from Final Fantasy X. After battles players earn CPs (Crystal Points) that they then spend in the Crystarium to open paths to their new abilities. Personally the Sphere Grid was one of my favorite things about FFX, game play wise, because it was easy to understand, and you could easily see where your character was progressing. It also made me very goal driven, because I was constantly thinking “I only need X amount of points to get Y.”
The staples of the series are there as well. Summons will be present, as always, however this time they are known as Eidolons as they were in Final Fantasy IX and IV on the DS. There is a slight tweak with them as well, starting with the fact that each character only has ONE Eidolon that they can summon. Once summoned, it’s my understanding that they will fight in place of the rest of the party. However there IS a way to fight along side them. This is done by activating “Gestalt” mode. This allows the summoner and Eidolon to join in some rather strange ways. For example Shiva once summoned, is now two sisters that form into a … wait for it … Ice Motorcycle. Yup. When you activate Gestalt mode you are able to, ahem… ride the sisters into battle. From then on it becomes a sort of QTE sequence that, depending on how well you do, increases the effectiveness of Shiva’s attacks. I’m not making this up. Seriously.
Let’s talk battle system now, shall we? The newly revamped battle system has been modeled after the more action oriented system found in FF VII Advent Children. You control one character in your party of three. Attack commands are entered and are the subsequently acted out once the specific amounts of cost points have been acquired. You can keep stacking commands to create combos with other party members and bring down enemies. Should you attack an enemy enough they may enter something called “Break State”. Basically this means that you have been dominating an enemy so much that your combos have put it in a state where it can’t attack back, similar to being stunned, if I understand it right. Once in Break State you can proceed to kick the crap out of the enemy inflicting even MORE damage during your combos.
Now you may wonder if you only directly control one party member out of the three, how do you utilize the other party members? That is done by manipulating the Role and Paradigm system. The roles are similar to the Job system that has been in several of the previous Final Fantasy games. The roles are Commando, Ravager, Sentinel, Synergist, Saboteur and Medic. Commando is your brawler, doing damage through physical attacks only. Ravager is the more magic centered role, dealing damage by way of the usual spells. Sentinel could be considered your “Tank” class. They are there to protect and absorb. Synergist is the role you go to for buffing out your characters, with spells like Shell and Protect. Saboteur is the opposite of the Synergist, de-buffing enemies with Silence, and Dia. Finally the Medic does exactly what it sounds like it would do, heals characters. The Paradigm system is simply the combination of the roles in the party. Since each character may only take on one role at a time, learning what combo of roles in the party will be important. Changing roles during a battle can create a “Paradigm Shift” which if done correctly can fill your active time battle gauge.
Perhaps the biggest change, for me at least, is that Magic no longer costs points, and since you can’t use “cost points” out side of the battle, magic is no longer used when not in battle. This means that after finishing each fight, all characters are healed and will have no lingering status ailments. No longer looking for potions to heal, or eye drops to cure blindness… sure I’ll take that any day.
All will be known in a little less than a month. Reviews will be out, Metacritic will be collecting scores, haters will hate, and fanboys will fight. When all is said and done, this game will start a LOT of fires. I can only hope that the hype and the final game is worth it.
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