Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Game Review: Final Fantasy XIII (Role Playing - PS3/360)


Everything about this game sucked beyond belief. I won't go into detail with this review, seeing as how everyone in the internet has already stated what was wrong with Final Fantasy XIII.

When I first started the game, I was actually in awe over how pretty the visuals are. A high budget game with actual colors in it? Great! But it was quickly dispelled by the next few moments when every character in the game seemed to talk gibberish, mentioning obscure words every now and then in an effort to make this game's plot sound "deep." Yes, it was that bad. The characters are nothing special as well. It's hard to even call them "characters" at all, as the Japanese seem to have a thing for putting "Archetypes" in all their media instead. Too bad the actual story is nothing short of bland, just another generic JRPG plot where you and your friends try and kill the god of their world in order to save the planet. It wouldn't be too bad if the characters didn't spout "L'Cie, Fal'Cie" etc. every waking moment.

The battlesystem was actually pretty fun, but that's about all you'll be able to do in FFXIII seeing as how the creators had this brilliant idea to make everything linear as hell. Since there are no towns and NPCs to interact with, just about every sidequest consists of hunting down a monster (a "Mark") and kill it. In addition, there is no sense of exploration as every area has already been mapped into one long disappointing line.

A single playthrough of this game will take you at least around 40 hours, even more if you do all the hunts. Sadly, this game did not live up to its years of hype. Why wade through the first 20 hours worth of crap just to see if this game will actually turn a 180 and be considered good?

Overview:

+ Amazing visuals

+ Arguably one of the most fun FF battlesystem to date
- Very, very, very linear maps
- Bland characters and bland dialogue
- Bland story
- A very long thinly veiled "tutorial" segment that takes around 10 to 20 hours.

This game deserves a score of 4.5 out of 10. Spectacular visuals and Brand name won't save this from being a pile of trash.

12 comments:

  1. My thoughts exactly. The game just pissed me off for too many hours before doing something.

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  2. I was severely disappointed with XIII, I agree with your review.

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  3. Beautiful graphics...HORRIBLE EVERYTHING ELSE hahaha. & don't even get me started about the last boss. I had to beat it for my buddy because he was about to eat his disk.

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  4. Haven't played it, but I have heard it was quite bad. Thanks for confirming.

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  5. Too much was focused on asthetics. I would personally like to see a sequel to FF8.

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  6. oh well, I hope versus 13 will be better^^

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  7. I miss the days of exploring the world map and finding hidden areas with uber weapons and spells. It feels like today's Final Fantasies are geared more toward telling a story rather than letting the player play and explore a game.

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  8. I've been avoiding playing this game because everyone is so disappointed with it, I guess I'll just pass on it.

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