Final Fantasy XIII (2009)

I played this game quite a bit back when it first came out on Xbox 360 and remember struggling to beat a boss because I was so under levelled but because of how linear the game was there were no places to grind experience, even in the areas where enemies did re-spawn enough to grind them it was painfully slow.

Fast-forward 10 years and I’m finally getting around to playing it again after putting it off over and over. Booting the game up and it’s exactly how I remember it, confusing as fuck, linear and really uninteresting. The whole game consists of: Corridor, cutscene, battle. Over and over for around 50 hours.The game plonks you down in this confusing world, the only thing you can relate to in real life is that people are on a train, that’s it. Take for example Final Fantasy VIII, you start in a building that is very evident is a school, you’re in a classroom, there is a teacher and students. You can relate to these things despite being in a fantasy setting. FFXIII on the other hand, is so confusing as to what’s going on it makes you feel alienated as a player, preventing immersion. As a lot of people say, the first 20 hours is just one big long tutorial which, as you can guess, is far too long. I do like how it cycles through all the characters to help encourage you to experiment with each character's abilities to help you form a team later on in the game, the downside of this is that each time it cycles your characters you lose your Paradigms you spend time setting up.

In 2022 the game still holds up well, looking absolutely gorgeous. I ran it at 4k via Steam and it was breathtaking. That’s enough praise for now. Despite looking gorgeous, the areas, like the story, were all so confusing, I couldn’t tell where I was and what my surroundings were. Each area you explore feels so disconnected, you have no idea of your geography around you, where your destination is nor where you are in relation to your supposed destination.

Back to the linearity of this game, the gameplay isn’t the only linear thing about FFXIII, the levelling up system is too. It makes you think you have a choice how your character develops but that choice is very limited. It feels like more of a chore to level up your characters instead of the levelling up system with levels like previous FF games. The game DOES open up around chapter 11 of 13, but anything is open compared to the first 10 chapters. It’s open in the sense that it’s a large open area much like the calm lands in FFX filled with monsters to fight but it doesn’t feel like you’re exploring at all. In this area they have hunts as introduced by FFXII and carried on by FFXV but each hunt is to fight a stronger version of an enemy you have already fought before on the OTHER SIDE of this large map. It’s just annoying bloat by this point. Then shortly after it’s back to the corridors for the rest of the game. The corridor, cutscene, battle formula as mentioned previously can get even more annoying when there are literally a few steps between cutscenes and the cutscenes themself are pointless and just affect any flow the game has.

In typical FF tradition there are summons which in this game are just daft to say the least. The fact that the summons transform into modes of transport like they have just been ripped out of an episode of Power Rangers is just ridiculous. I mean, Shiva as a motorbike? Come on. I only ever used Odin a couple of times and never any of the others. It was cool to see the Summons in cutscenes though, which prior to this game seeing monster designs in CGI cutscenes was very rare. Another recurring feature to JRPG games is weapons and their upgrades. I was so underwhelmed with the weapon system in this game because it seemed like no weapon you picked up was better than your current one even when it was upgraded. I cared so little I didn’t even bother finding out. One thing I love about JRPG games is weapon upgrades, feeling powerful for a short space of time and seeing the cool design of each weapon. In FFXIII this was not the case at all. The shopping consists of a digital store at save point which only sells items you have found in item boxes up to that point so there is no excitement there either of new weapons and cool items being unlocked as the game progresses.

I cannot remember much about the music, the main theme is good, don't get me wrong but the absence of Nobuo Uematsu is very apparent. In chapter 11 when the area opens up the music reminded me very much of the Sims music, which I'd much rather be playing than this game. In regards to the cutscenes, they were shot so close up to the characters with such fast cuts like a Marvel film you didn’t know what the hell was going on. Every cutscene I watched I sat thinking “What the F is going on? Where are we? What are they doing? Why are they doing this?” but that’s also because the story is so confusing. I tried reading the data logs which I understand some people enjoy reading but you shouldn’t need to have people read a book worth of information to get your story.

Overall this entry in the series feels so uninspired, lifeless with no heart and soul the previous games in the series were made with. It’s going to be a very long time before I work up the willpower to play XIII-2 and Lightning Returns as apparently this game is better than the sequels. Oh god.