Reviews// Final Fantasy XIII

Of course, stunning vistas and emotive audio are nothing without engaging characters and plot. The FFXIII plot is refreshingly straightforward. Your band of heroes are citizens of Cocoon, a protected environment full to bursting with cities and citizens living in fear of a world below called Pulse.

The game opens on central character Lightning leading a fight against the guards on a train transporting its passengers to Pulse as part of ‘The Purge’. The Purge is a drive to remove residents of Cocoon to Pulse after an artifact from the world below is discovered on the edge of Cocoon and fear of contamination spreads.

Not wanting to give too much away, the plot forks out as the characters (Lightning, Snow, Hope, Sazh and Vanille) go about their business fighting against those behind The Purge and trying to discover their own destinies. If the plot gets confusing, it, along with all other advancements (such as tutorials), are archived in an in-game log."

The characters are a mixed bunch, and few are likeable. Hope got my goat more than the others due to being a miserable kid, pissed off at Snow for killing his mother (OK, that’s reason enough, but he's still annoying). Snow is a cocky git who occasionally gets smacked down by Lighting. Lightning is a moody cow too - sure her sister (and Snow’s finance) gets turned in to crystal early on but lighten up Lightning.

The only character not in need of a pick-me-up is Vanille but she goes too far – oblivious to the shit storm surrounding her, her optimism wouldn’t be out of place on Glee.

The only character I liked was Sazh, the token black guy and, at the beginning – predictably and rather sadly - the comic relief. As a nod to the Final Fantasy hardcore, he has chocobo living in his bouncy afro. Despite being a rather mixed bunch their stories are gripping and I did find myself caring about them, well except for Hope and Vanille.

I have a confession to make - I found the flashback to Snow proposing to Serah (Lightning’s sister) quite moving. But then again I found the death of Aeris in FFVII rather emotional too and that was before HD graphics. This is part of the reason why, aside from amazing graphics and audio, I believe it’s the story that is most important to the series. It drives the player on and my goodness does the player need to be driven.

FFXIII is broken up in to 13 chapters, with the initial 11 introductory chapters clock in at around 25 hours. The remaining two ‘open’ chapters last as long as the first set combined. The problem is I don’t know how many gamers will play deep enough to benefit from the final two chapters. With AAA titles multiplying like rabbits it’s a lot to ask a gamer to sit through such hand holding.

What is hard to decide is the reason for un-RPG linear approach to FFXIII. Until the game goes open-world for the final two chapters there isn’t the option to diverge from the path set out for you. Likewise, there aren't any traditional towns or NPC characters to converse with. The lack of towns and NPCs wasn't an issue for me; I've previously found them a tad tiresome and never been a fan of selecting pre-determined dialogues just to move the game on.

As for the linear part and being unable to pick your team during this period I feel this is more to do with the characters' paths and the story not being able to support such choice early on. However, once again this is dragged on a too much and those who crave choice in their RPG may feel frustrated they have to jump through so many hoops.

Conclusion
As a work of art FFXIII is un-matched in terms of graphics and audio. The characters, despite being annoying, pull you in and you will find yourself wanting to push on further to see their stories unfold or just to see what visual treat is up next. Unfortunately the drawn-out hand-holding pulls the game back and becomes frustrating as you know there is so such much to enjoy just around the corner. This problem will prevent the traditionalists from getting to the game they want while it could hold back the newbies who aren't used to such pacing. However, if you end up being drawn in by the beauty and story FXIII will have you enthralled for hours and represents fantastic value.

Spong Score: 78%