As part of the Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy XIII (which bears the Latin meaning of “the new tale of the crystal”), Final Fantasy XIII is the first among the few upcoming games in this collection for the next-generation consoles of PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360, not unlike the Collection of Final Fantasy VII which saw its universe and storylines expanded, while focusing on various characters in the different games.

Perhaps without reading this review, you would have already garnered a rough idea on the common criticisms levelled on Final Fantasy XIII: its linearity would be one, or the fact that there are no actual towns to remain in (a first occurrence in this series), and no shops to buy items or weapons from. Personally I tried to reserve all judgement before attempting this game—after all, perhaps different people might appreciate different things presented in a game.

But after accumulating 86 hours with this game, I can safely say that the criticisms are indeed well-founded, which is unfortunate considering that Final Fantasy XIII is one of the most hyped games of 2010. If you’re a veteran in RPGs, then perhaps you’d be familiar with linear dungeons, and it’s a little discouraging that three quarters of the entire game are designed this way, except  that the dungeons are replaced by incredibly mesmerising settings and environments. It is also precisely because of this that you will not be able to get lost at all—because it is so linear, anyone who possesses some form of common sense would be able to find the majority of the treasure chests which are commonly hidden in a branch of a fork or a dead end.

The moment the characters were thrown into the frosted surroundings of Lake Bresha, I was at once incredibly impressed with the level of detail and the crispness of the graphics radiating through the screen. The sparkling blue ice frozen all over was simply captivating, and I took a while to admire the serenely beautiful area before actually moving on—and fortunately, Final Fantasy XIII has plenty of incredible visuals that would tempt you to take a break from your adventures. Often there would be a spot that’ll offer a vantage point of the explosion of colours beyond: the snaking green mountains bathing in the rays of the setting sun, or the vast plains reminiscent of the Savannah.

Perhaps another sore point for me is the fact that Nobuo Uematsu did not compose the soundtrack for this game, even though his eloquent music has been a staple recurrence for the past twelve Final Fantasy games in the series. His absence in this game is quite noticeable—his signature music was remarkably absent, and perhaps it’s a partial bias on my part, but even though the soundtrack of this game (composed by Masashi Hamauzu) is fairly good, it falls short of what Nobuo Uematsu could’ve done.

Gameplay-wise, the developers have managed to utilise Final Fantasy VII’s ATB (Active Time Battle) system and Final Fantasy X’s Sphere Grid system and churn out a refreshingly new combat system termed in-game as Paradigm and the Crystarium respectively. This time around, each character starts off with three fixed “roles” out of the available six: Commando, who utilises only physical attacks and contribute an immense amount of damage to enemies; Ravager, who could increase the stagger bar of enemies with magic spells; Sentinel, who acts as the team’s tanker and absorbs most of the damage; Synergist, who buffs up characters with attribute-enhancing spells like Protect and Shell; Saboteur, who sabotages enemies by casting debuffs on them; and finally, Healer, who does exactly what the name says.

It sounds like a JRPG or an old school RPG game, and in a way, it does seem like it. Fortunately or unfortunately, you are only allowed to control the party leader and that makes things rather simple, especially at the beginning of the game. Paradigms should also be set accordingly before a battle by assigning roles to your party, where the other two members would be controlled by the AI. If you wish to switch to a different Paradigm mid-way in battle, you’re able to do that as well—provided you have already set it accordingly prior to engaging in a battle.

Intriguingly, while in a battle, there is an Auto function that you can select (as a leader) that would enable the game to select the appropriate skills to use for you. About the first quarter of this game can be played simply by allowing the game to take over for you, and so easy was this that I felt that the game lacked any real challenge during the first half of the game. For instance, you automatically recover all HP after a battle has ended, and Potions do drop fairly frequently that you wonder if you have any real need for them at all (they do, but only at a few rare points in the game). Additionally, once you’ve acquired the Technique Libra or the item Librascope to analyse an enemy’s weakness, your fellow computer-controlled party members would be able to switch their strategy automatically in an attempt to quickly bring down the monster.

Random encounters are also not present—instead, you will be able to see the actual monsters on screen before you engage in a battle with one. Gone are also the times where you’re able to run away from your enemies, but this game offers a fairly attractive alternative: you’re now allowed to retry the battle by rewinding to the time before you engage in battle just in case you need to adjust your Paradigms or want to avoid the enemies.

Save points are also provided at a fairly frequent basis (I daresay within 10 to 15 minutes of a previous save point), a huge plus to those who could only fit in small doses of gaming per day due to real life commitments. And with no actual towns to buy items from (as in previous Final Fantasy games), you can purchase items straight from the save point itself, but that feels like a rather impersonal task despite the convenience it has allocated to the players.

Characters’ names like “Lightning” and “Hope” nearly made me keel over with laughter at the ridiculously uncreative part of those who came up with these names. Apart from being utterly corny, it lacks the punch of some of the more memorable names from previous games in the series such as Balthier or Vincent Valentine. Hope, as an angsty, bratty teen unfortunately annoyed me to no end, and it wasn’t until he picked up his act that he seemed reasonably okay.

Eventually, all the seemingly negative aspects of the game slowly wilt away as the game progresses. The first 15-20 hours of the game or so appears to be merely an introduction or a tutorial to get the player used to the game’s mechanics, and I feel that this is a mistake on Square-Enix’s part. Any newcomer to the series would be put off by having something that requires a major time investment on the part of the player just to be familiarised with the way things work before things actually do pick up.

I must commend however, the ingenuity of the plot which contain common elements found in some of the previous games: namely, the existence of a higher being who exploits the potential of a human being. In Final Fantasy XIII, there exists two worlds: Cocoon, and Pulse, and citizens of Cocoon loathe Pulse because of a previous war that saw Pulsian forces trying to invade and decimate Cocoon. When a Pulsian fal’Cie (the aforementioned “higher being”) is discovered within Cocoon, an attempt is made immediately by Cocoon’s authorities to forcefully migrate those who were within the vicinity of the Pulsian fal’Cie to Pulse, for fear of contamination within the Cocoon society.

Any further revelations may very well constitute as a spoiler, as plot twist after plot twist continue to unravel once you’ve gone well deep enough through the game.

In the end, if you’re as much as a Trophy harvester as I am, this game could potentially last you for more than 80 hours, depending on how fast you could grind towards the end. While a large part of this review has been describing a few of Final Fantasy XIII’s flaws, it must be said that regardless of the few annoyances I encountered while playing, I soldered on simply because its plot was rather engaging and it didn’t take long to navigate a stage before a cut-scene unfolds. If you’re an RPG or a Final Fantasy fan, this game would definitely be worth trying.

Rating: 8.5/10