Final Fantasy 13 - First Impressions

This is probably my favorite party so far, even though Snow is the REAL playable character.

I developed an infatuation with one of the NPCs of the game, Lebreau. Just look at her, single-wielding a rifle and she's not a recruitable party member? I hate you, Square Enix.

Oh hi there. I supposed you're reading this because you love reading our blog? Then, I'll thank you from the bottom of my heart. I'm deeply touched. Anyway..

Final Fantasy 13. Oh how this famous title irked many of the hardcore FF fans. Having argued umpteen times with hardcore fans, criticized the game for its lack of enjoyable traditions and not to mention, I'm a very old school FF fan, I decided to try the game out with the help of a friend's PS3.

Please note the game I tried was the Japanese version, should it have any minor or major differences from the International version, I apologize.

Firstly, I started off with a cutscene of Lightning and Sazh sitting in a Sci-fi battleship and all of a sudden, they took their robes off and started wreaking havoc everywhere. Due to the fact that it's in Japanese language and I have no idea what is happening, I can't give points to this. For one, the visuals in the game are just amazing, although the game suffers from slight but annoying choppy frame rates. As I played the game, I had a strong Final Fantasy 7 vibe. I'll explain this more in detail later.

As soon as the cutscenes finish, a boss battle was initiated already. The battle system was fast-paced, which is of no surprise to anyone now. I loved the battle system, individually, not as the whole game. Potions can heal your entire party, you issue commands for Sazh (Or rather, your teammates) to attack and there's a pretty obvious way of gaining advantage over your enemies. Battles felt fun at first, but as I played more, it felt more tedious which is just like any typical RPG in the world. Some good points to consider; enemies die rather quick except for bosses of course, loading times between battles and exploration is really fast and the battle music does get you in the mood for fighting.

Still, the game IS very linear, you won't get any freedom and choices till you're a few hours ahead. When I finished with Lightning and Sazh, I then played as Snow and I'm not too pleased with him. I loved his party members more than Snow himself. We're talking about an Asian chick single-wielding a rifle and a spiky dude who looks way more awesome than Snow and Hope combined. On a serious note, the battles so far doesn't get me impressed with Snow at all. His weapons looked cool and all (His weapon are fists together with some kind of armored cape on his back), his punches look so darn weak and he throws grenades, which was very useful for multi-wanking but he doesn't use it anymore when you get out of the godforsaken area. Vanielle, looking as stupid as ever, even with a robe. Seriously, Vanielle should get replaced by Lebreau.

And that's just about my first 30 minutes of gameplay in Final Fantasy 13. Overall, the graphics are amazing and the battle system is decent. It felt like I played this game before.. Oh yeah, Final Fantasy 7! I found some interesting facts about both games.. I would not call FF13 a ripoff since it's made by the same company. (Oh wait, it's not made by the same company, FF7 was created by Squaresoft while FF13 was created by Square Enix, what do you think?)

5 interesting facts about FF7 VS FF13

1) The starting area. Both games, after an introduction, ride in a train before pursuing the enemy.

2) Lightning resembles Cloud because of their spikyness and swords. Sazh resembles Barret because of their skin color and long range artillery. Snow resembles Tifa because both of them are the third permanent party members and both of them use their fists as weapons.

3) The first boss fight in both games is a scorpion, although you have to fight through a number of foot soldiers before engaging with the boss in FF7 while in FF13, you engage the boss monster as your first enemy in the game.

4) Both games started with foot soldiers and four legged animals as the first few enemies.

5) Both games are set in Sci-fi settings.

Honestly speaking, I loved the game so far. Despite its linearity, it's easily overlooked by the amazing graphics and battles. I'm looking forward to actually play the game dedicatedly.

I thank you for reading this long article. Peace out.

John