Left Oblique

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Final Fantasy XIII thoughts.

Bought the game for the 360, despite the fact that it's a port and theoretically not as nice-looking as the PS3 version, because:

It was an excuse to buy a 360 and the price/features on the bundle were really nice.
The difference is so slight that it won't matter sitting 10' away from a 37" TV.
The PS3 is a piece of crap.¹ And Sony hardware is needlessly overpriced. And the 360 has a 3-year warranty.

¹ I can say this because I have actually done game development on it.

On to the game. After a couple of hours of gameplay, here are my first impressions. Very minor spoilers follow:

It's pretty. Allegedly not as pretty as many next-gen games, but considering that I only had a PS2 before (and like four games on that) I'm perfectly satisfied.
The story is compelling so far, though the bit with the refugee mom was borderline narmy due to the dialogue and the predictability of the outcome.
Having a female protagonist is a nice twist until the redhead in the miniskirt shows up and sucks out all the feminist mojo. Even the main character's animations have a bit too much flounce for my taste.
Voice acting is okay but inconsistent. I can't figure out what the heck accent the redhead is supposed to have - South African? The black guy is awesome, though. Overall, the writing and voice work are just good enough not to be distracting.

Combat deserves some special attention, because it's very different than what I'm used to. Your allies fight for themselves (there isn't a gambit system, at least at the beginning of the game) and you can choose "auto-fight" for your own character. Even if you do choose manual, there aren't many options - the party leaders have a single attack and an area attack and that's it. Combat is fast-paced, though, and can even be a bit hard to follow, so you feel more like you're "managing" the battle - dropping in a heal when your guys start to get rocked, etc.

And you'd better stay on top of things, because if the main character goes down, you lose. Phoenix down is only for allies. They make up for this by allowing you to heal everyone with a single item. But move quickly, since the action doesn't pause while you're fishing for stuff in your backpack!

They have added a dimension to the game by allowing you to sneak up on enemies, for example, or focus on a particular enemy to stun it and deal extra damage. Also, because area attacks have a spatial component, you have to time them for when enemies are clumped. Again, this adds a level of "management" that makes what is otherwise a rather simple combat system a lot more interesting.

So combat is very different but pretty good. This is all with the very big caveat that I haven't gotten to the point where I can (a) advance any of my characters' abilities, or (b) assign jobs to any of the other characters in the party. Nor do I have any spells, etc. So combat is very simple and very straightforward. But it's still engaging enough, even with all of the simplifications, for me to enjoy it (or at least not be bored of it - let's face it, a lot of the battles in previous FF games were less than exciting).

At least so far, then, FFXIII was a pretty good investment. I'll post more when I've got a better feel for life outside of Cocoon and the character advancement system.

Posted by Dave at 5:00 PM

Comments

Craig

Honestly, of games I've played with strong female characters (granted, it's been sadly few), Alex from Half-Life 2 still tops the list. She is definitely a woman who know how to take care of herself (and Gordan at times), is intelligent, yet still maintains a real feminine charm.

Posted on Thursday, March 11, 2010 at 2:18 AM

Dave

It's why I like some of the more recent games where you can create your own character. But that kind of flexibility only works in a handful of genres.

For a game with a strong narrative, it takes a very conscious choice by the developers to make the protagonist female - and an even more difficult choice (for male-dominated studios making games for a male-dominated audience) to create deep, believable characters that aren't just fanservice.¹

¹ Only in a medium as bad at feminism as video games could a character whose clothes fly off when she attacks be considered "empowering".

Posted on Thursday, March 11, 2010 at 6:50 AM | URL

Brian

How frequently can you simply stop playing without losing any progress? I'd gamefly the game, but recently on account of baby my gameplaying ability requires games that I can pause ANY time, and that I can save or walk away from without losing much. Previous FFs don't fit that bill, but maybe this one does?

Posted on Thursday, March 11, 2010 at 1:26 PM

Dave

This one lets you pause during cutscenes and combat, as well as on the main screen. Save points are pretty liberally distributed (moreso than many previous games) but they're still save points; you can't save just anywhere.

If you don't mind leaving your game on and paused for a bit, I think you'll have no problem at all.

Posted on Friday, March 12, 2010 at 2:38 PM | URL