Final Fantasy XIII (PS3)

Visually stunning game, the story was a bit hard for me to understand at first and the linear gameplay was boring. But that's all at the start. About 70% into the game when the true final fantasy(free roam and grind) experience starts and it's massive!!! Yea, have to be patient till then.

fairly hard game which moves away from traditional jrpg formula a bit too much but as a fan of the series most people will buy it regardless also the story is horrible but in the long run its still a worthy purchase for a japanese role playing game fan

Very Good

Este es uno de los mejores juegos del genero de rol creado por Square Enix. Una agradable mezcla de elementos clásicos e innovadores. con excelentes gráficos y estupenda música. Solo un detalle: En el titulo menciona que es "Standard Edition" pero mi copia resulto ser "Platinum Hits" Esto no tiene importancia para mí que solo pretendo disfrutar del juego, pero las personas que coleccionan Juegos podrían molestarse al no recibir una "Primera Edición"

El juego me llego en buenas condiciones nada roto, lo más curioso, es que me llego el plástico blanco en vez de rojo, ya saben, cuando un juego es de categoría "Greatest Hits", pero por un rara razón, el manual esta todo en Frances, no tienen una sección en Ingles, y como no se francés, no entiendo nada de lo que dice, es como si me lo han mandado desde Canadá y no en Estados Unidos, tampoco es que vaya a devolver el juego por algo tan tonto, solo son pequeños detalles, si alguien estudia francés, esta es su oportunidad para aprender, quizás valga algo en el coleccionismo, ahora con respecto al juego, lo he estado jugando por el emulador de PS3, RPCS3 (Si, sé que está en PC, pero es un mal port y debe usar mods para corregirlo) la verdad, de momento, lo estoy disfrutando, espero que mis capturas sirvan de algo por si están interesados en comprarlo a día de hoy en 2023.

So far I have played Final Fantasy 7, 10 and 12 and have liked all of them. With all of the hype going on around Final Fantasy 13, I decided to give this one a try and here is what I thought. PROS. PARADIGM COMBAT SYSTEM: This game utilizes unique turn based combat system. To me, this combat system was the BEST ASPECT of the game. In Final fantasy games so far (other than 12), you have to do each action such as attack, healing, magic one by one by one. This game gives you option to do that or you can have "auto battle" mode where things are taken care for you. So the enemies you want to deal with "personally" you can combat them yourselves, but then you are not stuck hitting same command again and again for each fight you do in the game. Think of it this way, in other final fantasies, you are acting as individual soldiers while in this game you are mainly acting as commander. So instead of controlling each of the party member's action individually, you can set up a "paradigm" where you can focus more on physical or magical or healing or combination of these actions. At first you will find it a bit puzzling but once you get it, you will most likely love it. STAGGERING ENEMIES: To win a battle, you have to punish an enemy (or enemies) up to the point that they "stagger". At this point, the enemy will take a lot more damage and is less likely to attack. While it is not necessary to stagger an enemy to defeat it, for most game, you will find it difficult to defeat enemies without staggering them. So what is so special about staggering enemies? In order to stagger them in most cases you will have to use variety of paradigms and will have to come up with different strategies. Again, in the beginning you may find this difficult to understand, but once you get it, it gets to be quite fun. VARIETY OF BOSSES AND ENEMIES: Yup, there is great variety of enemies and different bosses in this game (as expected of "final fantasy"). Before you finish the game, you will have defeat quite a few different enemies and bosses and to defeat them you will have to use different strategies. While most enemies you may find it pretty straightforward to beat (especially in the beginning of the game), many later on enemies and bosses will be quite difficult until you figure out the right strategy. But don't worry there are ways to defeat them and you will find these challenges fun rather than frustrating. CRYSTAL LEVELING UP SYSTEM: This game has similar leveling up system as Final Fantasy 10. Defeating each enemies gives you points and then you use these points to level up different characters. The difference is you can level up a character in different direction (i.e. you can make a character better at magic, physical attacks, healing, sabotaging enemies, etc.) Each character will have 3 specialty areas and later on you can develop the character in all 6 different classes. Pretty addicting if you ask me. TONS OF SIDEQUEST BOSSES: So it takes a while to get up to this point, but once the open world portion of the game begins, there are tons of (>60) mini and major bosses to beat in the game. There is this portion called TITAN CHALLENGE (won't spoil much) which is very interesting. Here you will have to defeat a series of enemies in certain way. I liked it. SPECTACULAR SUMMONS: In this game each character gets a cool summon. While you don't have control over when you can obtain it, in order obtain them you have to beat them. LOVED IT. Once you obtain them you get to use their awesome powers and most importantly limit breaks. This has been my favorite part in many of the final fantasy game and just like previous final fantasies, this game has delivered them nicely. BEAUTIFUL AND ELEGANT FANTASY WORLD: The creation of Cocoon and Pulse are just mind blowing. Everything in these worlds is very elegantly designed. If you look carefully designers have truly given attention to details. Loved just loved each and every level. WEIRD BUT UNDERSTANDABLE STORY: Really can't tell you much without spoiling it, but like in many Japanese games, this one also has a very strange, but unique story with a great underlying theme. WEAPON AND ARMAMENT LEVELING UP: I am happy in addition to character they also have weapon leveling up in this game. To level up your weapon though you have to collect and use different items in a unique manner. For example, certain weapons can only be leveled up to level 11; however, if you obtain these unique item you can break that limit and level it up even further turning it into a completely different weapon. If you like this type of stuff the game will keep you occupy for a LONG TIME. CONS LACK OF CONTROL OVER BATTLE TEAM: As described in pros, you have to design specific paradims and you can use them in the battle to your liking. However, these combination are not limitless. In other words, you won't be able to control all three of the party members in the exact manner you want to. For example, with characters A,B, and C, I want both characters A and B to attack the same enemies with physical attacks, I don't have that option. Also if I want to revive character B before healing character C that is also not an option (unless the character I control is the healer). While it seems like a major issue, it really is not. There is not a single enemy you won't be able to beat due to this problem. WHINY CHARACTERS: Ever since Final Fantasy 10, they have been having so many whiny characters in these games. Hate it, just hate it. Good thing is whiny character in this game will only whine for first quarter of the game. Also, what Japanese people and Westerners find "awesome" and "funny" are quite different. Some dialogues that Japanese may find awesome will simply sound lame to us. So that is also a problem in this game. CONCLUSION Contrary to the cons I described, this is a great game. Battle System, leveling up and hunt for different bosses and items will keep you busy and entertained for a long time. With side quests, it has taken me about 84 hours and I am still not quite done. With lowered prices, I would say this is a MUST OWN game.

Thank you very much

So this game has been out for a week now, and the reviews for this game are greatly exagerating the cons, giving little light to all the things this game does right. The two grievances that are being exagerated are the Xbox 360 graphics vs the PS3, and the linearity of the game. First lets deal with the graphics, since I think this complaint is the most insignificant. *in no way should you go buy a PS3 just in order to experience this game at its fullest!!!* This game was made for the PS3, moded to the XBox360, so there are subtle differences in the graphics. The video is compressed on the xbox360, but has a higher framerate than the PS3, but unless you are a unrelenting, anal-attention to detail freak, I don't think you would notice. I played it on my 47" HDTV on my Xbox360, and I can honestly say it is a next gen graphics kinda game; it looks absolutely amazing, and the FF artwork and enviroments are in full force in this one, beautifully rendered and fluid. Now I was hanging out at my friends house who just bought this game on his PS3, and he was playing it on his 46" HDTV, which is an LCD just like mine, but I believe his has a faster processor; and as I watched him play the first hour of the game (which is mostly cutscenes) I could distinguish no real difference to the experience I had on my 360, except maybe the hair looked a little bit better in motion, but nothing to lead me to believe the PS3 version to be superior. I get it, the PS3 owners are unhappy that Microsoft is getting a peice of the pie, understandable, and if you want to claim your version to be superior, thats fine, but its not a game breaker, or shouldn't be unless your a fanboy one way or another, its a ridiculouse argument to pursue, and should just be avoided. BOTTOM LINE: You will enjoy the graphical awesomeness of this game no matter which system you play it on. The next argument is a little harder to address, but should not sway you into avoiding this game. The complaint has been that this game follows too much of a linear path, and removes much exploration from this strong RPG franchise. Now I have played final fantasy games since I was 5 years old, and they have always been greatly geared to wandering around towns, talking to NCCP, trying to find objectives and missions to advance the story line. Now I know this is one thing that has made the series great, but I don't feel that removing the wasted hours of wandering around towns trying to advance the story has hindered the RPG elements of this game at all, if anything I think it has improved it greatly and made it a much more enjoyable experience. Now this is coming from a guy that has been bored with this franchise for awhile now, the wandering had gotten to be an astronomical waste of time, leveling up characters and barely advancing the story, playing stupid card games and other B.S. that offered little to the actual game other than a waste of time without reward. Now I have spent 10 hours on this game so far, and I hear the game takes 50-60 hours to complete, and I am in no way feeling skimped on because I haven't had to wander aimlessly. The direction to take is usually clear (provided by an onscreen mini-map), with different paths to walk and explore with dead ends and 'orbs' to find, but the main path remains clear and easy to find. As I've progressed the exploration has increased more and more while keeping the main story line in focus, it eventually gives rise to greater areas of exploration, but nothing like the FF games of the past. It is genuinely a 'new' expereince, for better or worse depends on the gamer and what you want out of a FF game. Even with a more 'linear' path, the basic RPG elements of the game flourish. The combat system has been improved, and offers a fresh take on an old favorite. You only control one party member durring combat, the other party members are controlled via A.I., which die hards of the series will scorn at, but it makes combat faster with less decision makeing and more sword slashes. You are able to control what the computer controlled players are doing by a system called 'paradigm shift' which allows you choose their battle style focus, i.e. strictly attack, defend, use magic, or be a medic, which you can change their focus at any time in real time to strategically alter the progression or outcome of a fight. This is really cool because it gives you enough control to give the fights strategy and depth, but doesn't overload you with commands and keeps the fights moving and entertaining to watch. You are able to chain up your attacks in this fighting system, so as your chain gauge charges in real time, you can input a string of different attacks and watch them get carried out all at once,which is really cool when you can do 3 or 4 attacks in one turn. There are multiple routes to leveling up your players ( you have 6 playable characters total) depending on your focus. You unlock abilities and such based on a certain battle focus, then in battle, whichever focus you are using you will have those abilities available to use i.e. when your in your medic focus you can use cure, when your in your attack focus it might be unavailable for that character. You can unlock abilities for all 6 characters in whatever area of battle focus you choose, developing each individual how you see fit. The RPG elements are still in full tact in this game, just presented differently, in a more user friendly fashion if you will. You level up your characters, find and acquire new items, equip and develope your characters how you see best, and send them into battle to watch beautifully rendered fight scenes that are as much fun to watch as play. Don't think that because you have a more linear story line that the content isn't there, it is!! There are plenty of side quests and missions to complete, even after you complete the main game. The adventure is definetely that of a Final Fantasy epic, and your personal taste would tell you wether you like the storytelling capabilities of Square or not, thats a personal preference in my opinion, but it is true to the story of any final fantasy game, a monumental epic, with exceptional graphics and a real good voice cast ( except for Vanille ). I think fans of the franchise and newcomers alike will enjoy this game. It has plenty of content, and you deffinetely get your moneys worth in it. Xbox 360 users rejoice, our version is just as good as the PS3's, if they want to argue over theirs being the superior version, let them After all, we all need something to feel good about. :O)