They say the first Final Fantasy game you play will be your favorite one. This was my first Final Fantasy game, and I'd say it's up there with my favorites but not necessarily my favorite. It took me three attempts at a playthrough and ten years to complete. It was not only my first Final Fantasy, but my first JRPG, and I finally completed it in 2023 after about five years of JRPG experience (I started this in 2013, got filtered by Gran Pulse, tried again in 2017, got filtered by Barthandelus 2, started playing different JRPGs in 2018 including other FF games, then breezed through this from start to finish in 2023). This game gets a lot of unfair heat for being overly linear and having a combat system that's very different from not just every other Final Fantasy game, but every other game, period. I won't say it's a masterpiece, particularly after chapter 10, but I will say that this is a very solid game that's worth at least one playthrough.
The presentation is gorgeous. This is still an amazing looking game, even for something that came out in 2009. The art direction and aesthetics are downright inspired, they make me feel nostalgic for the shopping malls of the late 2000s. It has that indescribable Japanese charm to it that's hard to pinpoint, but a weasel word that can be used would be "comfy." The music is also incredible. It accentuates all of the emotions that go into the story, like a good soundtrack does. This is one of the best soundtracks in the entire series, with the best battle theme I've ever heard in this series. The console versions of this game are locked at 30 fps, which is a shame because it obfuscates a lot of the beautiful combat animations and world design. The voice acting is... serviceable. It's not early 2000s 4kids bad voice acting, but it's not exactly Cowboy Bebop's dub either. To be fair, it's mostly due to the more stilted and unintentionally Lynchian dialog. Everything about the presentation is a perfect 10/10, minus the framerate.
The story is pretty interesting for a Final Fantasy game. One thing I found really cool about this is that no other Final Fantasy game really capitalizes on the weight of being a hero and saving the world. Unlike in other games, the characters in this one (save Lightning, who is a soldier) are just normal people who got torn out of their day to day lives and lost everything to be unwillingly pulled into a quest to save the world and fulfill their focus. I won't go into great detail on the story, but it's pretty good. The big issue with it is the fact that you have to read the data logs to know what the hell is going on, because the game pulls a Dune and throws a lot of new terms at you from its own lexicon. The story is fairly simple once you get the hang of it, and the delivery is nice. This is a very emotional game, up to the tenth chapter. That's when the story kind of falls to the wayside and the gameplay takes a front seat. The ending was also kind of underwhelming, but I guess that's what the sequels are for.
The gameplay is excellent - to an extent. This combat system is great because it keeps you engaged and caresses the lower levels of action combat without being a full-on action game. Personally, I prefer action combat because you have more control over your character's positioning and can more easily dodge attacks, but this game still has its merits and is a really fun time. The auto-battle button receives a lot of flack, but later on in the game it just becomes a tool in your toolkit rather than something to mash over and over again in order to automatically win battles. Most of the strategy comes from creating the proper paradigms and shifting at the right time. The game is fairly rewarding once you get the hang of it. There are some things that I have a gripe with though. There are too many enemies who ignore the stagger system, where they are essentially gimped after you reach a certain level on the stagger meter. This is especially true for bosses, who may have one or two attacks interrupted but not the rest of them. Another issue is the enemies like the sahagins, who constantly interrupt your attacks to an obnoxious extent. Once or twice is fine, but the fact that the one mission where you have to fight a bunch of these minor enemies is harder than the literal final boss of the game is really saying something.
The endgame content is really nothing to write home about. It's just a bunch of text blurbs with "go here, kill group of guys, get next mission and do the same" as your objective. I did a handful of these missions, and they got boring after a while. Here's a nuclear take, but the endgame content for most of the Final Fantasy games I've played was never very engaging.
Overall, Final Fantasy XIII is a great game that you should try. It's not the best Final Fantasy game in the world, but there are plenty of beautiful and emotionally hard-hitting moments that make it worth experiencing all the way through at least once.
The presentation is gorgeous. This is still an amazing looking game, even for something that came out in 2009. The art direction and aesthetics are downright inspired, they make me feel nostalgic for the shopping malls of the late 2000s. It has that indescribable Japanese charm to it that's hard to pinpoint, but a weasel word that can be used would be "comfy." The music is also incredible. It accentuates all of the emotions that go into the story, like a good soundtrack does. This is one of the best soundtracks in the entire series, with the best battle theme I've ever heard in this series. The console versions of this game are locked at 30 fps, which is a shame because it obfuscates a lot of the beautiful combat animations and world design. The voice acting is... serviceable. It's not early 2000s 4kids bad voice acting, but it's not exactly Cowboy Bebop's dub either. To be fair, it's mostly due to the more stilted and unintentionally Lynchian dialog. Everything about the presentation is a perfect 10/10, minus the framerate.
The story is pretty interesting for a Final Fantasy game. One thing I found really cool about this is that no other Final Fantasy game really capitalizes on the weight of being a hero and saving the world. Unlike in other games, the characters in this one (save Lightning, who is a soldier) are just normal people who got torn out of their day to day lives and lost everything to be unwillingly pulled into a quest to save the world and fulfill their focus. I won't go into great detail on the story, but it's pretty good. The big issue with it is the fact that you have to read the data logs to know what the hell is going on, because the game pulls a Dune and throws a lot of new terms at you from its own lexicon. The story is fairly simple once you get the hang of it, and the delivery is nice. This is a very emotional game, up to the tenth chapter. That's when the story kind of falls to the wayside and the gameplay takes a front seat. The ending was also kind of underwhelming, but I guess that's what the sequels are for.
The gameplay is excellent - to an extent. This combat system is great because it keeps you engaged and caresses the lower levels of action combat without being a full-on action game. Personally, I prefer action combat because you have more control over your character's positioning and can more easily dodge attacks, but this game still has its merits and is a really fun time. The auto-battle button receives a lot of flack, but later on in the game it just becomes a tool in your toolkit rather than something to mash over and over again in order to automatically win battles. Most of the strategy comes from creating the proper paradigms and shifting at the right time. The game is fairly rewarding once you get the hang of it. There are some things that I have a gripe with though. There are too many enemies who ignore the stagger system, where they are essentially gimped after you reach a certain level on the stagger meter. This is especially true for bosses, who may have one or two attacks interrupted but not the rest of them. Another issue is the enemies like the sahagins, who constantly interrupt your attacks to an obnoxious extent. Once or twice is fine, but the fact that the one mission where you have to fight a bunch of these minor enemies is harder than the literal final boss of the game is really saying something.
The endgame content is really nothing to write home about. It's just a bunch of text blurbs with "go here, kill group of guys, get next mission and do the same" as your objective. I did a handful of these missions, and they got boring after a while. Here's a nuclear take, but the endgame content for most of the Final Fantasy games I've played was never very engaging.
Overall, Final Fantasy XIII is a great game that you should try. It's not the best Final Fantasy game in the world, but there are plenty of beautiful and emotionally hard-hitting moments that make it worth experiencing all the way through at least once.