First Impressions | Final Fantasy XIII (Xbox 360)

Final Fantasy XIII Preview

Well let me start by saying something… I find it kind of funny when the opening credits for a video game have better cinematography that most movies I’ve seen.  That aside lets take a trip back in time… Well.. to Tuesday at around 11 in the morning..

(insert wavy TV fade out)

So I walk into the game store, make my way up to the counter while flipping through a strategy guide, and ask the fine gentleman for a copy of the latest and greatest.  After the short trip home I grab a bowl of chips and open the bag containing my little treasure.  First thing I notice is some pretty box art, we have a nice picture of one of our title characters an ex-soldier who goes by the name Lightning.  After taking off the shrink wrap and those annoying sticker strips they put over the edges I open the box to find the manual and wait…  what the… bonus material on disks?  Thats so cool…. oh… no.. turns out the Xbox 360 vesion of this game comes in a 3 disk set.  While the Ps3 is only one disk.  But really, who cares? Who is so lazy that getting up to change the disks is that much of a hassle?  So I pop in disk 1 and prepare to find my fate.

After selecting my storage device and selecting start new game I am presented with a great cinematic event that incorporates the intro credits and gives us a wonderful aerial tour of the land.  Now I wont go too much into the story and all that, I’ll leave it for the full review to come up on the site later, I’ll just give you some of the general info and some of my impressions from my first 3 hours into the game.  Now as most new games go FFXIII is going to set you back 60 some odd bucks.  I’d shop around see if anyone is doing deals (my choice was GameStop due to the trade in bonus they have going, ended up walking out with FFXII and only leaving behind 60 cents.)  As I stated earlier the Xbox 360 version splits the game into 3 disks while the Ps3 keeps the count to 1.  I know if any of you have been surfing around gaming boards and whatnot you have already seen the graphic comparison war going on.  Now I don’t have a Ps3 but the graphics I’m getting on my TV (52″ LCD using HDMI connection) are frigging amazing and I just don’t see what could be such a huge difference unless the scenes on the Ps3 are live action.  The detail during the cut scenes and the pre-rendered movies and even just during gameplay is stunning, the characters are well detailed and the backgrounds are vivid and lovely to look at.  There are lots of futuristic building scapes as well as the uniforms and clothes of all the characters very reminiscent of all the other FF titles, tons of vibrant colors and outlandish clothes.  But once you allow yourself to blink and focus a bit you can throw yourself into the gameplay.

The gameplay is smooth and transitions from exploration to battle very quickly- the Xbox360 version has very little load time. I found that I had barely enough time to finish a drink of soda before the loading was finished.  As you enter battles from the very get go the game will give you tutorials, and if you think your badass enough you can just skip them and learn as you play.   The battle system from what I’ve seen so far is great.

Another thing I noticed that goes along with the visuals is the voice acting. I know in the past some Japanese imports have suffered from horrible voice acting.  Causing many people to switch the TV to mute and read subtitles through cut scenes.  FFXIII though doesnt seem to suffer from that all.  I have yet to find that one character voice that makes me want to slam my head against the coffee table, but I’m sure it will happen.

Playing through so far I have only found one drawback that I found noticeable enough to mention, the story and game progression so far is very linear.  While you get to explore some of the areas by running around you really only have one choice of where to go, there may be a few side paths that will get you an item or two but you’ll have to backtrack to the original path to continue on.  Do I find this a huge problem? No.  I don’t mind it, sure I would love to explore some of these areas in more detail and just walk around and get lost for hours but the linear progression allows the story to progress at a good pace while not seeming forced at all.  Like I said I dont mind it so much but if your looking for a lot of free roaming, move right along.

All in all so far I am really liking this game and if your a fan of RPG’s and good stories with great visual and contextual detail this is a grade A recommendation by me.  Obey me! Buy this game!  Oh yeah and just because I know some of you are bonus whores… With the purchase of the Xbox 360 version of the game (while supplies last)players will recieve a code to log onto Square-Enix’s website to claim some bonus items for your Xbox Live Avatar.  These bonus items come in the form of an enemy soldier uniform for either your male or female avatar.  Hopefully this gave you a little glimpse into the game, again stay tuned for the full review to be up on the site soon.. I know I’ll be looking forward to it.  Now go! Go my minions and… do… stuff!