Final Fantasy XIII for PlayStation 3 Reviews by Gamers

First of all, as stated in the other reviews, this game is gorgeous but there are a few things that make this game much different. I will most likely always like Final Fantasy for what it is, a different adventure in a mostly different world every time (except for X2). I will go over a few key points of the game.

Storyline: This game is flawed in the storyline in my opinion because they tried to develop far too many characters at once. Now, Final Fantasy has effectively developed many characters (like in FF9) but this one seemed to almost develop them in the wrong ways. Plot twists were almost predictable, and even though the voice acting was well done, some of the conflicts within the group were corny altogether. The larger conflict between the factions was extremely confusing to figure out. Honestly the only way you could really know what was going on in the larger conflict is to fully read the extensive datalog every time there was a new entry.

Battle System: I am not particularly a fan of the battle system, but it is challenging to a certain degree only because if your main character that you are controlling dies, its game over. On the other hand the "Game Over" screen doesn't really mean that much because when you die, you just simply choose "Retry" and it brings you right back to the point before the battle you just failed. In my opinion this make the game far too easy towards the end of the game because you can just eventually kill things through trial and error with no consequence.

Character Progression: For every chapter in the storyline, you are only able to progress to a certain part in the crystarium. So essentially its like saying that for this particular chapter, you can only go up to level 20. Anything after that is wasted. Also, the item leveling system is dynamic, but also not very user friendly. Its almost as if they wanted to force you to buy the strategy guide (which i did).

All in all, a good game. It just doesnt feel like a true FF.