http://previews.teamxbox.com/xbox-360/2508/Final-Fantasy-XIII/p1/
Final Fantasy XIII Hands-On Preview (Xbox 360)
With less than a month left until Final Fantasy XIII hits stores, there’s a lot of excitement for it and how it’ll compare to previous FF releases. After getting some time on the game at a recent media event, we can delve into some specifics and talk more about the FFXIII battle system.
The main lead in the game is a female character named Lightning, though there are a total of six playable characters. How the “playable” part works is something we’ll get into more in a minute.
FFXIII also takes players to two different worlds: One is the formerly peaceful Cocoon, a world “in the sky” that features more town- and city-like areas. Gran Pulse (though generally just called Pulse) is the other world and we spent most of our time in a large field filled with creatures and quest indicators. It also had an MMO-like feel to it, as you can concentrate on a “grind,” just killing things in the vicinity to level up your characters.
The leveling-up system in FFXIII is taking a different approach in that you upgrade each character’s “roles” rather than just the character. The roles each focus on a combat element: Commando is centered around melee; Ravager is for magic and party support; Sentinel is more defensively-based; Saboteur is a debuff specialist; Synergist concentrates on buffs of the party members; and Medic is (obviously) a healer.
The structure enables you to build up the different characters in diverse ways. For instance, you might want to have Lightning be stronger in her Ravager and Medic roles, so she can back up the party, which may be chosen for their combat skills; or you can crank up her other roles to strengthen her offensive abilities and let someone else pick up the healing or defense portion. The format gives you a lot of flexibility in setting up a party—which consists of three characters—for a particular battle or enemy type.
The added flexibility comes from the Paradigm system, which enables you to build out six different configurations for your party in advance of a battle and switch between them quickly as you desire. For example, one Paradigm can have all three party members be Commandos, which would be a heavily offensive trio, while a second Paradigm has two as Commandos and one as Medic. If you find that you’re starting to take some damage to the party members, a quick button press (on the Left Bumper) brings up the list of up to six pre-created Paradigms, and bringing up the second one will enable one player to heal each of the party members while the other two Commandos hammer on the enemy. This process gives you a lot of freedom to quickly shift between different party configurations as the battle changes or you learn certain enemy weaknesses/strengths.
The best part is, while Lightning starts as the lead, you can shift any of the others in and out of that role as you choose, as well as determining which three characters will be your active party. Part of the reason for wanting certain characters in the party is not only due to their roles’ levels, but also for their particular Summon. Calling up a specific Summon during battle shifts so it’s just the player vs. the enemy. Not only do the Summons bring big offensive power to the battle, but you can also have the character ride it. As you can expect, the whole process is rendered with gigantic, well-animated visuals that are great eye candy. It wouldn’t be Final Fantasy without that kind of presentation, right?
The combat components also offer a lot of variation. Though I only scratched the surface in my relatively short hands-on session, I started getting the hang of what Square-Enix is calling its Active Time Battle System. This gives you a “slotted” time line; in my playthrough, I had five segments I could fill with whatever combat building blocks I wanted. Let’s say I wanted to slam the target with two strong fire spells (each taking up two slots) and then one of thunder, I could dig down in the menu system by clicking on the buttons, then load up the time line and fire it off. If you’re less skilled, you can keep hitting the Auto-Battle button, which uses AI to fill your time line with actions.
The combat system instantly makes FFXIII much more accessible to a bigger audience: You don’t have to be a FF veteran to use it, though if you are more experienced, you can take advantage of the depth that’s offered a few button presses away. You can ratchet up the complexity of your fights as you become more comfortable with the system and its features—such as being able to click on one skill, get an overview of the vulnerabilities of the enemy you’re currently facing and then vary your offensive approach to take advantage of the info.
In some regards, it’s also easier because you don’t have to calculate how much MP you have left to spend on any particular action. Instead, you just wait until your time line fills back up and then set up a new batch of moves in the slots. And the accompanying AI is adaptive, so as it goes through the battle, it starts to determine what is doing more damage and what doesn’t work, then changes up the structure of its fight to be more effective. FFXIII also gives you plenty of time to pick up the battle system, thanks to what Square says is extensive tutorials through the first three chapters; the company reps also told us that there are 13 chapters total and the main story will take you about 40 hours to get through, with 20–40 more hours if you decide to do the many side quests.
After a few battles and completing one quest/mission at a different location in the field, our time was up. The hands-on time, however, made us hungry for the completed game to cross our desks. FFXIII has a March 9 release date, so we’ll surely have more for you on the game as that date approaches, and look for the results of an interview we conducted with the game’s key development staff after our gameplay session.
