---------- FF13 ----------
Replaced FFX as my 2nd best Final Fantasy.
Now the wait had been massive for this iteration! Could SE deliver with it, yes they certainly did.
Now lets get right to the point, the first 4 hours are as disappointing as the Phantom Menace (just a phrase...I personally enjoyed The Phantom Menace..my first SW Movie). But I am to blame as well, the first 2 hours are basically the April 2009 FF7:ACC FF13 Demo....and I viewed that online, all of it like hundreds of times, so of course it was boring. But Chapter 2 wasn't that great either.
With Chapter 3 the 13th Fantasy EPic finally began to give back to me the days of hype I had given to it. With Chapter 7 the focus was fulfilled, this FF was a classic!
Melodramatic words aside:
Loved --
1. Character....VERY WELL developed on most fronts, especially Hope....I could Understand everyones motivation and the way the acted, I could relate to them all EXCEPT Vanille. I loved the bit where it showed lightning detesting all of them, loved how lightning & hope grew closer, how they paired up Vanille with Sazh (what a "weird" pair). It was great seeing characters in such situations. The best cast in FF for sure beating FF6's strong cast.
2. Gameplay.....This was the big surprise..I always thought I'd remember FF13 as one of the best FF's for its story, but its story ends up being not even in the top 3 of my favorite FF stories...instead what seemed like gimmicky gameplay from pre release videos turned out to be the best battle system in a FF ever. It was quick, challenging, exciting, full of strategy, nice to look at & some of the best battle themes to grace the series only helped even more, not to mention super monster designs. The battle with Odin made me say for the first time "Hey these stupuid paradigms aren't gimmicks & I'll HAVE to strategise if I wanna do well in this game".
3. World/Lore/Myth......The world the masters at Square-enix created is FANTASTIC. The whole idea of cocoon, pulse, why it was built. The culture, society....the way you find out what happened on Pulse after the war. So many unanswered questions but questions I WANT to know. Its a compelling world and very uniqe. Definetely the most compelling/interesting world in a FF game.
4. Chapter 12 Opening Cut Scene -- nuff said
Liked --
1. Story......now after you have the best cast, best world/lore/myth from a FF game you expect the best if not one of the best stories. But its so sad that this just didn't happen with this game. The story starts of lots of potential but it just doesn't seem like much happens after Chapter 9. Pulse isn't used that well in the story (Oerba is though). I expected much more from the story of this game. Its like the characters are the chocolate of the best quality, the world/lore/myth is the icing of the best quality....but the quality of the pastry itself is just "good"...this makes the pastry seem even worse than it is.
2. Music.....This was a pleasant surprise..fantastic music. Nowhere near the best in the series. The boss themes & the battle themes are some of the best in all of Final Fantasy. But apart from them there are few really standout tracks. There are some superb tracks but not that many.
3. Voice Acting.....it was fine..seriously I didn't have a complaint apart from Vanille and sometimes the speech sync seemed a bit off
4. The Leona Lewis Song......it surprising fit the ending pretty well. Except for "put on my make up" bit...if Lightning heard that she'd probably punch Leona Lewis but oh well.
Disliked:
Vanille, not many distractions, CHEAP BOSSES (some of which should be unacceptable).
At times it felt so "empty" & lifeless
VILLAINS......WTF happened here Square. A big reason why FF7 is loved IS Sephiroth....with fF6 its Kefka....a big reason why DArk Knight is loved is the Joker! Go figure.
The ending.....its not bad per se but explained in a bad way
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Overall its a fantastic game but is nowhere near as good as the best in the series (FF6) which nails each aspect fanatstically, while FF13 had better characters, world & battle system than FF6...they aren't enough to put it over FF6 which has far more memorable cut scenes, music pieces, you know actual villains and of course a far better story.
After the ending I wasn't ready to let go of cocoon, pulse, our main cast, frocobo or the world in general. FFXIII-2 please.
9.7/10
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