Square Enix took the scalpel to its Crystal Tools engine...
Strrrriiiiike!
There is very little outside the main linear story in the way of side quests until after you've finished: this is disappointing. [Although I admit I’ve done most of the mini quests, mostly so I could get me a Chocobo.] There was none of the kind of patented RPG wandering around towns talking to people trying to find that one who would tell you what the hell you were supposed to be doing and I found this refreshing. Commerce is handled by interacting with regularly spaced mini robot terminals through which you can buy, sell and save your game in a futuristic internet shopping experience.
Consoling
Playing this game on the Xbox was a touch disappointing. After the PS3, it seemed like a stripped down version of its rival console’s game play and visuals. Lack of resolution makes the 360 version look shabby upscaled to 1080p. The razor sharpness of the PS3 visuals - even when there is loads of motion - has been compromised on the 360. Don’t get me wrong, it still looks good, but considering Final Fantasy has its bedrock in stunning CGI, it’s just not good enough.
Square Enix obviously took the scalpel to its Crystal Tools engine to translate Final Fantasy XIII across to the Microsoft platform. I feel sorry for whoever had the job of compressing 32GB of CGI to fit three Xbox 360 DVDs around 7GB. I think this was only possible because the game is extremely linear most of the way through.
The encoding that has been used for the compression of the data to take this game cross-platform isn’t really as good as it could be. It leaves the environment and enemies with noticeably less detail in texture; strangely this seems to affect the characters clothing more than their features. But if you can live with this, which I am sure 99 per cent of people who only own a 360 can, the game is still worth it. However, if you have both consoles at home, there really is only one choice: PS3.
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COMMENTS
FF Novice
I haven't played any of the other FF series much to my eternal shame so i purchased this game perhaps with too high expectations given the hype of FF over the years, sadly I was very disappointed.
I haven't played it through to the end but I did keep playing for a while expecting it to get better and whilst I am sure that I am still very much in the beginning sections of the game (well not the beginning but obviously not where it starts to get fun) but I can't bring myself to plough through more tedious hours of linear rubbish.
Sorry but this game has been consigned to my "play when I am retired" section especially as I now have Red Dead in my hands...
final fantasy because...
Final Fantasy I was made by SquareSoft, a company on it's last legs and about to go into administration. this was to be their last game and they decided on a fantasy style role playing game.
final game.
fantasy style rpg.
1+1=?
i have recently played through it on my xbox and not knowing how it looks on the PS3, i was actually quite impressed by the visuals (coming from FF XII on the PS2). the first part of the game is indeed very tedious, i even skipped most of the movies the first 10-15 hours of playthrough (being a seasoned veteran when it comes to FF, i pretty much knew what was coming). after the first 30 hours, i was wondering if this installment could even come close to it's predecessors, i didn't enjoy it all that much, but i have to admit that it turns out to be a fantastic game. Rumors are that FF XIV is going to be PS3 only again, so i may end up getting a PS3 afterall.
You shouldn't be surprised
FFXIII has an enormous amount of full screen video. The PS3 has a lot more storage capacity on a Blu Ray disc than the 360 does on a DVD. It was inevitable that the video would suffer, but people are surprised how much it suffered. At least the style of game made it suitable for splitting over multiple discs. If the game wasn't so horribly linear it would have been a much tougher task to accomplish.
completely crappy game
I have spent more than 90 hours on it. The weapon upgrade system is trash, the linearity makes you wanna punch through the TV and the retarded paradigm shift system will have you using just X and L1 in fights. Forget about strategy and controlling your characters. You cannot even control their level up path. You cannot control all 3 of them in a battle. You only control the lead character and his summon and even then you will use autobattle 99% of the time so the AI does all the work for you and all you do is mash X until your thumb bleeds. I have played almost all the game in the series. This one is horrible not only by FF standards but by any RPG standards. Avoid!
Very poor game
Sorry to say that this game is just aweful. 7, 8, 9 and 12 are so much better.
