The Crystal Returns: hands on with Final Fantasy XIII
Final Fantasy XIII is one of the most anticipated games of the generation, and …
Frank Caron - Apr 20, 2009 3:20 pm UTC
After years of desperately rummaging through screenshots, magazine scans, and a few choice videos, Final Fantasy XIII has finally been made available to the media and the masses in playable form. The Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Complete Blu-Ray collection was released last week in Japan. The two disc set features the inaugural Blu-ray release of Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, complete with tons of additional footage and special features, and a demo for one of the generation's biggest games, Final Fantasy XIII.
With no word of a stateside release of the demo, I decided to foot the (astronomical) bill for an import copy of the collection. As a fan of the series, I had to see for myself.
The Final Fantasy XIII demo contains roughly an hour of gameplay, with a fair combination of story sequences, dungeon crawling, and battles. Players are given the chance to experience two separate perspectives of the same event, two different player character parties, and two different boss fights in the relatively fast-moving demo.
Though Square-Enix thankfully included the English dubs for the actual Blu-ray film that comes in the package, importers should be warned that the Final Fantasy XIII demo has no English language option: the menus and the subtitles are in Japanese. Thankfully, the game's combat interface is relatively straightforward, and can be easily navigated with a little trial and error.
As I hypothesized in my previous analysis, Final Fantasy XIII marks the return to a more traditional Final Fantasy battle experience. Feeling like a mix between Final Fantasy X-2 and the original Xenogears, XIII eschews the more MMO-like combat of XII for the old genre staples: screen transitions to battle, turn-based attacks, and post-battle reward screens with ratings for each battle. In fact, the only new-school (and thankfully included) concessions are that there are no random battles and all cut-scenes can be paused or skipped.
Make no mistake, though: this isn't the turn-based Final Fantasy of our youth. Like X-2 before it, XIII is an incredibly fast-paced game. Battles fly by once you're in the groove, and vanquishing foes quickly will play a large role in character progression, as every single battle is issued a rank which will affect the rewards reaped. Thankfully, the new ATB system makes flying through battles painless.
Rather than having to wait for the entire ATB bar to fill, individual actions now require only a certain percentage of the ATB bar to be full. Players are able to string up to three attacks together in the demo in various configurations, such as using three "level one" skills or a single "level three" skill in a single attack phase. Using only a single level one skill in one attack phase only requires a third of the ATB bar to be full. And given that the ATB bar is always regenerating when the player isn't in an attack animation, the pace is relentless.
Much like Xenogears, this spices up the combat by allowing players to create special combo chains. A number of different level-one skills can be chained together; "Attack" and "Launch", for example, can be combined to form a deadly midair attack which, if successful, deals incredible amounts of damage. Meanwhile, more powerful skills, such as the Fire and Blizzard spells included in the demo, require a full ATB bar. While it may seem initially that stringing together super attacks and hammering the buttons quickly is the way to go, there is a strong element of strategy implicit in the new skill-based ATB system
This is compounded by the fact that spells are more important than ever in XIII, as the demo's included level 3 spells are actually all area-of-effect (AOE) spells which hit multiple targets at once but generally do less damage to a single target than attacks. Players will often have to weigh the options when deciding on the best plan of attack, as spamming spells won't cut it most of the time now that there are no longer MP points to worry about.
Battles become even more complex and dynamic when taking into account the game's combo system. Timing attacks with your teammates will allow you to sustain a running combo of hits, and additional damage and bonuses are awarded with successful comboing. This will likely weigh heavily in later, more difficult battles, and may affect the overall post-battle star rating (as has been proven to be a popular feature in games like the Tales Of franchise).
It'd be a shame if FF turns into the Madden of RPGs.
MoistDinosaur Ars Tribunus Militum
Originally posted by crestfaller_1:
at this point they are more like the Mario of RPGs. They don't release frequently enough to be Madden. And the characters have branched out into other genres as well as having weird spin-off games.
1686 posts | registered Jan 8, 2008
mgillespie Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
FF Demo is over 5GB. Does not fare too well for the Xbox port, with only 6.8GB of space on a DVD....
It the current rate it's got enough for the demo and a little bit. So either it's going to be a 8disc box set, or it's going and play crappy, or look and sound crappy. Of course Xbox owners will then claim it did not matter anyway, and who wants JRPG games anyway (after making such a fuss previously about getting it).
I predict this game will bomb badly on Xbox, firstly because it's only getting a NA release, and secondly because it will be so badly gimped to cater for the 360's gimped features.
countcracula Ars Scholae Palatinae
you forgot to add the </ps3 rulz!> at the end of your post, so now the rest of the page isn't formatting correctly
flunk Ars Praefectus et Subscriptor
Meh, the 360 version can come on 8 discs for all I care (which would not fit on one bluray disc). I don't think we'll have an issue with graphics or sound. The PS3 is only more powerful in the hearts of PS3 fanboys.
I don't really like the way this article talks up the changes made for Final Fantasy XII. I, and a lot of other people thought that the fighting system used in FF 12 was boring and made every fight repetitive. Also, the most efficient way to kill most things was to just set the right gambits and let the AI fight for you. I think that FF 13's return to a more classic style of battle is because of the overall distaste for the FF 12 fighting system.
3904 posts | registered Oct 5, 2005
Pasta Man Ars Scholae Palatinae
Originally posted by mgillespie:
Well, let's hope for Square / Enix they don't pooch the X360 version...would be really f'n stupid. Since they are in this to make money...not keep P$3 fans happy.
It will probably be a straight port over from the PS3..hell for all we know...they did the development work on the X360 and then moved it over to the PS3, since the X360 is easier to work with.
I want JRPG's...I likes them, but never complained about not getting FF's on my Xbox, or X360..had a PS2.
Yeah, gimped eh? So, then in the same respect...most of the P$3's library, came from X360's gimpy library, then that must be why you are so pissy...all your games are gimpy. Makes sense now.
sgshredhead Smack-Fu Master, in training
The ATB sounds like Chrono Cross. Never played X-2, but any elements of 12 are very welcome.
totally_fly Seniorius Lurkius
With regards to the author's concern over the linearity of the demo:
FF7 was very linear at start but then opened up (once out of Midgar) to a world with tons of possibilities. Maybe they are going with the same idea, to keep the beginning of the game (which the demo is showing) linear to ease players into the game, but they plan to change this up later in the game.
18 posts | registered Jun 3, 2008
Eva01 Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
How come you didn't mention the FF Versus XIII and FF Agito XIII trailers?
Doggus Ars Scholae Palatinae
EDIT: I'm not-a-trollin'. I disagree.
EtrnL_Frost Ars Praefectus
Steam?
I wonder if it would, I'd like to see sales numbers on Squeenix's Last Remnant. If the forums are anything to be believed, REVILED was the initial Squeenix Offering....
chronomitch Ars Praefectus
Most of the data on PS3 discs is not textures, sound, or programming, but hi-res (720p or 1080p) cutscene videos. If those videos are scaled down to 480i or 480p, all of the data will easily fit on one or two dual-layered DVDs. This is what has been done for several cross-platform games. The PS3 gets hi-res cutscene videos, while the 360 gets lo-res videos.
StuckInaCube Ars Scholae Palatinae
Originally posted by EtrnL_Frost:
You don't have to believe other forums...As a huge Square fan I dropped 60 bones on Last Remnant and it was the worst waste of money evarrr! But you know what? The overall crapulance of Last Remnant got me to thinking, am I STILL a huge fan of SE?
I love me some FF and, as a genre, I never tire of JRPGs (Lost Odyssey w00t!), but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the last Final Fantasy that I really enjoyed was FF9! It wasn't that 10, 11, or 12 were bad games, mind you, it was just that they weren't games that made you want to replay them over and over again. I've replayed FF6, FF7 and FF9 multiple times each, and I know I'm not the only one. I just wonder if SE will ever realize what George Lucas never could: million dollar graphics does not make up for mediocre story telling.
/end rant
Ulf Ars Legatus Legionis et Subscriptor
Originally posted by sgshredhead:
X-2 is ... spastic out the ying yang. It is probably the fastest Final Fantasy in game play terms. It's also the only one with variable length ATB bars and variable length attacks.
It seems like they're going back to it, though I'm not enthused about the transition to a battle screen. Seems like they didn't feel there was enough room to fight properly.
11752 posts | registered Jun 6, 2005
Ars of Ares Moderator et Subscriptor
Who cares how many discs it takes to play on a given console?
20290 posts | registered Dec 1, 2008
Originally posted by Ars of Ares:
because if you have to get up during the course of playing a game and move, the world may come to an end.
severusx Ars Scholae Palatinae
because if you have to get up during the course of playing a game and move, the world may come to an end
I know right? Every time I had to change discs on Lost Odyssey my cheese doodles fell off my chest and got all over my sumo sak.
Cabal Ars Tribunus Militum
Originally posted by MoistDinosaur:
/concur
You can install to hard drive anyway. If Microsoft/SE wanted to squelch the tide of whiners, all they got to do is allow ANY disk in the set to authenticate the play from hard drive.
The way it works now, you still have to swap the disks at the same points, but it loads noticeably faster and is WAY quieter (Lost Odyssey).
BTW nice nick MD. I lul'd.
Originally posted by severusx:
apoclypse Ars Tribunus Militum
Pasta Man:
Hmm. If you weren't a troll you would know that SE has been developing FFXIII on the PS3 since day one (for several years in-fact) and that they are in the process of porting the game over to the Xbox. While you may not want to believe that the PS3 is more powerful than the xbox (which may be arguable) you at least should be happy that developers are in agreement that developing for the PS3 first then porting over to the xbox usually works better than the other way around. Even if the game does get successfully ported to the Xbox they are going to have to sacrifice something, in this case it will probably be the quality of the cutscenes which, imo is really the staple of the current non 16-bit FF experience. So in essence it may actually be gimped on the 360 but who knows.
Personally I'm not all that big a fan of X-2, so I'm more excited about XIII versus made by Nomura who actually knows how to mak a fun game for the most part (Kingdom Hearts, etc).
apoclypse:
Well, I am sorry about saying FF13 was made on an X360...I know it wasn't...it has already been released on the PS3 in Japan, just having some fun in contrast to posts of how much SE is going to screw up the X360 version...
Well, in your infinite trolling...I hope you are right. I was all for this game, but damn I hope you and the other Sony boys are right...SE is going to shit all over the X360 version because the PS3 is infinitely powerfull.
There is NO way the X360 could have such awesome cutscenes...just no way.
It is a plot everyone....Conspiracies and Kool-Aid...I see it all clear now...SE is putting out Shitty JRPG's on the X360 on purpose in hopes to destroy it. In turn putting a most excellent "Ichiban" version of the same game on the PS3...gameplay is the same...but the PS3 cutscenes are somehow better.
It will ride on the positive sales of the PS3 and destroy both Nintendo and Microsoft in Sony's 10 year reign of next-gen dominance.
This comment was edited by Pasta Man on April 20, 2009 19:32
Vincent Avatar Ars Praetorian
The visuals and cutscenes in Lost Odyssey were goddamned gorgeous at 1080p, and the game spanned four discs on my Sexbox Tree-sitty. Disc swapping somehow didn't destroy the quality or experience of the game. I have every confidence that there will be no degradation of quality when SE moves FFXIII from the Pee Ehss Three to Microsoft's behemoth.
Saying that there will be such a degradation is a lack of confidence in SE (who at the very least always release quality Final Fantasy titles in terms of bug-free experiences and top-notch production values) or fan-boy dickwagging, or a refreshing Caribbean blend of both. Tell yer wot: we'll wait for the game to release, and see what happens then. Shit, the dozens of other cross-platform titles haven't seen such a disparity between performance, so I don't know why you all are looking for one now.
BEIGE Ars Legatus Legionis
I'll be in Tokyo in Sept. Gotta grab this.
14059 posts | registered May 7, 2000
PseudonymAnon Ars Scholae Palatinae
Didn't really bother to read the post..nor the article.
What's the big appeal of FF?
And why is this a big deal?
aka1nas Ars Tribunus Militum
Originally posted by StuckInaCube:
The Last Remnant is great, but it's not a JRPG. It's basically a fusion of Ogre Battle and FF Tactics in 1st person 3D. It's an awesome and fun game, but you're going to be disappointed if you go into it expecting FF.
imtheunknown176 Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
I agree that this sounds like Chrono Trigger/Cross, which is a very good thing. You could combine skills in the Chrono games to pull off powerful attacks and there were no random battles either.
shevaberg Ars Praetorian
I have to agree... final fantasy 7 and 8 where the best... there rest came along with shinny baubles and trinkets... but at the heart the gameplay was gone... every game had to be different for the sake of being different...
FF x and it sequel where just money grabs...
as for FFXIII being cross playform... the game better be good and not just 1080p eye candy... speaking of which will gran turismo be out for the PS3 or PS4.. and or will duke nukem forever be released before it...
I myself still vote for FF III for the best.
Here's to hoping 13 can live up to the hype...I am sure if it hasn't the Japanese would have burned SE to the ground by now.
serversurfer Ars Legatus Legionis
Dude, it won't even be out in Japan until this winter, as stated in the article.
You really have no idea what you're talking about.
Please, just stop. You're only embarrassing yourself at this point.
16227 posts | registered Oct 13, 2001
barich Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
With Final Fantasy XII, Square-Enix took a chance and produced a game that was wholly unique and introduced a lot of compelling twists to the aging JRPG formula—and the short demo that was packaged with Dragon Quest VIII was more than enough to get excited about.
I thought that the demo of FFXII was dreadful. The music was not memorable, the fragments of story were uninteresting and confusing, and the battle system was just awful. When I buy a Final Fantasy game in the numbered sequence, I want the "aging JRPG formula." They have plenty of offshoots and spinoffs where they can try major changes.
Lbaxter Ars Scholae Palatinae
Originally posted by PseudonymAnon:
Short Answer:
Final Fantasy at one point used to play a large part in deciding who won a console war. That's no longer the case. Some people don't want to admit this.
Long Answer:
There was a time when the absence of a Square caliber Japanese developer on your console was a serious blow. This was during the life of the PS1 and mid-life PS2 days. Roughly between 1994 and 2002. Which is a long time to dominate such a fast paced industry to their credit. But things started changing around 2003. Western PC game studios eyeballing the gobs of cash jumped on the console bandwagon. Bringing with them their PC developing mentality and we see the results. Rockstar, Bioware, Bungie, Epic, 2K Boston (formerly Looking Glass), and Bethesda are kicking ass and taking names. At the same time Eastern developers comfortable with their dominance started becoming stale. Rarely breaking free from the formulas and game mechanics which had served them so well. SquareEnix is guilty of this in addition to establshing a game making habit of catering to their established fan base. Who are pretty hardcore and vocal to say the least. This makes SquareEnix titles hard to break into if you're not already a fan.
Many but not all SquareEnix fans are loath to admit this. Most still subscribe to the notion that a Final Fantasy game is still a king maker for consoles. You can see this crop up occasionally with a comment like:
"Of course Xbox owners will then claim it did not matter anyway, and who wants JRPG games anyway (after making such a fuss previously about getting it)." Courtesy of the LandLord of Candyland above.
Most Xbox 360 owners, myself included don't really care if FF lands on the console. It's nice to have the option to purchase it but the imagined deafening roar for it's inclusion just isn't there. A handful or so poster o a dozen websites voicing their desire for the title doesn't count. Want to see mouth foaming mobs angrily protesting the exclusion of a console? Have EA announce Madden and FIFA are now solely in the domain of the PS3 or Xbox 360. You'll have Brits overturning cars and Americans burning down McDonald's. Dramatic but you get the point.
To wrap this up you'll definitely read comments stating that FF coming to the 360 is a huge, industry shaking event to forever throw the cosmos of video gaming into disarray. While nice to read they're pretty far from the truth.
Originally posted by shevaberg:
I don't know what the hell you are talking about, FFIX was the best of the lot. X was not that great. X-2 had a great battle system but I couldn't actually enjoy the game because... well. XI is a successful MMORPG that I couldn't get past level 10 in because I didn't have enough friends to guarantee a party every time, but has an interesting aesthetic and a merciless difficulty curve. I just started playing XII again and think the combat is pretty all right and the story (as it stands, some 4 hours in) promises to be intricate. Visuals are still impressive; cut-scenes still look fancy.
IX was still the best. I'm interested in XIII from an "I have played every FF ever released and don't plan on stopping now" perspective.
CountZero77 Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
Alas, the small taste test of FFXIII will certainly leave importers desperately craving more—as any good demo should, I suppose.
The demo just doesn't show enough to truly whet one's appetite, but worse, it doesn't leave me particularly excited for what's to come
So which is it? Desperately wanting more, or not interested?
Originally posted by Lbaxter:
Well, it is an event in a "huh, that hasn't happened before" sort of way, because it uh... hasn't ever happened before. Simultaneous multi-platform launch? That's something new for the FF franchise. Certainly the re-makes of the various FF games have been ported to all and sundry consoles, but this is different.
Not earth-shattering or anything like that, but different. I was cheered by the thought that I had the choice to snap up FFXIII without having to invest in a PS3, and think this sort of cross-platform sharing is good for the industry as a whole.
Originally posted by Vincent Avatar:
I don't know what the hell you are talking about, FFIX was the best of the lot.
have you played the other FFs?
I agree with you on both accounts. For those of us paying attention it's certainly interesting. SquareEnix usually focuses their development efforts to a single current gen console at a time. This is excluding their games released on DS. I also share you're opinion that a FF13 multi-platform release is a good thing for gaming. I don't like exclusives either. All of it like you said interesting and good but not Earth shaking. Had this occured last gen....well I'd be singing a different tune.
Nagumo Ars Praefectus
mgillespie
What does demo size have to do with the price of eggs in China? Demos tend to be quite large for the amount of play time offered due to the sheer number of assets that must be included in the demo for it to operate. Demo's on Live run from 700MB to nearly 2GB for games that will top out at 6.7GB on DVD. So your point is?
The second paragraph almost isn't worth addressing since you've done nothing but speculate with the biggest and most opaque of fanboy blinders in place (you post history confirms my suspicions).
Let's see. You predict this game will bomb badly on the 360 since the release is NA only. NA being the single most populous 360 territory with an installed user base of over 17 million users and the PS3 in a truly dismal 3rd place standing (roughly half the market share at 8 million+) and the Wii lording over all.
Also, what features are supposedly gimped? Enlighten us oh PS3 fanboy man. That you might have to swap a disc after 20 hours of gameplay? Oh, the horror.
I find it hilarious that you actually wish the game to bomb on any platform. It's that myopic fanboy nonsense that just owns no logic. FFXIII bombing on the 360 hurts neither the 360 user base nor Microsoft themselves. the only one being hurt is Square Enix since they dumped money and resources into 360 development. You desires are incredibly short sighted and juvenile. I would have though that anyone who enjoyed the FF series and S/E as a developer/publisher would want to see them succeed. I guess I was wrong.
360 installed base
1.03M Japan
17.12M America
11.63M Others
PS3 installed base
8.39M America
http://vgchartz.com/?gr_i_ni
Agree, especially on the developer front and many Eastern games feeling stale. I grew up playing on the first consoles, I can remember when I replaced (well, my Mom since I was just a lad) my Atari 5200 with that brand new white box called the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The game she bought for me first was Castlevania (Zelda, Mega man, and Metroid came not long after), and I was hooked like a baby to a teat. Unfortunately, till more Western developers decided to get in on the console action, development was primarily Eastern in nature (which was neat since it was a fresh perspective for me). As such I'm a little tired of the same conventions. To be fair JRPG's have played much the same since the days of the NES. That's one hell of a run! Still, it's time to mix things up and rework the formula. If Square/Enix won't there are too many other developers out there who will, as evidenced by the many awesome Western RPG's available for the PC and consoles (eagerly waiting to see how The Witcher gets made over for the PS3 and 360).
I hope FFXIII turns out great, but after the litany of average to poor JRPG's I've seen and played out of a host of companies (including Square Enix), I don't have much faith in anything more than a fresh coat of paint over an old product. As someone else said, the series shares more in common with Madden with each iteration. I'm very much worried by the comments about linearity and the demo not leaving much of an impression. The demo for FFVII had me hooked immediately, we'll see if this can do the same.
infernal666 Ars Tribunus Militum
I would be excited about this,but Square,still my favorite game company,pissed me off by giving its initial release date as 12/08 then kicking it to 12/09,and from the article they aren't even going to release it this year??!! WTF!! That game NOT coming out last December is the only reason I don't own a PS3 right now.
endekks Ars Tribunus Militum
Should anyone be surprised if this is just prettier graphics on a tired gaming model? This IS a Japanese developer, after all. Innovation died gaming-wise here a long time ago. That said, I may still pick it up for the Mrs., since she still gets into the linear RPG thing.
Oh, and Frank, nice internal links to other AT:OT articles. Pretty weird that there isn't an internal link to your "FFXIII is exclusive to the PS3 for Japan" article...
1591 posts | registered Feb 4, 2006