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It's finally out! and I have played it (mostly) all the way through. According to most walkthroughs I'm 3/4 of the way done and if anything changes my opinion from this point onward I will edit the review here.

 

Story: You are Lightning! (you are speed! vroom! oh wait wrong story.) You are ex-military and you're out to save your sister who has become l'cie (a curse bestowed upon people by fal'cie, you have to either fulfill your focus and be turned to crystal or don't and turn into a zombie like l'cieth.) So on the way you meet people and thus FFXIII expands from there. My description really doesn't do it justice. It is your typical FF fare, which means good story and in this game story seems to be the main focus so it is better than usual.

 

Gameplay: Completly revamped battle system. Its like when they took Mortal Kombat and added the different martial arts styles to each character and said ok, if you want to do well, you'll switch them back and forth. Its like that here now as well. You have 'paradigms' and if you want to win (any) battle you will learn to swap them out frequently. No more turn based combat (well ok it is) as the you are frantically throwing commands at your characters which they act out almost simultaneously then its pardigm shift and reapeat! Expect to die unexpectedly, as there are no more levels! You will upgrade everything through the recycled FFX grid system (now called Crystarium). And if you like open worlds then you came to the wrong place! FFXIII is to be forever known as the hallway runner RPG. You are presented a straightforward path, you run down it, repeat as needed to progress. If you want to get more CP (crystarium porints! for leveling) you'll run back the other way and repeat ad-nauseum OR you can just play through til the game drops you in Gran Pulse, 3/4 of the way through where it is a big open world (finally!) and everything there will murder you horribly for not upgrading enough. Do you like swapping party members? well too bad! FFXIII is your mommy, and makes all the decisions for you! Once again when you get dropped in Gran Pulse, 3/4 of the way through, it decides you are a big boy now, and lets you FINALLY choose your own party. However, Its all in the name of story, which is the one redeeming aspect of FFXIII.

 

Graphics: By far one of the prettiest sparkleist shiniest games around. It is always beautiful and the details in the game are always amazing. the line between FMV and game is still there, but its becoming a thinner line (not like FF7 or even 10 where it was blatantly obvious) Hopefully you like movies, because the game loves to shower you with them. Seriously there were parts where I watched a movie, then took 3 steps and watched another movie. But they are all gorgeous (and skippable!).

 

FFXIII is not at all my favorite Final Fantasy game. It's for sure better than the last effort, however, it isn't quite up to par with 6 or 7, I'd say maybe about on par with 9. The bad guys aren't that memorable, but you'll instantly care about the main cast. The battle system takes a bit of getting used to, but is pretty fun and the game is gorgeous. The music in the game is not Noebu Ueamatsu (if I spelled it wrong or whatever sorry.) like the others, instead it is (Im assuming) Jpop people and Leona Lewis. But its not a bad thing at all. I typically couldn't stand that type of music, but seeing the international trailer for FFXIII made me rather enjoy hearing that song. (although I've actually yet to hear it in game, and assume they're saving it for the end credits. lol)
I think the worst thing about the game is that there's no sense of exploration. You are dropped at the end of a hallway, you run from one end to the other, battling and watching movies til you are transported to a new hallway. In short, its good, but could be a lot better.

 

3.5 out of 5.