A First Step into FFXIII

Cocoon - a utopia in the sky. It's inhabitants believed their world a paradise. Under the Sanctum's rule, Cocoon had a long known peace and prosperity. Mankind was blessed by its protectors, the benevolent fal'Cie, and believed that tranquil days would continue forever.
Their tranquility was shattered with the discovery of one hostile fal'Cie. The moment that fal'Cie from Pulse - the feared and detested lowerworld- awoke from its slumber, peace on Cocoon come to an end. Fal'Cie curse humans, turning them into magic-wielding servants. They become i'Cie--chosen of the fal'Cie.
Those branded with the mark of a l'Cie carry the burden of either fulfilling their Focus or facing a fate harsher than death itself...

After about 3 weeks or so, I was finally able to start playing Final Fantasy XIII. I could have played it right away after the game arrived early this month, but Resonance of Fate took priority over this game, and given that I've pretty much finished Resonance of Fate, I can spend the coming weeks focusing on FFXIII. So far I'm only roughly 5 hours into the game (counting the many times I afk idling because my mates call on dota), so there's definitely a lot more for me to comment about the game. My impression so far-

Well, FFXIII isn't "that" bad as I heard people are saying. Across some boards and words of mouth, I got the opinion that the story is too linear with little sidequests offered (cough *FFX*cough*). 5 Hours into the game (until past Alfa Behemoth boss), yes I do agree with that sentiment. Linear, way too linear. It's a straight path to the end of each chapters with little no no field exploration. But, looking at the bigger picture, there are other aspect of the game that I do enjoy.

The graphic for example. I guess I really don't have to say anything about the graphic, since we're talking about Square Enix and Final Fantasy. Simply beautiful and spectacular. The environment really gives me the "fantasy" feeling I had when playing previous FF (minus FF12, that was crap), although it was mixed with modern machineries.

What else - gameplay. I've grown less and less fond with turn based rpg, but I find FFXIII's active time, turn-based combat system rather nice. As the game goes on, the gameplay grew into me and the likes of paradigm Shift made it interesting. Some people might say that the game "play" itself because we can simply Auto Battle to go through most of the random battles, but then is it really a bad thing? I personally think it speeds up the battle greatly (akin to Enchant's Arm speed battle), since we didn't have to put the command ourself, just set them with Paradigm Shift. I guess it's all about personal opinion. Some prefer to work with their hands. I also do, but in FFXIII's case, I don't mind the way the combat system is presented, at least for now.

Then, the story. Well, hours and what I've done so far are chasing some "big guys" who's causing curse, then the characters themselves fell to the curse which grant them special powers. And with that, they become the enemies of some part of their world, and the rest is just as what you might have heard from others - run, run and look for clues for Focus etc. Little sidequest (in fact so far there's none. I like the stories so far, but one thing that I'm kinda tired with is the fact that in my 5 hours of play, nearly 75% are cutscenes and the rest are simple field explorations/battles. Too many cutscenes! And another thing is, too many new jargon were thrown at us in the beginning (fal'Cie; l'Cie, Pulse, Purge blablablabla) that it took awhile for us to figure out what the hell are they actually are. Nevertheless, I do love the random dialogue occurring between the characters every now and then.

Other things to add: seems like characters leveling in FFXIII resembled that of FFX's Sphere Grid growth, albeit FFXIII use different way of gaining experience. The Paradigm Shift definitely made the battle more interesting, giving characters various roles (Leader, Attacker, Healer, Tank etc - not the actual name ofc) to suit with the needs of battle. And based on the game manual, it seems like there'll be a few more features to be available soon.

Overall, I had a pretty good impression toward FFXIII as far as the early games are concerned. In the very beginning, I'm not overly excited to play the game because of the bad thing people said about the game, but in the end of the day, what matters is your own satisfaction. Pretty much like how The Last Remnant was poorly received, yet I find the game quite fabulous despite not liking the game in the beginning.

By the way, anyone think the name "Lightining", 'Snow", and "Hope" are lame?


ps: The environments during this early game kinda remind me to Gears of War 2. If you know what I mean.