Final Fantasy XIII First Impressions

The wait between games seems to get longer and longer, but finally the day is here.  Final Fantasy XIII released in North America and Europe.  I've managed to put in about four and a half hours so far today, which puts me somewhere near the end of Chapter 3.  I wanted to put some thoughts down here before I hunker back in for the rest of the night.

To be honest, my expectations for the 13th installment of the series were at an all time low.  I've commented on it here before, at least in part.  It just seemed that all the decisions they were making were wrong, wrong, wrong, but I have to say thus far everything feels right, right, right.  At no point yet have I felt like I wish things would move faster, and I'm definitely itching to get right back to it.

The first real addition to the gameplay comes in around 3 hours 30 minutes, Paradigms and the Crystarium.  Even before that, there was plenty to keep me engaged.  I was honestly interested in how the story was unfolding, why the characters were involved and what was the overarching mission for the plot line.  There was even a pretty emotional scene in those first few hours, something I have't felt in an RPG in a while (ever?)  Perhaps it's bump in visuals, as we're nearing movie quality at times.  The story, and therefore the gameplay, jumps between characters and parties often in the beginning, which really works to keep things fresh.  There are enough cutscenes interspersed to keep a nice balance between fighting and storytelling.

Gameplay choices I knew I was going to like were just as good as I had imagined.  HP being completely restored after each battle is a wonderful thing.  Now an individual battle that isn't a boss can actually be interesting.  I've actually used potions for the first time since Final Fantasy went 3D.  Characters running around the battlefield in real time gives the game a Grandia feel, which can only be seen as awesome.  The reason it's important in XIII is the impact on area of effect attacks.  This also involves timing.  If an enemy is running in for a melee attack, you might want to hold that AoE attack a little longer until he wanders back close to the pack.

Choices that I was really concerned about have not bothered me so far and in some cases been quite enjoyable.  Without a doubt, my biggest gripe going in was over losing control of your party, a trend in current gen RPGs that I wish would go away (note to devs:  you can save yourselves a lot of programming time by not having to cram in AI where I don't want it).  At least they've completely taken away the ability to switch the controllable party member completely.  Now I don't have to stress about when, if, and how to change characters in real time.  Now I can concentrate on my job within the party completely.  Paradigms also add a whole new level of strategy that I thought would be missing without full control over the party.  Similar in ways to FFXII but without the crummy MMO-style combat.

The other thing was the emphasis on cinematic combat and therefore on speed.  Even using the "slow" setting for the ATB, combat is still blistering at times.  Even the end of battle ranking, which dictates the reward, is based solely on speed.  It's here where I'm still feeling a bit rushed.  I'd like some optional pauses during combat to let me gauge the best target for each attack, to better plan my attack string, and to analyze the best choice for a Paradigm Shift.  I feel like they really just want you to use Auto-Battle for your main character and just let the game play itself.  I vehemently protest against that.

Ultimately, regardless of going in with low expectations, I'm in love with the game so far.  It really feels like Final Fantasy and not a spin-off, knock-off, or even a completely non-traditional JRPG, all things that had run through my mind.  Certainly goes to show, opinions can't truly be formed unless you spend time with a game first hand.  Off to play, will check back soon.