Wait, marmite you say?
Personally, I hate marmite. Can't stand the stuff, I don't think it goes with anything. At all. It's a contraption that is a stain on human history, and should never be used in any food product for whatever reason ever. Granted, I'm going a bit over board here, but it's just to illustrate a point. Marmite really is one of those love it or hate it things, there's rarely a middle ground, needless to say I fall on the "hate it" side. I find Final Fantasy XIII to be just like marmite. From all I've heard, people seem to love or hate this game. Unlike for marmite however I think I fall on the "love" side. Now before this starts some kind of flame war, hear me out. I don't pretend to be a huge fan of Final Fantasy, in fact this is actually the first one I've played. I know this probably makes you think my opinion to be irrelevent, but before you do, just know that I have played several JRPGs in the past. How I've done this without playing Final Fantasy beore XIII is anyone's guess, as I don't even know myself, but I've played Lost odyssey, Blue Dragon, all three Golden Suns, Dragon Quest(s) and both Dark Clouds (if you count them as JRPGs..it's a bit tenious I know) so I've sort of got an idea of what to expect from a JRPG, even if I'm coming into a Final Fantasy with no previous experience of the series. Yes, I was just as annoyed as everyone with the lack of towns and the linearity of this game, but I still loved the experience. In this review, I'm going to try and explain why.
There's no towns! What on earth have they done!? Oh, replaced it with a new battle system?
From what I can gather, the battle system really does seem to be one of the major sources of contention in this game. I think this is the love or hate part, the part which prompted the marmite analogy. I love it, which is just as well, as battling enemies is near enough all you're going to be doing for the entire 50 hours or so of the experience. If you don't love the battle system, well then this is going to be one hard slog, and I'd be surprised if you made it to the end. Personally, I find it to be a perfect blend of being real-time, but still keeping much of the strategy of a more traditional turn-based battle system. I find it visceral and satisfying, and certainly in the latter sections of the game, very challenging. It's not necessarily the best battle system to ever grace a game, but continuously having to be aware of what paradigms you have at your disposal, and having to quickly react to situations as they unfold (in the harder battles at least) is something I found incredibly enjoyable. This might sound like I personally can't fault the system, and in a way this is true, but that's not to say I think it can support the game on it's own. If this is all the game was, I doubt I would have been able to get to the end. Considering that it is 90% of the game though you can tell that there must be something else I really like about this game for me to rate it as highly as I do.
Story (spoiler free)
I'm not going to say anything specific about what actually happens in the game, other than to offer my opinion on the storyline in general, and its presentation. In short, I really enjoy a good story. I'd go as far as to say it's the sole reason I play some games. One thing I like even more than a good story is a good world. This doesn't mean it has to be a really expansive universe, or a universe with a really extensive canon (like Mass Effect), it just has to be something that I can become emotionally attached to. This is something I find hard to tangeably define, and it is almost completely arbitrary. Some games I can feel incredibly immersed in, that on paper I perhaps shouldn't, like Fable 1 and 2 (not 3, I though that was a terrible game) , whereas other games that on paper I should feel immersed in, I just don't, like Skyrim for instance. I think Skyrim is an incredible game, and one of the best games to come out in 2011, or even in recent memory, but it never captured me in the same way. FFXIII did capture me, and I don't know why. The seeming struggle between Gran Pulse and Cacoon, and the ever-present Fal'cie; combined with (in my opinion) a decent cast of characters and I was hooked from day one.
The CGI cutscense were amazing to behold, but I do think some of the delivery of the game's story was underwhelming. It relied a lot on the datalog to explain what was going on. This is something I don't mind, I aways soak up every morsel of information in a game to find out about its universe (I've read every single data entry in the codex for Mass Effect for example), but not everyone is like me. This shouldn't be a compulsory exercise to enable players to follow the storyline, and thus I think people's enjoyment of the story will vary with just how much of the datalog they bothered to read, which really shouldn't be the case. The story should have, and could have been presented better, after all we're paying for a game, not an over-priced book. Saying that, by the end of the game I ended up really caring about what was going to happen to Cacoon, and the entire cast of characters more than many other games I've played.
Closing Comments
So there you have it, my reasons for liking Final Fantasy XIII. Yes, I've realised there are only two reasons; story and battle system, but with the removal of towns, there's not really much left in FFXIII. There are some side quests, which boil down to nothing more than go somewhere and kill some monster, and are very unispiringly delivered. I didn't really care for them on my playthrough, but they didn't detract from the experience for me. The graphics are nice, but that's somewhat expected for a Final Fantasy game (that's the impression I get anyway, having not played one before) so FFXIII doesn't get any extra bonus points for that. The game is very linear, and for a JRPG this was both surprising and disappointing. However I couldn't hate the game for this fact alone. Some of the best games out there are linear, and are better for it. I don't mean to suggest that if FFXIII weren't linear it would be a worse game, as this probably isn't the case, but the fact it is linear doesn't make it a bad game. The removal of towns was what really hurt, as it's something that is just expected not only for Final Fantasy, but for RPGs in general. Could you imagine the Elder Scrolls VI (a long way off in the future I know) not having towns in it? It would be stupid, there would be uproar and rightly so. No towns in FFXIII is obviously annoying, and what seems to be a blindingly obvious omission. Yet, somehow, in my playthrough I didn't miss them. It was only afterwards, and when reading other reviews/forums online I suddenly realised what a mistake this was, but if I didn't miss them at the time, the only conclusion I can draw is that the game is good enough without them. Yes, I know this arguably doesn't make it a "true" Final Fantasy, and I don't disagree, but take the game for what it is, rather than what it could have been and you'll find it to be a good ride. Give it a chance, you may find yourself hating it, but conversely, you may find yourself loving it.