Final Fantasy XIII: First Impressions

Well I bought XIII on its release, as can be expected from a fanboy like me. I didn’t get much chance to play it that night though since I was busy. I took a quick look however, and I have to say the graphics impressed me. Maybe I’m looking at the game through rose coloured glasses, since it’s the latest instalment on one of my favourite series of games ever, but oh well, I need my little pleasures in life. Anyway I started the game properly on Wednesday evening (yesterday as of the time of writing) and have currently only racked up around two hours of play time. So far, however, I have to say I’m mightily impressed. The story seems to have much more going for it than XII did (I found the story of XII to be a fairly big disappointment), and I actually quite like the new battle system (a done-up version of the old Active Time Battle system, that really reminds me of the system used in X-2). I imagine a lot of people may have something to complain about by the introduction of the new Auto Battle system, which inputs the best commands for the current situation using AI, but I find it quite useful. Then again, a lot of people (including Jo and Sneeze by the way) complain that the gameplay of the traditional Final Fantasy battle system is boring, whereas I’ve never found that much of a problem with it personally, which is probably why I have more tolerance for the Auto Battle system. I’m looking forward to getting back to it tonight and you can expect a detailed review of the game to appear here once I’ve finished it. Much shorter than usual this time, but I thought I’d just share my first impressions of a new, big release anyway.

Thanks for reading.