Final Fantasy XIII (Video Game 2009)
"Fainaru fantajî XIII" (original title)

Directors:

Motomu Toriyama, Jack Fletcher,

Writers:

Sachie Hirano (scenario), Kazushige Nojima (scenario concept: Stellavista),

Stars:

Ali Hillis, Troy Baker, Georgia Van Cuylenburg

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Ali Hillis	...	Claire Farron - Lightning (voice)
Troy Baker	...	Snow Villiers (voice)
Georgia Van Cuylenburg	...	Oerba Dia Vanille (voice)
Reno Wilson	...	Sazh Katzroy (voice)
Vincent Martella	...	Hope Estheim (voice)
Rachel Robinson	...	Oerba Yun Fang (voice)
Laura Bailey	...	Serah Farron (voice)
Daniel Samonas	...	Maqui (voice)
Zach Hanks	...	Gadot / Cavalry soldier / Radio Soldier / Male Civilians (voice)
Anndi McAfee	...	Lebreau (voice)
Jeff Fischer	...	Yuj (voice)
Mary Elizabeth McGlynn	...	Nora Estheim (voice)
André Sogliuzzo	...	Bartholomew Estheim (voice)
Connor Villard	...	Dajh Katzroy (voice)
Jon Curry	...	Yaag Rosch (voice)

Storyline

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Plot Keywords:

torture | machinery | grenade | summoner | crystalized body | 

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Taglines:

The battle within begins.

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Drama | Fantasy | Mystery | Sci-Fi

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Certificate:

T

Details

Official Sites:

Square Enix

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Release Date:

9 March 2010 (USA)

Also Known As:

Final Fantasy 13

Company Credits

Production Co:

Square Enix Company

Technical Specs

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital (all versions) DTS (PlayStation 3 version)

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

This is the first Final Fantasy main video game series in which Nobuo Uematsu is not involved.

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Goofs

During battle sequences, Snow's trench coat has artwork on the back; however, in the field, there's nothing there. These designs serve as Snow's equipable "weapon" as the design changes as the player equips new weapons. Equipped weapons appear in battle and do not appear in the field for any of the characters.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Oerba Dia Vanille: [narrating] The thirteen days after we awoke were the beginning of the end.

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Connections

Follows Final Fantasy II (1988)

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Soundtracks

"My Hands"
From the album "Echo"
Used courtesy of J Records/Syco Music
Vocalist: Leona Lewis
Lyricsts: Arnthor Birgisson and Ina Wroldsen
Composers: Arnthor Birgisson and Ina Wroldsen
Producer: Arnthor Birgisson
Mixing Engineer: Manny Marroquin
Assistant Mixing Engineers: Christian Plata and Erik Madrid
Recording Engineers: Rich Cooper, Seth Waldmann, and Neil Tucker
Recording and Mixing Studios: British Grove Studios, London; Conway Studios, Los Angeles; Dean Street Studios,
London; Metropolis Studios, London; The Vault, Sweden; Mixed at Larrabee Sound Studio, North Hollywood

User Reviews

Excellent Game, but . . .

The Game opens with a bang – a bang that lasts for 20-25 hours. The characters are some of the most believable, likable, fun, and personally identifiable to date. At this point in the game, I thought for sure that this was going to dethrone Final Fantasy X as my favorite Final Fantasy ever. Unfortunately, the game sort of became lost in itself and failed to hold its high standard to the end.

The Positives: True to form, Final Fantasy XIII boasts fantastic graphics, cinematics, and cutscenses. In fact, they are likely the best visuals to date for any video game period. In addition, FFXIII comes with some wonderful orchestral pieces and all around excellent soundtrack. The six protagonists are for the most part lovable, real people and Final Fantasy XIII makes you feel their joy, pain, and anger. This is only increased by the high quality of voice acting.

The Negatives: There is little that I would classify as purely negative, however, there are a number of facets to the game which leave something to be desired. I will refer to these as the In-Betweens. (The only true negative that I found highly frustrating was that player control of the camera was frustratingly slow and uncontrollable while running.)

The In-Betweens: The story starts out really strong. Unfortunately, the plot becomes highly convoluted later on to the point where I wasn't even sure what was happening. The game does include a play-by-play journal that documents plot events. This helps when confused, but a person shouldn't have to keep reading these entries to find out what just happened. Probably the largest controversial aspect of this game is the super linear adventure. There are almost no areas to explore, no side-quests, and no way to even go the wrong way, because this game is more linear than any game of this scale by far. On one hand, this keeps the plot moving along at a nice clip, and I found that it made the first 20 hours or so a lot of fun and full of action, cutscenes, and awesome battles. However, at the same time, the lack of freedom feels unnecessarily constraining and strays from the Final Fantasy norm. The battle system is certainly different and interesting. It is fun, especially when first learning its intricacies and then learning to master it. Items are few and far-between. Unlike all of the previous final fantasy entries, there are only a very limited number of items. MP is gone. There is no cost for using magic. This sort of makes sense in the scope of the game, but it feels strange playing a Final Fantasy game without MP, ethers, and the like. The leveling system is similar to the sphere grid of Final Fantasy X, although this grid is artificially limited by plot events, which puts a reasonable cap on leveling ahead of where you are in the game.

Conclusion: Unmatched visuals, lovable characters, a reasonable difficulty level, and a challenging battle system give the game a good feel and plenty to really enjoy. Unfortunately, a few aspects prevent this very good game from being legendary.