Only a bit over three years after the launch of Final Fantasy XII Square Enix released a next-gen entry in the Final Fantasy franchise for both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 at the same time (in North America) with Final Fantasy XIII. Eight years after its release on Xbox 360, it was added to the backwards compatibility program for Xbox One with a higher resolution and better quality cutscenes on Xbox One X. This is a review of the Xbox One X version played on Xbox Series X.
“Hallway simulator”
One of the biggest criticisms of this game out there is how most of the game involves walking down hallways. This is true, and it is a major problem. There are a few areas that are exceptions, but they are just bigger, rather than having actual level design. Throughout the entire game you never have to do any kind of puzzle to continue. Though there are side paths you can easily explore most of them and they just involve taking extra time walking rather than solving any puzzle to get to them.
Considering how a large portion of the game involves walking, as is the case for most JRPGs, it is a pretty big problem that all of these sections offer essentially zero challenge. The game does have enemies walking around the environment rather than random encounters, but the system is not really fleshed out at all. Especially towards the end you are able to take some odd paths to avoid monsters that make it feel like this encounter system wasn’t tested very much.
“Cinematic gaming”
More than most games Final Fantasy XIII fits this description. The camera is very zoomed in and you are basically just walking between cutscenes for most of the game. Graphically the game is pretty much as good as you could possibly ask for, but that doesn’t really justify Square Enix taking this approach.
The issue with them taking this approach is that the story isn’t particularly great, yet the game is almost entirely focused on it. As far as JRPG party members go this game is far from impressive. None of the characters are very likable, and it seems like this was on purpose. They definitely succeeded at that, but the game isn’t really better for it. The story concept is interesting, though not very original. This would be okay if the story they made out of it was original or even just good, but that’s not really an accurate way to describe it. It’s mostly just weird and awkward, and not much happens overall. The English writing is far from great, but the voice acting is decent, at least.
Command Synergy Battle
…is the name of the battle system in Final Fantasy XIII. Like the previous few Final Fantasy battle systems before this, it is quite different to what came before. In this battle system you control one character and get to use abilities once the blue bar fills up far enough over time. Each character in your party has multiple classes they can choose from and you can make different class setups for each character in your party that you can switch between during battle.
For many hours at the start of the game the battle system is extremely simple and basically just requires you to press the A button repeatedly. Later on it gets better and stays interesting for a while. Some of the boss battles are pretty good, and not even just for this battle system. As the game gets to its end, though, it becomes clear that they didn’t have many ideas beyond the ones introduced when it starts to get good because it doesn’t really get better.
Not a perfect battle system…
One of the biggest issues with this battle system is that battles take way too long. Basic enemy encounters often take multiple minutes. When this is only broken up by more walking, it can be quite a chore to get through.
The positioning aspect of the battle system is also questionably executed. Where you characters stand makes a big difference in your battle performance, but you have essentially no control over it. Characters go wherever they want when they are not in the middle of attacking, and this often means crowding into the same place. A lot of boss battles use powerful AOE attacks, and this makes that frequently used mechanic a lot more annoying to deal with than it should be.
Another issue is the menu system. For some reason, they decided that you should have to wait for the menu animations after each button press before you can make another selection. Even though you will know what buttons you are going to press already, the game won’t let you press them until the animation has finished after every button press first. The amount of times you go through the battle menu makes this extremely tedious as you get further into the game. This is true of the other menus in the game, too.
Everything else
Masashi Hamauzu is the composer for the game. It is safe to say he is not the best JRPG composer out there, but he still did a respectable job with Final Fantasy XIII. A lot of the songs are pretty good and unique. The only real issue with the soundtrack is that the decisions about which songs go where was questionable in a few areas.
The CGI cutscenes in this game are extremely good. They look pretty much as good as you could possibly ask for, and this game came out over 12 years ago so that is quite the achievement. The improvement in these cutscenes and the higher resolution of the game with the Xbox One X enhancements is rather obvious.
Loading times and performance are pretty much as good as you could expect on Xbox Series X. Loading times are short enough to never be a source of annoyance when playing the game. The frame rate looks like it holds a steady 30FPS the entire time.
Should you play it?
Probably not. Unless you are a big fan of Final Fantasy or JRPGs you will probably not find much enjoyment here. Even if you are either or both of those you are still likely to be bored a lot of the time when playing this game. If you are looking for a great video game story you won’t find it here. If you are looking for an alternative style JRPG with unique combat and a high budget you might enjoy this game.
Overall the game is a 7.0 out of 10.
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