Final Fantasy XIII Review for PS3 - Part 5

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You can hardly see a screenshot or video of this game and not appreciate the attention that was paid to how nice this game looks. It's arguably the best looking game to come out for the PS3 to date. Because of this, I feel it's fair to be appropriately harsh on the aspect of the game where I have one of my few criticisms. The environments and backgrounds while beautiful seem sometimes a bit sparse and not always up to the quality of the character models or of other levels. Chapter 5 in particular has a beautiful but repetitive level design which is hard to excuse when the level maps are as simple as they are. Pains should have been taken to make the backgrounds varied and interesting at every opportunity. That aside, everything else is top notch and genuinely impressive.

I'm far from a connoisseur of game soundtracks but the music in Final Fantasy XIII jumps out and stands in the spotlight tine after time in this game. The crowning achievement of Final Fantasy XIII however, has to be how effectively the character models are used to convey emotional and deliver powerful performances during cut-scenes. The level of detail and emotion in the faces is so effective you forget to be impressed. At one point during an in-game scene I watched as one of the characters lashed out angrily and I thought "Finally, this cold b***h shows some emotion." It made me realize that I'd been so fooled by the performance of these virtual actors that this character seemed like a cold, unfeeling woman, more than a 3D character in a video game. The facial expressions are so well done that you don't even question the humanity of the characters.

If Square Enix made a list of everything that could have been improved in FFXIII over FFXII, then poorly developed characters and whiney, pretty-boy, protagonists may have been at the top of the list. The male lead character, Snow is loud, cocky, and confrontational; more tough guy than pretty boy. He's a bad-ass albeit goofy hero-type fighting for love and justice. As the counterpart to Snow you have Hope, kind of a younger version of the whiny pretty-boy normally cast as the hero of Final Fantasy. However, in Hope's case there are reasons for his angst and immaturity. The events of the beginning of the game leave him vulnerable, angry, and confused. He's only 14 years old, and as the story unfolds you empathize with him whether or not you agree with him.

Continue to,
Final Fantasy XIII Review for PS3 - Part 6

Return to, Final Fantasy XIII Review for PS3 - Part 1

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