Let’s not beat around the bush here, I am a video gamer.  I think I have been since kindergarten (maybe 1st grade) when my brother and I successfully got a Nintendo for Christmas.  I did kind of fall of the wagon after college and I moved to California and was trying to get my life in order.  Most of my junior high and high school years were spent playing through the Final Fantasy series mostly on my own but sometimes with my brother.  So this past fall when I saw that the newest game in the series, Final Fantasy XIII was coming out I decided I’d give it a try and get back into some serious gaming.  In order not to possibly bore y’all with all the likes/dislikes (no spoilers!), after about 30 hours of play, I’m ready to give it compared to the others in the series.  In comparison to how much I like it and how it fits into my new role as a mostly casual gamer I’d give it .  If you’d like to hear more check it out after the break.

Major differences from other games in the series is up first.  Now, I didn’t play FFXI because it was on-line with some sort of pay structure and I just wasn’t ready to get into FFXII, so I don’t know how they compare to that.  But in general there are several major differences.  The story for at least as far as I’ve played (chapter 9 out of 13) is that it’s seriously linear.  You don’t have the freedom to explore around the map at will as you do with the other games.  You have to play through the game to a point as they want you to, which I like right now because I feel like there’s progress.  Also, you have the lack of ability to choose your party until chapter 10 which is a big change as well.  Usually you get to pick the characters as you go through but here’s there is no choice.  I get kind of over it because one of the characters is seriously emo.  They also added lyrics to the Chocobo song (so many versions but all sound mostly like this with the melody, or all since game 2 through 12) which is horribly sad but they have a totally new composer for the game from the amazing Nobuo Uematsu (one of my favs is here with opening).  So far it’s a bummer that none of the music has stayed in my head after playing and I don’t have much of an urge to buy the CD as I have with the other games.  Also, there is a very sad lack of Moogles.  Let’s not even get started on the lack of the mass summons so far (also because that would involve spoilers), there may be more to come.  I probably should hate on the leveling of weapons and accessories but I’ve not done much with it, other than I my hate for having to ‘build them up’.

Things that are good include a return to the class system for characters.  You get three for each character to pick from at first and then you can expand later to 6 for each.  The linear-ness for the game also makes it much easier to pick up and play.  With earlier games I use to keep notebooks every time I stopped so that I could figure out where I was going when I came back for the next hours of play.  There’s also a ton more save points so I don’t have to spend an hour or so looking for one so I can go on with real life.  Let’s see, oh, there’s a Cid!  I’m so happy to see a Cid character around as there’s always been one in every game.  I did only get this for the PS3 (classic!) and the Blu-Ray and on HDTV looks so amazing that I spend time just looking around with the cameras and admiring the scenery.  So I will close with the opening credits of FFXIII for y’all to look and marvel at if you’ve made it this far.