Final Fantasy XIII TGS Impressions

While this article has followed many others, the truth of the matter is that Final Fantasy XIII was at the very top of my list of titles to play at TGS. I raced to the Square Enix booth on the first press day of the show, determined to get a hold of the biggest RPG of this year in Japan and arguably one of the biggest in the West in 2010 early, avoiding the queues.

I ended up regretting this for two reasons: first, the FF13 demo left me positively salivating for more, and second, by the end of the day the long queues had disappeared and just about any member of the press could meander up and have a go, so my early rushing was wasted.

On the bright side this gave me two chances to play the demo and fully get to grips with the system of FF13 - and then pass my impressions onto you, the RPGSite readers.

The demo was split into two distinct sections, with one playable from the perspective of lead heroine Lightning and one from the perspective of the second most senior cast member, Snow.

We'll get the obvious out of the way - if you've seen the new trailer or even any of the old ones, you'll know that FF13 is a damn pretty game. While there have been worries about lower polygon models and lower quality textures - and while some of these changes are definitely still present, FF13 has been in no way downgraded, as Yoshinori Kitase told us at GamesCom.

It's true that Lightning's gameplay model has lower-quality textures on her clothing than has been seen in certain screenshots in the past, but when it's mixed in amongst the clean, smooth edges of the environment and wonderfully designed backgrounds these complaints will soon melt away.

As we originally predicted here on RPGSite, changes have been made to FF13 for sure - but not for the sake of the Xbox 360 development, but for the overall quality of the game. I for one would rather have stunning backgrounds and environments and slightly less detailed character models rather than poor environments with Advent Children quality models. 

Think of it as a trade-off for better overall visuals, not a downgrade - the environments are positively stunning, after all. Even then, if lower quality models in gameplay bothers you, cutscenes are a different story, seemingly using the super high-quality models that were used for early screens of the game.

With the game seemingly utilizing two different sets of models - a lower quality set for gameplay and a high-quality 'actor' for FMV, FMVs look absolutely stunning, and really do appear to push the barrier of what can be done with console technology.

The trailer - which I'll embed at the bottom of the article - speaks for itself, but it's worth saying that while there's one or two rough edges or strange-looking areas of FF13's cutscene design, it's wonderfully cinematic and certain elements - like the eyes of characters - are truly stunning.

Everything is lip-synced to Japanese, but don't expect the game's cinematic flair to be ruined by this - the Western release will come complete with redone lip sync to the English dialogue track. It seems many lessons Square Enix learned from Advent Children in the area of cinematic direction have been applied to the storyline cutscenes of FF13 with fantastic results.

All this so far has been gushing praise, but I do want to note that there are elements of FF13's graphics that I've found somewhat disheartening. In particular everything in FF13's game world looks so clean, smooth and perfect that the entire world feels a bit unused and sterile - almost the opposite of FF12's Rabanastre, which felt like a lived-in, bustling city.

My complaints here are based purely on what's been seen so far, but FF13's world does feel a little too perfect - something that I hope is remedied by as-yet unseen locations. It's worth bearing in mind that we haven't even seen a traditional FF 'town' yet, and there's bound to be one of those in the game - there are lots we haven't yet seen.

The clean, perfect look of FF13's locations so far is great for a stoic nation with sci-fi technology, but I hope that the rest of the FF13 world feels a little more 'real.'

In terms of the world design, the areas I was treated to playing at TGS felt linear in nature, with some branching paths to help mix things up. Lightning's demo area showcased an impressive background vista, hinting at a full and exciting world beyond those linear borders - I hope we get to experience more of it than pretty-looking but linear areas in the final game.

There are some pretty cool touches in the presentation of the exploration, an area usually neglected in RPGs in favor of battles. Members of your party will spout lines of dialogue as they walk around, and even opening the menu yields a surprise in the form of animations when browsing through statistics and spells.

Inside battle FF13 should feel sufficiently similar to fans of the series, once again returning to the time-based ATB system that's been a series staple since FF4. FF13 has clearly been built around speed, trying to create high-speed, action-packed battles that feel like an action game when played and look like Advent Children when looked at.

To an extent, Square Enix has succeeded. The game looks pretty dynamic, but due to the speed and need to actually control the action, impressive camera angle changes ala Advent Children are near-impossible. The game does succeed in being fast, though, rewarding those who can handle executing orders in a timely fashion.

The streamlined menus help this, too - everything was remarkably easy to pick up, especially considering that FF13 has some rather daunting looking menus at a first glance. Some are going to find this battle system really hard to adjust to, while others are going to understand it explicitly after one or two battles.

One all-new battle system of note is the recently detailed 'driving mode' for summons. All summons can be driven, with Shiva now famously transforming into a motorbike and Odin's horse taking precedent over the god himself. Driving mode encourages combos, transforming energy gained from performing them into powerful attacks that'll devastate even larger enemies.

This interesting new gameplay mechanic makes you feel quite powerful, but it's also lumbered with transformation animations that could become tiring after hours of gameplay - we'll simply have to wait and see.

Everything is beautifully animated, so even if you are forced to stare at Shiva's transformation 100 times over the course of the game it won't be too painful. Square seemed to learn the 'unskippable summons' lesson with FF8, so I imagine in the final game these will be skippable.

Another new addition for FF13 is that of rankings, which will do exactly what you'd imagine - rank your battle performance out of five stars.

I understand that rankings will have an effect on your item drops at the end of battle, too - those who get low star ratings will find themselves receiving pity items such as potions, while those who perform well will get rare item drops.

Despite how different it is, it without a doubt does feel like Final Fantasy, and that's all that matters in the end - it's definitely an FF game, and within the battles feels far more Final Fantasy than FF12 did.

All the elements of FF13 seem to add up to something truly impressive - stunning visuals, fun battles and a storyline that, judging by the trailer, has some of the most intense and deep character interactions ever in the series.

There are some worries for me - for one the linearity, coupled with concerns about the game's overall clean design - but all these are far outweighed by the most important thing - it's definitely Final Fantasy, and it's definitely fun.

We'll bring you more on FF13 including our import review in the coming months, so stick with us via our Twitter or our RSS Feed linked below.

Note: This Article was Published by Alex Donaldson on behalf of John Davison.