Final Fantasy XIII Import Impressions: First Look

My first impression of Final Fantasy XIII as I followed my characters through possibly the most breath taking scenery imaginable was of course sheer awe.

I’m not gushing for Final Fantasy fandom’s sake either; the quality of this game's visuals is nothing short of amazing. Our lower resolution video files don't do the game justice, but having sat in front of a nice big HDTV I can say that everything is crisp, clean and very detailed. The cut-scenes are intense, action packed and very nicely engineered.

Would we be satisfied with anything less from a major Final Fantasy release on the PS3, the same PS3 that Sony touts is packed full of the latest technology? I would think not. Though, pretty scenery and hi-tech graphics isn’t all we want in a modern day Final Fantasy, we want decent stories to sustain our short attention spans.

The early story tends to get a little too bogged down with in-party fighting but slowly develops as each character’s intertwining stories are revealed and their goals as L’cie are explained.

As a first impression, it's really too early to comment on the story in full, but I will say that I may just be enamored with the story so far because of my love of all things sci-fi, but this game truly mixes the fantasy and sci-fi genres beautifully. Let’s hope the wheels don’t fall off this wagon. 

Check out the video below for a sneak peek of some in-game footage. The English version of this game will be released in March simultaneously for PAL and NTSC regions if all goes to Square-Enix’s plan of attack, but if you can’t wait, various websites will ship you a Japanese language version of FFXIII. I would recommend a decent grasp of the Japanese language though (both reading and listening).

Stay tuned for our detailed battle gameplay thoughts tomorrow and a full review very soon!