This issue will be my de-facto review of Final Fantasy XIII after five hours of gameplay.
To start with, since I know this is on everyone's minds - yes, the game is linear. All of the fields/dungeons I've been through so far have been straight shots, save the occasional small branch for either a save point, an item box, an enemy, or a combination of the three. More than that, much of the featured character development and battle features take time to reveal themselves. Thusly, if you are the type who plays Final Fantasy for gameplay alone, you will not like Final Fantasy XIII.
I suppose it's safe to buy XIII if you enjoyed X, because this game shares the same spirit, in that where gameplay lacks, the sheer overblow combination of enthralling story, graphics, and music picks up the slack and makes this game worth it.
Just as Final Fantasy X was the shining glory of the PS2 in terms of the potential of the hardware, so too does Final Fantasy XIII push the PS3 to its full ability. The game is beautiful. Every area, every tunnel, every enemy you fight, are all designed beautifully. Thus, graphixwhores/anyone who plays on HDMI will get the full experience.
Players like me who value the story over all else will get a kick out of the game. Now follow me on this, because it took a long time for me to understand this myself. Cocoon is the world the game starts out, which is a medieval-futuristic society (a la FFXII) maintained and powered by some sort of godly biomechanical deities known as fal'Cie. These fal'Cie actually power all of Cocoon as well as offer the Pope - I mean Primarch - advice on governmental decisions for the tens of millions of Cocoon citizens. Meanwhile, Cocoon itself is actually some sort of orbiting moon-type deal above Pulse, the world below, which I would equate as the Earth to Cocoon's moon-in-orbit-inside-the-atmosphere. Pulse is said to be Hell to the people of Coccoon, filled with all sorts of hellish terrors. Thus the Cocoon citizens fear Pulse to such an extent, that if even a whiff of any kind of Pulse elements, be it technology or life, were to be found inside Cocoon, it would be immediately "purged." And thus the story begins with Lightning saving a bunch of Purge deportees while attempting to save her sister Serah. I won't spoil much, but through the events of the first two hours of the game, Lightning, Sazh, Snow, Hope, and Vanille all convene before a fal'Cie from Purge. This is baaaad juju for Cocoon, as these rogue fal'Cie have a habit of recruiting humans into their personal taskmen. These "chosen/cursed" are called the l'Cie. With extremely vague instructions, the fal'Cie give each l'Cie a Focus - a life-sworn quest - to complete. It could be something as simple as "slay this," or "tell her that," or something as monumental as "blow up all of Cocoon." Now here's where the "cursed" thing comes in. Complete your Focus, and a l'Cie is transformed into crystal and "given eternal life." Fail, and become Cie'th, basically unholy zombies of varying shapes and sizes. So, tasked with a mission they have trouble interpreting, Lightning and co set out, branded as pariahs by their homeland, Cocoon, armed with the magic of the l'Cie, the best of which includes their own personal Eidolon, a summon creature who can transform into a vehicle (Gestalt Mode). So far the best character-related plot is Snow Villiers'. He's pretty much Seifer with some morals. His motivation is rescuing his fiancée, a storyline that really pulls in those who still have faith in human love, as scarce as that type of person may be among those wont to play this game.
See? That story takes a LOT of setting up. I'm not sure where it's going from here, but that's all I can really cover without spoiling too much.
Now, what positive aspects of the gameplay system are there? First off, it's an active system; time is ever-flowing. There doesn't seem to be any Wait function as in previous games, outside of the Pause button. Instead of choosing one attack once the meter is full, this system lets you decide on string of attacks. Either fill up your queue, and they all set off once the meter fills, or cut it off midway to execute only part of your queued string. I like this. Lots of freedom here. The encounters work inside instances, but enemy parties are visible as you travel, so with the right crowddodging skill you can avoid whoever you want to. The class system is certainly new and interesting as well. I'll start off by saying that only one class has the "Attack" command. Stay with me. The six classes are -
Commando - Attackers. Physical attacks of varying types. Key for causing damage.
Ravager - essentially mages. Their role is to build up an enemy's chain meter, which when filled, causes enemies to Stagger, multiplying all damage dealt for some time.
Sentinel - defense specialists. They keep everyone safe by having high-ass defense and provoking everyone.
Synergist - buff mages. That's about all.
Saboteur - debuffers. These are kind of necessary for boss fights, trust me.
Medic - if this needs explaining, you are stupid. :P
And on these six classes - er, Roles - we have the Paradigm System, which lets you macro combinations of each of these six classes, set a default, and switch between any of six macros at ANY moment in battle, allowing for lots of experimentation in combat, making sure you're covered in all scenarios and contingencies. Send out a threesome of offense roles to beatdown the enemy, but uh oh, your health's getting low - switch to a Paradigm with a Medic; the two will keep attacking while your Medic keeps you alive. Those enemy attacks getting annoying? Switch to a Sentinel, Medic, and Saboteur/Synergist paradigm, ensuring you're kept totally safe while the battle slowly becomes a trifling task. It's got lots of room for play and is truly where the battle system shines.
Supplementing these classes is XIII's "Level Up System," which also seems to have been ripped from X and improved upon. The Crystarium System resembles the Sphere Grid noticeably. Each character's crystal branches out for each Class they have access to. Abilities they learn on each branch are functions that class can use, while stat-boosting spheres/crystals on each branch are character-global and are permanent increases no matter what class is being used. Instead of EXP or Sphere Points or w/e, there's Crystogen Points. It takes one or two hundred or so to move to each crystal, and inactive characters in the party gain them equally.
Anyways, this is all I can offer after five hours of gameplay.
A small teaser of the opening sequence for Blue Knight Chronicles, Book Two - XK: Exiled Karma. This is just to prove that I haven't forgotten about my cast members X and Kay, and work is progressing forward.
A few weeks ago, Litrid got a new DSlite to replace the busted piece of crap he's been using for years, which he inherited from me after the hinge broke. A sudden idea occured - "Let's smash the old one." Thus, our new series - JUST 'CUZ. Everyone has random urges to do stupid yet hilarious crap. This show is what happens when we film those. Expect some fun stuff.
Two new videos are uploaded - a new GMV, Onion Knight Luneth, and Round 2 of Ichida VS Litrid, Burnout Revenge on the 360. Both good fun. More to come.
This weekend I will be sectioning off entirely to work on voice and IXI! projects. Not filming them, producing and uploading. I've filmed enough crap to fill up the weekend. Expect to see at least some of this list uploaded by Monday - 
DO WANT. DO WANT! 
Zombie computer! A zomputer! Good God. Let's see how this turns out. :P
Goddammit, RELEASE THIS OVER HERE ALREADY.
We are paying attention to the polls, so LBP will be the next Co-Op CHAOS episode. Since nobody can decide on a game for VS, the first one will be a short episode - Avatar Showdown. We'll be filming this weekend.
.hack//JUDGEMENT 3 is posted.
