Final Fantasy 13

Heyyyy :D

I think probably my most awaited game this year was ff13 and after the disappointment that was ff12 >.< , I was trying not to get my hopes up for anything spectacular. There were soo many things about the game that I'd heard before release that had made me cringe (e.g leona lewis doing the main song for the game and another new battle system) and this didn't help to get rid of the sinking feeling that this may be another disapointment. After listening to soo many fanboy rants about refusing to buy the game because of a song (seriously guys that is pathetic) I decided it surely can't be as bad and soo I opted to preorder the special edition ^^ and I don't regret it one bit:P I will admit it is very linear (and since I'm not yet on the third disc I can't comment on the entire game but third disc is meant to be more free roam with chocobos and side quests) but i love this game. The battle system is unusual for a ff and revolves around using more strategical thinking to defeat enemies. It took me a while to get used to this concept and as a result I died quite alot near the start:P but once you have the hang of it, it is a great system and requires the player to think more about what they are doing. Even the enemies that are weak sometimes require some more thought that just repeatedly hitting one attack button. The way it works-
you will have a party with 2 or 3 members
each of these members will have 2 or 3 classes
you arrange your party in a "paradigm" (a preset group of classes) that you can switch between in battle
e.g if you are using lightning hope and fang and want to go for an all out attack you use "relentless assault" which is lightning =commando hope=ravager fang= ravager (i think)
and if you need a character to be healed change to "diversity" which will make hope a med and soo on
Even some of the most ordinary enemies in the game can be extremly difficult unless you use the correct paradigm e.g in chapter 8 (i think) there are these creatures that look like motorbikes and they do an attack that can kill a member of your party in one hit. Now if that member is your team leader your fucked:P. So you have to use a character with the sentinel class (meaning they will taunt the enemy and take the bullet for you saving the party leader) and hopefully they will be safeguarded enough not to die. The bosses are normally not too difficult (the one i'm on atm is just plain epic but has an attack that can basically wipe out your entire team if you don't have them buffed) but it is the eidolon fights that cause the problem . I mean did they really have to make them such a pain to defeat. For one of the eidolons, i think it was lightnings, i was nearly throwing my controller through the screen¬¬ but they are epic creatures all the same so it's worth it. The characters in the game are fantastic even though their actions can sometime be very iritating it's easy to understand why they behave the way they do though . At first vanille seems like she may be able to knock yuffie off the thrown of ff character annoyance but then you fight with her and realise ...wait ..actually she isn't soo bad :P and as her story progresses her annoying points don't seem as obvious anymore. Hope may seem like the next emo in the series (the kid just lost his mum:( ) but he actually turns out to be really cool and is also the best med in the game. The rest of the characters are all blantently awesome (make it to the cutscene with snow and shiva in chapter 7 ...epic is an understatement) . The cutscenes *drool* are absolutely gorgeous. Amazing graphics and the enviroment and places are very nicely done:D . The storyline although a bit sorta WTF is actually very good and involves ALL the characters in the game a lot more so than the other games in the ff series and especially since you spend the first two discs with the characters seperated and the teams constantly changing you get a feel for what each individual can do and what the best combinations of characters are.Also the voice acting (for the english version ) is great and believe me this is important in a game >.< ....(last remanent >.< I put it on for five mins and turned it off because of the voice acting.) I thought the voices suited the characters particularly well :D and dispite what some pathetic weeaboo fanboys might say i think the english voices are actually waaayy more suited that the original japanese ones.
The soundtrack this time was not done by Nobou Uematsu *fanboys/girls die on the inside* but it is still good and although it may not live up to the epicness of some of the other scores in the series, there is still nothing i can really pick faults with in it.
Overall final fantasy 13 is an epic game and although I may be a tad biased being a final fantasy lover anyways but I'd definitely recommend this game to anyone who likes a good rpg.