I beat Final Fantasy XIII over the weekend. Mmmm... where do I begin with this one? My feelings are pretty ambiguous because its good points are really good and its bad points are really bad. Well, I guess I'll address each aspect.

I guess we can begin with what's important with an RPG, the plot. There are pre-programmed semi-gods who can brand people and give them a mission. A person is fucked once this happens: If they don't complete this mission, they turn into a horrible monster. If they do, they become a crystal and for all intents and purposes are dead. I think it's an interesting premise because it shows how people deal with this bad stroke of luck: how some crumble, some overcome it, and some face it head on. All this is overlaid on paranoia of the unknown: The people of the homeland are terrified of the outside and anything that may contaminate their world.

Still, I'm not happy on what the party eventually decided on. The characters' mission was to destroy the world, and to do this they need to kill one semi-god named Orphan. They made a conscious decision not to do this, but I don't think they really address this well enough. At one moment one of the characters flips out and says, "But we'll turn into monsters then." However the rest just say something along the lines of, "We're all in this together. We'll figure out a way." That doesn't really solve anything. Then when they hear part of the army is attacking Orphan, they decide to intercept them. You'd think once the characters have neutralized the army threat, they would retreat. But no, they proceed to Orphan and kill it. That is the complete opposite of what they intended. What the hell were they thinking?

Moving onto the characters. Final Fantasy XIII does this both well and horribly. A lot of the game is centered around character development. You become intimately aware of their thought patterns, their mannerisms, and what drives them. This is where the game shines. I applaud whoever wrote the script because each person is fleshed out really well. Unfortunately if the game is centered around the characters, that means I better like them and I fucking hated half of my party. That means 50% of the time when a cutscene popped up, I would think, "Oh Jesus Christ, not this fucker." That's not an enjoyable experience.

Okay, now moving onto gameplay. The battle system is an overclocked ATB. It's so fast that it's impossible to control everyone and you have two AIs. Their competency actually impressed me and about 85% of the time they did what I would've directed them to do. My only gripe is when they added buffs; sometimes it wasn't in the order I would've liked (e.g., cast shell first instead of protect). This game is very controlling and demands everything be done a certain way, so fighting is basically trying to figure out what the game wants you to do. Use magic first? Debuff first? If you don't do it in the right order, oftentimes you'll get a poor score or even die. And you will die quite a bit. Also, if you're a defensive player, you will have a difficult time. You need an aggressive playing style if you wish to succeed. My only real beef with the battle system is if the character you're controlling dies, it's game over. Everyone else could be fine and it doesn't matter. I don't know why we can't just pick another character to control like in Final Fantasy XII.

Outside of battle, it was very monotonous. I heard from other people that there were no towns in this game, and I thought that was terrible. And I was right. See, towns give variety to the experience. You are literally running forward for the entire game (giant field in Pulse notwithstanding), getting into battles, and seeing cutscenes. It gets boring pretty quickly. Towns are what alleviate that tedium a bit and give a goal: "Okay, I have to cross this mountain. Once I do, I can reach the next town and there'll be more storyline, things to buy, and sidequests." Without that you have, "Okay, I'll just walk forward." I know they're on the run here, but there are plenty of games with a similar situation. In Final Fantasy VII Shinra, which is more or less a world government, is after you. In Final Fantasy VI you're fleeing from the Empire. In Tales of Symphonia you were trying to keep under the radar from the king of Tethe'alla. You can still create a balance of sorts without them constantly running.

In terms of graphics, this is one of the best games out there. It's stunningly beautiful everywhere. Squareenix did not hold back trying to make everything as detailed and pretty as possible. I can't think of any complaints in that aspect.

Music is... okay. It's not bad, but there aren't many tracks I would listen on its own. It's not as generic as Final Fantasy XII or Grandia III, but I've seen better out there. In terms of technical sound though, it's done quite well. You can hear the strings and voices nicely.

I don't know if I can recommend Final Fantasy XIII or not. It's one of those games I can sense you're going to really love it or really hate it. It depends what you want from a game because either Final Fantasy XIII did it exceptionally well or exceptionally poorly.

To people who have played: Can we talk about Hope for a bit? Everyone gets their eidolons when they feel deep despair. Lightning felt the hopelessness of facing Eden all by herself and her sudden reversal of fate. Snow thought the woman he loved was gone forever. Sazh lost his son and reason for living. The secret Vanille was keeping suddenly was revealed. Fang believed she couldn't protect Vanille. Hope got hit in the head with a fucking coconut. What the hell was that about? He got hit in the head with a coconut! I could understand if it was in relation to losing his mother, failing to kill Snow, or something to do with his dad, but this happens after he resolves all of that. He gets hit in the head with a coconut, suddenly loses all desire to move on, and the eidolon appears. What the fuck is that? See, this is why I hate this kid.