Game Scene Investigation: Final Fantasy XIII

If there’s one triple-A game that’s sure to shift a few PS3s, it’s Square-Enix’s upcoming RPG Final Fantasy XIII. Despite the insane interest in the title, little is known about the game’s story, its characters and the battle system. So we here at VideoGamer.com thought we’d let Game Scene Investigation loose on FFXIII, pouring through everything that’s known about the game and offering up our own verdict on how it’s shaping up.

A Tale of two cities – the story

Here’s what we know: FFXIII is actually part of a three-game series called Fabula Nova Crystallis (Latin for The New Tale of the Crystal). As with every true FF sequel, XIII has a completely new game world, divided up into the rich kids who live in the posh mechanical sky city, called Cocoon, and the downtrodden poverty-stricken peasants who live on the ground, called Pulse – your classic upper/lower class conflict set up. Cue an invasion of Cocoon by the people of Pulse, and the beginning of the game.

It’s not just stale bread and the prospect of busking for a living that’s got those on the ground baying for blood. From what we can gather, Cocoon’s “holy” government is using sentient crystals with the power to create machines and control Pulse’s inhabitants to work against their will. And that’s not cool. Neither is a quarantine and deportation of anyone who sympathises with Pulse. Hence the uprising – led by the only FFXIII character we know anything about – a rock-hard Cloud-esque woman codenamed Lightning.

There’s been mention of a split screen system for FFXIII, which will allow us to see different characters on screen all at the same time, 24 style. Details are sketchy, but rumours suggest it will be a technique used in cut-scenes to make the story-telling more dynamic. But we wonder if it could be introduced into the battle system somehow too…

So what do we think of FFXIII’s story? Well it’s classic FF, that’s for sure – featuring a rebel force going up against an evil ruling class in a pseudo-sci-fi setting. So we’ve got lots of guns from the future, flying ships, motorbikes and robots spliced with knights in shining armour style foot soldiers and sword fights – a kind of medieval tale with super advanced technology. We’ve seen it all before of course in almost every proper FF game, so there’s nothing in the story that indicates Square Enix has taken a fresh approach to storytelling. Is that a bad thing? Fans of the series will probably be happy, but we can’t help but feel a tinge of disappointment.

Lightning never strikes twice – The characters

Despite super-skilled heroin Lightning being the main focus of the few trailers and screens we have of FFXIII, that by no means she will be the game’s lead, and it doesn’t necessarily mean that will be her name when the game’s finished either. Giving us a female lead would certainly be a bold move by Square Enix – but in our eyes a refreshing one. In our opinion the developer hasn’t managed to surpass FFVII’s Cloud in terms of main man. Perhaps it’s time to mix things up a bit.

Lightning has a bad case of Jason Bourne-itis. She doesn’t know her real name nor anything about herself. We do know that she has been chosen by one of the crystals to lead the uprising, and, potentially, end the world, which is why everyone and their dog is after her.

From what we’ve seen, Lightning’s main weapon against the forces of Cocoon is a gun-like sword which can switch between the two modes depending on the situation. There’s nothing new here – gun swords has been one of the staples of the FF series throughout its history – we’re looking at you, Squall.

I quite like how Lightning is shaping up, although she looks like any other female FF character of recent years. We understand that the idea was to create a female version of Cloud, so she won’t be particularly feminine. Here’s hoping she has a backstory and personality of enough depth to rival FFVII’s great hero, too.

At the end of the trailer another character turns up on a bike like a knight in shining armour to save Lightning from being overwhelmed by Cocoon’s forces. We know absolutely zip about this guy – he could be another party member, an enemy, whatever. At first fans burst into flame at the thought that he might be Cloud from FFVII, but he’s not. Fans have dubbed him Mr. 33cm, on account of him being big enough to carry two guys and thus must have a boot size of 33cm, which is good enough for us for now.

Random access memory – The battle system

FF’s battle system has always been the killer for most gamers. Before the divisive FFXII came out, all the main single-player games used a turn-based system and random battles. While this proved, and still is, hugely popular with enough gamers to make the series massively popular, there was just as many who hated it for those two core game mechanics. Perhaps in response to this, Square Enix decided to move away from deliberate turn based combat and do away with the random battles for FFXII, instead incorporating an MMO aggro style system which meant you could avoid getting into scraps if you wanted to. And from what we know of FFXIII, it looks like Square Enix is going for a similar system.

The developer has said the combat in FFXIII will be as fast as an action game but will also allow you to input commands. Actions will continue to be initiated in a turn-based fashion, but time will continue to pass as you’re doing it, similar to recent iterations of the series. There will also be a new animation system so that fights look better choreographed – think the action sequences from not quite as good as we’d hoped cgi movie Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.

We can see from the trailer that you’ll be able to chain attacks, hopefully creating a bit more variety to the combat than in previous FF games. Mashing up the bad guys will be all about combinations, incorporating lots of different attacks into one fluid motion. So you might fancy a run and slash attack and mix it up with some fire, thunder or blizzard magic. Customisation, it appears, will be key to making the combat look and feel like you’re directing an action scene from Advent Children.

Like FFXII, it looks like you’ll be able to size up a fight before deciding whether or not to take it on. So you’ll also be able to approach battles in different ways, giving you an edge with good use of tactics for example. However, that doesn’t mean FFXIII will be an exact replica of FFXII. We know there will be a completely new way of getting into scraps, somewhere in between the completely random battle and completely non random battle extremes.

What we don’t know is how controlling your party will work. We don’t know if you’ll have something along the lines of the divisive Gambit system from FFXII, which allowed you to program actions into your party members, thus allowing you to sit back and enjoy the show, or if you’ll have to micro-manage everything yourself. It could be in fact that you’ll have no control over your party members. We’ll go out on a limb and say FFXIII won’t have something similar to the Gambit system, well we hope anyway, and instead will give up more control over the party. But this will entirely depend on how turn-based Square Enix decides to go with the game.

So what’s the verdict on FFXIII’s battle system? Some gamers have expressed their concern that it will be too much like directing a movie, little more than initiating pre-rendered attacks to chain CG movie sequences together. We can see the point here, but isn’t this what FF has always been about? Initiating commands and watching spectacular attacks unfold on screen? Personally I have reservations, but I’m cautiously optimistic that we’ll get a level of control over battles which will dynamically incorporate the environment. How about speeding into a battle on a bike, knocking down a few enemies with that, jumping off, killing a few others with a chain attack and then using the environment to customise your landing? That would be nice. Fingers crossed.

Crank that engine up – The graphics

We’ve heard a lot about the White Engine, which is being used to develop FFXIII. From what we’ve been told we can expect FFVII: Advent Children quality in-game graphics, but we’re not so sure about that. We were slightly concerned by Square Enix’s decision to license Epic’s Unreal Engine for its forthcoming current generation titles (will everything look like Gears if War eventually?). Why do that if the White Engine is so spectacular?

From what we’ve seen, FFXIII looks great, with gorgeous environments, detailed characters and some cool looking enemies. But we expect this from Square Enix. We might ask whether FFXIII looks any better than a HD version of FFXII. The FF games have always looked amazing – FFVII changed all the graphical rules. FFVIII, IX and X all had their moments, and FFXII was one of the best-looking games on the PS2 ever. Will FFXIII do enough in the graphics terms to really flex the PS3’s undoubted processing muscle? We certainly hope so.

The Summons

All we know for sure on the summoned monster side of things is that Shiva will be in the game – she’s in the trailer. But in an interesting twist it looks like the summoned monsters will be able to morph into other things – Shiva can clearly be seen morphing into a motorbike, and indeed Mr. 33cm enters the battle on Shiva in motorbike form. Here’s hoping you’ll be able to incorporate the summoned monsters while in their alternate form into the main combat and, possibly, travel.

Extending this, could Bahamut, a series veteran, turn into some kind of flying craft? How about Ifrit as some kind of car? The mind boggles.

So what’s the verdict on FFXIII? We’re sure it will set cash registers alight. And we’re doubly sure that many of you are holding off on buying a PS3 just for this game. Just don’t expect it any time soon. We doubt FFXIII will be coming to the UK till sometime in 2009. We’d like to think development, which was rumoured a while back to be hitting problems, will be given enough time to make the series’ debut on the PS3 a memorable one. It looks like a classic FF game, has all the story and character hallmarks of the series, and the combat looks like it could well help convince those who found FFXII’s combat irritating to return to the fold. Either way, much is still to be discovered. GSI will be keeping its eagle eye on this one.