After enjoying the open world experience Final Fantasy XII brought to the series, I was thoroughly excited about Final Fantasy XIII. The CG trailers that showed a futuristic world kept me wanting to get this game the minute it launched. I must say that after playing for roughly five hours so far, I am not blown away. I was expecting a lot more than what Square-Enix has created in Final Fantasy 13 thus far, and after hearing that the first 25-30 hours is like this I am very disheartened.

I will say this, Final Fantasy 13 is a beautiful game. I’m not surprised though, since Final Fantasy 12 looked great on the PS2 as well. So on the technical side of the game I am pleased with what Square-Enix has accomplished. The voice acting is cool, although most of the time I want to take a nap during the conversations. Whoever named the characters really needs to get fired though. I mean who names a young boy “Hope”? Not to mention the two main characters are named off of weather events; Snow and Lightning(seriously?) And don’t get me started with the only African-American character in the game that has a tweetie bird in his afro. Cliché much, Square-Enix? At least he has the coolest name of the bunch; Sazh. The only name I can tolerate is Vanille, maybe because every time I see it I want ice cream…

The combat so far is decent. I think Square-Enix is babysitting the player way too much during the beginning. I understand the need to want to bring in new players to the genre, but you can literally let the game fight for you by hitting A over and over. If it weren’t for Paradigm Shifts, I would avoid combat altogether. I understand that if I can bare this initial portion of the game that it opens up, but for 30 hours? Did I mention that you only control one character at a time? I really despise that!

Will I continue playing Final Fantasy XIII? Yes, because it’s Final Fantasy. The story does have me hooked slightly, so if anything I will play through just to see how it ends. Even if I’m watching a movie at the theater and it has me falling asleep, I always try to see how it ends. Looking back at my three favorite Final Fantasy titles(7, 10 and 12), the 13th in the series just isn’t as epic as it should be so far. Maybe after I get through the initial stage things will change.

Stay tuned while I trek through Final Fantasy XIII to give a full review.