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Here’s a dirty gamer secret of mine: The last Final Fantasy I played was Final Fantasy 7. On the PS1. All the way back in 1997.
I could give all sorts of reasons why that’s the case — I stopped gaming when I went to college in 2000, my interests when I started up again leaned toward the Grand Theft Autos and Icos of the world, etc. — but the cold truth of it is I find Japanese role-playing games dull. I jump into them wholeheartedly, but the grind grates on me fast. I lose patience, I lose interest, and then the game ends up shoved unceremoniously into the bowels of my game collection. Watching spiky-haired kids save the world just isn’t my scene.
But the Final Fantasy games have always been different. A new Final Fantasy release represents a Big Event for the video game industry as a whole in addition to a milestone for the JRPG genre, and if any game is going to bring me into the JRPG fold, it’ll be one of those. So when offered a chance to check out the international version of Final Fantasy 13 — due out March 9 — I couldn’t resist the siren call. Maybe this one would be different. Maybe it would win over my jaded heart.
My demo took place during the second half of the game, on the planet Pulse. With no real story objectives to complete, I spent my time running around fighting bad guys. And Pulse contains bad guys aplenty. They litter the lush landscape — massive tusked dinosaur-like creatures lumbering in the distance, pack of tiger-like beasts prowling at your periphery, wicked winged animals hovering above you. You can choose to engage them or not; battles don’t trigger until you’ve stayed within range for a few seconds, so the risk of accidental battles is slim.
The battles themselves initially seem overwhelming, as if Square-Enix decided to pop a few Adderall before designing them. Multiple progress bars shrink and extend, myriad numbers flash on the screen (hit points are beefed up for the game, by the way — most hits I landed took off points in the hundreds, if not thousands), and UI elements threaten to block the action entirely. Thankfully, you only directly control one of your three party members — and even then you can simply select “Auto-Battle” and let the AI determine the best moves.
This sounds hands-off to the point of tedium, but the real strategy comes in setting up your Paradigms. You can configure up to six sets of Paradigms for your three players, which determine the move set open to you and the behavior of your AI partners. For each Paradigm, you select the role each character should assume. For example, you can create one Paradigm with one character as a medic, another as a buffer, and a third providing ranged attacks. Another Paradigm may sport three melee roles for all-out blitzes. You can switch between Paradigms on the fly while in combat, so battles become more about smartly selecting Paradigms than about micromanaging each party member.
But the most revolutionary part of combat occurs when you die. Instead of throwing you back to the beginning of a dungeon or warping you to a save point from 45 minutes ago, you restart directly in front of the enemy you just encountered, your health fully recovered. In fact, your health is restored if you win a battle, too. What happens in battle, stays in battle.
That, coupled with the fact that the first half of the game — which takes place in the city of Cocoon — travels along a linear path, means that battles rely on strategy instead of brute force. Grinding isn’t necessary if you play it smart.
So is this new battle system enough to bring me into the JRPG fold? I know well enough not to trust a vertical slice of gameplay — especially one cut from latter part of the game, with my characters leveled up and my Paradigms pre-set — but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed my brief experience with Final Fantasy 13. I’m ready to give the game — and the genre — a chance.