Final Fantasy XIII 360 impressions

I had the fun of going to X10 last week, which, as well as debuting Fable III and Halo Reach to the journalism collective, had the 360 version of Final Fantasy XIII on display. I had a go.

First of all, it looks incredible. Regardless of what you may have heard about the differences between versions in this respect, anyone who picks up Final Fantasy XIII will be knocked out by the quality of the graphics, provided they’re not looking for tiny shortfalls between versions with fanboy-esque determination and a magnifying glass.

Still, enough of that. The game is great fun, though the demo Square Enix had on display is a bit overwhelming – set around 18 hours in, the mechanics of the Paradigm Shift feature, essentially a pre-loaded set of jobs for your party that can be switched on the fly, went completely over my head. Luckily, a member of the publisher’s staff politely explained how it works, and battles became a cinch.

This demo was evidently set at an open point in the story. You might have read about FFXIII being one long corridor, but around 20 hours in that stops being the case, and players are free to choose sidequests.

The art direction is tremendous, the music reminds me of Uematsu’s best work on earlier titles in the series and it’s just a lot of fun. For fans that missed the pace of the Active Time Battle system in the slower FFXII, this will induce nothing but a pleasant sense of nostalgia.

Final Fantasy XIII is out on March 9th.