Planet Sillicon

Final Fantasy XIII

By blog on Sep. 10, 2009.

The game is set to ship to our shores mid next year, but that’s a while off, and for the moment, I can talk about impressions about the game so far.

The storyline is set around the expulsion of a race, called the fal’Cie, by humans, from a floating paradise like city called Cocoon. Originally the fal’Cie created Cocoon for humans, but thirteen centuries later, humans are scared of the fal’Cie, because some of them can become l’Cie, which are people with special destinies, which if they don’t fulfil, become Cie Corpses, which are big scary monsters. The humans are trying to force the fal’Cie to move back to the surface of the planet, called Pulse, which has strange effects on people and the governing body of Cocoon, the Theocratic Sanctum, have a staunch quarantine that anyone who’s been to the surface of Pulse can’t get back into Cocoon.

The story centres around a few characters, which all happen to become l’Cie, even though they didn’t want that to happen, and their fight against the army, called PSICOM, to stop them purging Cocoon of the fal’Cie.

The story line is intriguing, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it plays out. There is a demo and a couple of trailers available to watch here on IGN, which show the game to be just amazing. The most impressive visuals on an RPG yet, in my opinion, and the transition between cut-scene and in-game is startlingly similar.

It’s nice to see the good ol’ Eidolons back, with Odin, Shiva, Ifrit, and Carbuncle, and apparently, not only their respective summoning scenes are amazing, but you can also combine your character with their Eidolon to get some form of… transportation that can do damage during battles. Odin becomes a horse like creature that his summoner, Lightning, can ride, whilst Shiva is actually summoned in the form of two sisters, Nix and Styria, and they turn into a motorcycle that their summoner, Snow, can ride. Carbuncle is summoned by Vanille, and he turns into a disc, and Ifrit, who is summoned by Sazh, turns into a hotrod racing car.

I really can’t wait to get my hands on this game, do yourself a favour and check out those videos on IGN.