It’s all about the Paradigm Shift! Jam that left shoulder button
I, amongst hoards of other people, are currently playing Final Fantasy XIII. After 9 hours of gameplay, I decided to get a few things off my chest.
I don’t like how you can’t change your characters. In fact the freedom of team customisation that is akin to say FF 7 or 8 is almost completely removed. Why Squeenix why? I tell you why, because they replaced this with something called the Paradigm Shift. You will soon realise just how important this function is, and how you cannot progress through the game without it. One time, during a 2 minute battle I must have switched Paradigms about 8 times; each Paradigm in the deck comprises of different tactical stances and roles for each team member. Your team works cohesively and dynamically depending on the situation. I like it, in fact after awhile I started to like it a lot. But walking into the next battle with full health is a bit weird, and I think takes away some of the real mechanics from the game. The left shoulder becomes a bit overused though. My index finger is testament to that.
The graphics are gorgeous, it’s so lush and lovely I just want to jump right in there. But everything seems to be on rails, rather like the old fashioned gun-toting Time Crisis. It does take the fun out of exploring, I am hoping that later on it will open up a bit more. I presume it will be, as you can catch a Chocobo to help you travel around. I encountered my first summon on Monday, or Eidolans. Shiva is a sister pair, which transforms into a rather awesome bike. It’s cooler than Fenrir for God sake. The game really picks up at this point, as the earlier chapters are too easy and slightly boring. Mainly they are used for tutorial purposes, which in a way is good. It would be too overwhelming to introduce so many new features in one go, so that was probably a good idea.
This game is gargantuan no doubt about it, I will write something more substantial once I complete it. Whenever that may be!
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