Final Fantasy XIII is a game at a crossroads. It’s stranded at the intersection between the desires of an existing fanbase, the fading popularity of a genre, a legacy of cutting-edge visuals, and the rising cost of game development. It’s a creation that displays the compromises of its development process at every turn, yet to its credit, it doesn’t feel compromised. It’s defined by creative tradeoffs, yet it embraces those potential shortcomings and transforms them into integral components of its design.
FFXIII is ambitious and daring, not to mention gorgeous and energetic. It approaches the concept of “role-playing games” with ruthless pragmatism, lopping off hunks of RPG tradition like a doctor operating on a terminally gangrenous patient. Traditional towns are too difficult to manage in light of the demands of current technology and art design? Whack — they’re gone. Free-roaming exploration too difficult to Continue reading »
