Final Fantasy XIII, The Latest Adventure Ends... Sorta

So I wrapped up FFXIII this weekend. Overall was a good game, and while it had some great strengths, it had some weak spots. Unfortunately, the weakest point was also my favorite part of the franchise: the story. I found the story completely lacking, I could have written something better in a couple of days and they had four years. Anyway, aside from that, the game was really great. The music wasn't as good as past performances, but the battle system is simply amazing. The leveling system is interesting, reminding me of a Grid/License hybrid. And the graphics are just off the charts, especially the pre-rendered stuff. I really enjoyed it, and it's definitely one of those games where I want to keep playing it.

Which is nice, since the game offers a large chunk of content AFTER the game is beat. In fact, you can't even access the final tier of abilities until the final boss is dead. And you can't even think about beating some of the really tough mobs in the game until your characters are maxed out.

A couple of other little things to pick at. While not devastating, I didn't like that there were no summon quests. Overall the summons were VERY weak in this game, almost completely useless. And I don't like that they required the TP system to summon them. Also, while I'm not sure I dislike it, it is VERY hard to get the ultimate weapons in this game. Not because you have to go on some crazy quest (that I can dig), but rather you need to sit and grind money for hours to go buy ONE component at a shop to make ONE weapon. The alternative is to try to find some method of being cheap or grind until end game when you're strong enough to beat the mobs that have a 5% chance of dropping the item. I think they could have been a bit more creative on that end.

Anyway, as this is the first FF on the PS3, it's the first to utilize the trophy system. So my current goal is to obtain a platinum trophy for the first time on my PS3. This entails a great many trials which I look forward to. One of which is completing all hunts with a 5 star rating. So far, it's been pretty fun doing all the hunts, I feel like I'm getting to play a whole different game with a different goal now. Good times. Another difficult trial is killing the end boss with a 5 star rating, and I've already completed that. Was tough, but only took me like ten tries. The last really tough one will be to obtain every weapon and accessory in the game. This is tough because of the money aspect. Getting all that cash to make 6 ultimate weapons just makes me cringe but I'll do it. Another one I'm looking forward to is completing the Chocobo hunts. Got about another 60 hours of post credits play to put in, looking forward to it.

On a side note, it still bothers me a month later that I didn't get that ONE last summon in FF12, so I think I might also work on getting those guys to 99 in parallel while I play FF13. I know, I'm crazy. =)