Unless you’ve been living in a cave on Mars for the last 4 years, you know that the long awaited 13th installment of the Final Fantasy franchise was released this week. I haven’t always been a big fan of the series but decided to give this one a chance - even to just give my software starved PS3 a chance to do what it was meant to do… plays games.

From the very beginning, FF13 hits you like a ton of bricks with spectacular action and visuals and gameplay you don’t normally expect from a typical Square-Enix title. The character development is not what you’d expect from FF. In fact, there isn’t any — aside from some very minimal equipment upgrading — for the first 4 or 5 hours. It isn’t until an early plot twist when your party finally starts to “level up”. And then it’s not your typical auto leveling you might be expecting.

The storyline on the other hand… Well, I haven’t spent a whole lot of time with it yet, but right from the beginning I was lost. I wasn’t sure why anything was happening or what the characters’ motives are or anything. You’re immediately thrown into the action with very little explanation. Again, it wasn’t until several hours into the game that you finally get an adequate explanation of what is happening and you start piecing things together.

As many reviews have pointed out, the first third of the game (approx. 15 hours or so) are really slow and tedious… and I can see what they’re talking about. Only a handful of hours into the adventure and I’m still being greeted by tutorial dialogs and am still trying to get a firm hold of the battle system. But I wouldn’t say it’s tedious… to an extent. The story seems to finally picking up the pace and totally welcome some of the monotony now. Rather get through it now than later down the road.

So far it’s been a pretty good experience and I’m looking forward to next many, many hours of enjoyment to be had.

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