Final Fantasy XIII - Sexiest movie you'll play this year.

When looking for the words to sum of my gaming experience over the past few days, one word keeps popping up over and over again "Sexy."   Square Enix once again has proved themselves to outshine their competitors with another installment of the best looking "game" you'll play this year. I was fortunate to finally have a sexy HD big screen TV to enjoy FFXIII in full 1080p glory, but aside from looks... How is the game play?

Final Fantasy games have historically been very formulaic in their gameplay: Cut scene, introductory linear gameplay, storyline, save point, boss fight and then a slightly less linear game is opened up with some exploration, side quests and some character backstories.  Over the years the amount of time that the first part of the game took has gradually increased, but Final Fantasy XIII takes the cake.  I bought this for my XBox 360 and it wasn't until roughly 20 or so hours (into the second game disk) that I found myself finally thrown out of the linear game play.  

After my frustrations with the battle mechanics of Final Fantasy XII, I was pleasantly surprised to see that FFXIII had returned to my much missed ATB battles. I was thrilled to see the changes that they had made with this game.  The Paradigm Shift system, opened up for your characters to wear many hats and to shift your party's focus multiple times during a battle.  The inability to control your other party members was frustrating to me at first, but a relief later on as the speed of boss fights increased and I eventually had to accept that the computer was a far better healer than I would ever be.  

Storyline wise, I did find myself immersed once again in the beauty of a universe that only Square Enix could've created.  I was pulled into Sazh's story pretty strongly and really liked him as a character.  I was also relieved that they managed to tone down the annoyance level of the stereotypical happy giddy female character, Vanille proved to be just cheerful enough to keep everyone going... but not didn't come even close to enraging me with nauseating joy like Rikku did in Final Fantasy X-2. 

I was reluctant to see a female lead again in a Square Enix title, as FFX-2 has gone down in my mind as the worst Final Fantasy game in history.  Lightning proved to be strong enough to be a reminder of other male leads (like Squall and Cloud) but retained a feminine frailty that kept her real as a character.  I did come back with the feeling that they put a vagina on Squall though.  

I really wish that the first 10 chapters of the game weren't so linear.  Playing the game kept feeling like a chore, where I kept reminding myself "Just one more boss fight and it'll get better."  The game kept switching parties on me.  Just as I would get one group powered enough to comfortably go through battles, they'd switch me to a grouping like Sazh and Vanille, who were desperately under powered.  

The cut scenes were pretty overwhelming though, I was strongly reminded of FFX which was filled with cut scenes.  I felt more like I was playing a movie than a video game.  I know most of the Final Fantasy games are like this, but this game certainly took the cake in feeling like I wasn't in control.  I regularly felt like what I did mattered precious little to the gameplay, as the game's focus was to show me this cool story and killer graphics and my job was to push some buttons.