Embark on a journey through the cityworld of Cocoon and the outerworld of Pulse. Along the path to discovering your destiny, you will encounter diverse allies who will fight beside you. You will have to summon all of your expertise with weapons and magic, as well as all your courage, to determine your fate in the latest action-packed installment in the renowned Final Fantasy video game series.Face your destiny as you travel through the worlds of Cocoon and Pulse in Final Fantasy XIII. Discover diverse allies who will join you in your fight, and execute punishing attacks with powerful weapons and magic. Summon the enigmatic Eidolons with the evolved Active Time Battle system. With seamless transitions between real-time gameplay and in-game cinematics, Final Fantasy XIII draws you into the mystery and the magic of the series like never before.
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I have read many gaming reviews and after a while they start sounding the same; linear, good graphics...blah blah. They all focus on the linear part of it and it typically gets about a 8-9 out of 10. Thats all garbage. If anyone has really played other final fantasy games, like VII, they are all pretty "linear" to keep you on the story line, it's just that other games had the world map to travel on. Occassionaly you could stumble into an area ealier that you "should", but you would be defeated by the strong enemies that were there anyways.
I have not gotten there yet, but I am told that the game really opens up towards the end of the story, and once the main story is complete, you can do all sorts of missions, at your own pace. Since I take my time to level up, I am, according to the strategy guide, about half way through the game with a logged time of 25 hours. Not to shabby! And it was all fun along the way. That kind of quality is a rarety in video games these days!
My best advice is to by the game, don't let others tell you whether you should or shouldn't by it. Judge it for yourself. My guess, you will love it too!
What's great about it: Graphics, battle system, story, length; just plain fun
What's not so great: I want to keep playing it....