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Final Fantasy XIII: Style Over Substance?

Final Fantasy XII had its fair share of development pitfalls, and by the time it had been released, the “seventh generation” of consoles had already begun with the 2005 launch of the Xbox 360. If the development of FF XII had gone smoothly it’s entirely possible that Final Fantasy XIII would have been the last game in the series released on the PlayStation 2. The longer development cycle of the twelfth game ensured that Final Fantasy XIII would get pushed into the next generation of consoles.

Pre-production of Final Fantasy XIII began in 2004. Since Final Fantasy XII had been helmed by a mostly different team than the previous games in the series, Square Enix Product Development Division 1 was in charge of the next game. Division 1 was led by Yoshinori Kitase, and had been the team behind tremendous hits for the company, such as Final Fantasy VII, X, and Kingdom Hearts.

Even though the early development for Final Fantasy XIII was focused on a PS2 release, in truth the team never got beyond the prototyping phase. The rough outline for the battle mechanics was put together using the character models from Final Fantasy X-2, and some rare screen shots show that the team played around with a more animated “cel shaded” aesthetic. However, the overwhelmingly positive response to Square Enix’s PlayStation 3 tech demo in 2005 caused the team to shift the focus of their new game to the next Sony platform. The tech demo was a recreation of the intro to Final Fantasy VII, done in real time and showing off what was possible with the next iteration of console technology.

The 2005 tech demo and the newly next-gen Final Fantasy XIII were built on Square Enix’s proprietary game engine. Originally dubbed the White Engine, the official name became Crystal Tools, and would go on to power the major releases from the Final Fantasy side of the company for the seventh generation.  The development of Crystal Tools would prove to be a much larger undertaking than the heads of Square Enix could have anticipated, however. Game design in the world of high definition televisions involved the creation of far more detailed art assets, and a powerful game engine to run them. Crystal Tools would ultimately be up to the task, but the engine took as long to develop as some of the Final Fantasy games on the PS2.

Final Fantasy XIII was officially announced and shown in unplayable trailer form at E3 2006. The game was produced by Kitase and directed by Motomu Toriyama, who had helmed Final Fantasy X and X-2. Character designs were once again undertaken by Tetsuya Nomura, returning to the Final Fantasy franchise for the first time since FF X-2 in 2002. The soundtrack was composed by Masashi Hamauzu, who had been the main composer of the Final Fantasy VII spinoff game Dirge of Cerberus. This was the first game in the series to have no musical compositions from Nobuo Uematsu. The North American soundtrack is also the first in the series to feature a licensed vocal track, featuring the song “My Hands” from British singer Leona Lewis.

Square Enix had lofty goals in mind for Final Fantasy XIII, hoping to spawn an entire legion of spinoffs. The reasoning behind this was the huge fanbase for Final Fantasy VII, which the company had leveraged into the “Compilation of Final Fantasy VII” initiative during the PS2 days. This resulted in an animated movie (Advent Children), a mobile phone game (Before Crisis), PSP game (Crisis Core), and PS2 title (Dirge of Cerberus). A similar initiative was built around Final Fantasy XII, called the Ivalice Alliance that tied together the PS2 game with the Final Fantasy Tactics series and the Nintendo DS sequel/spinoff, Revenant Wings.

While those cross media imperatives were planned after the fact, Final Fantasy XIII was set to be the first part of the Fabula Nova Crystalis series. While games in this series weren’t expected to be directly linked, certain thematic elements were supposed to carry through, with a special focus on the ubiquitous Final Fantasy crystals. In addition to Final Fantasy XIII, a mobile phone game was planned called Final Fantasy Agito XIII. This title was later moved to the PlayStation Portable system and renamed Final Fantasy Type 0, ostensibly removing it from the Crystalis series. Final Fantasy Versus XIII is an action/RPG similar in game mechanics to the Kingdom Hearts series. Headed up by Tetsuya Nomura, the game, set in a world that closely resembles a modern day Earth has yet to materialize, even though development of the game began in 2005.

High definition development was obviously a difficult transition for many companies, and that was very true for Square Enix. Dabbling with third party game engines gave mixed results, as the Unreal Engine 3-powered Last Remnant featured numerous technical problems. For their flagship series the developers and artists toiled away endlessly to make the game run and look perfect. That perfection resulted in a beautiful looking game that took far longer to create than any other game in the series. Final Fantasy XIII was finally released in Japan in December of 2009. As the game was undergoing its English localization a huge announcement was made: the game would be going multiplatform, a first for the series. In March of 2010, Final Fantasy made its way to North America for both the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360. This was no doubt a move to ensure that the game turned a good profit, as the Xbox 360 had become the lead HD console in markets outside of Japan and the budget for FF XIII was staggering.

Final Fantasy XIII revolved around a cast of six characters, with the “lead” role filled by the female soldier Lightning. The game starts out partway through the story, with players having to play catch up through cutscene flashbacks and a robust codex, possibly inspired by Western RPG game development. The storyline is quite involved, and we recommend reading the synopsis in our Final Fantasy XIII-2 primer for all the details. Players had a difficult time following the story, in large part due to the intricate nomenclature of the worlds of Cocoon and Gran Pulse. This was just one of many reasons that the game didn’t resonate well with its audience as well as previous games in the series.

The battle system, however, clicked with many players. Like Final Fantasy XII before it, battles in FF XIII were handled by the player controlling a single character while the AI handled the other two party members. In a large departure, the player could only control this single character; battles were fought at a frantic pace, with an emphasis on snap decisions over methodical tactics. The game featured six job classes that could be changed by doing a “Paradigm Shift”. This would automatically change all three characters into a different job, based on preset loadouts handled by the player outside of combat. Success in battle hinged on shifting Paradigms at the right time. Players would have to quickly bring out a Sentinel to mitigate damage during big attacks, or have a Saboteur cast various weakening spells on tough foes. The twitch-heavy battle system was a huge change from past Final Fantasy games, but it was one of the most praised elements of FF XIII.

Far less praised was the linear nature of the game. Linearity was nothing new to the series, but much of the RPG trappings fans were used to had been removed almost whole cloth. Towns only showed up in certain cinematics, and all shopping was done at save points. Instead of exploring expansive areas, the majority of the game funneled players along a mostly straight path, punctuated by cutscenes and boss battles. In addition to the straightforward nature of the game’s design, many of the main battle mechanics were held back from players for a good portion of the adventure, causing many to call the first part of FF XIII a 20 hour tutorial.

This obviously caused many stalwart Final Fantasy fans to rail against the game, which eschewed so many of the RPG elements the series was known for. According to Yoshinori Kitase, however, that was the point. "We didn't really intend to work within with the RPG template," Kitase said in a 2010 interview leading up to the North American release. “"We wanted to create a new game, even a new genre. “(…)In a lot of senses FFXIII is more like an FPS than an RPG,” director Motomu Toriyama added.

Final Fantasy XIII was a commercial success, and was the fastest selling game in the franchise’s history. However, it was also met with a very divisive reaction from fans and critics alike. By the time that the game had been released in North America, console gamers had been exposed to many successful Western designed RPGs, such as Mass Effect, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and Fallout 3. The market had changed, and the linear progression through a story that was nonsensical to many players cast serious doubt on the future of the series. This doubt would be compounded with the release of Final Fantasy XIII-2 in 2011. A third game in the series, titled Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII is planned for a 2013 release.