This game is perhaps one that has received the most hype of the year so far. Not only that, this game has a big expectation to deliver what the Final Fantasy series has established over two decades. This would mean that our little Blu-ray disc should be packed to brim with sprawling worlds and diverse towns and NPCs to give you various quests. On the surface Final Fantasy XIII looks visually spectacular with its attention to detail on the characters and scenery; its audio all fits into place with various character dialogue and the orchestral set pieces during cut-scenes. When you look past the shiny surface, you find a deep-moving story and a new battle system which rewards the players. However, what you don’t find is the traditional towns and shops in which players can do their shopping with their hard-earned Gil (currency used in the Final Fantasy Universe).

Though you could say that FFXIII is a disappointment ever so slightly, it is still spectacular in its own right. The visuals as mentioned are nothing short of overwhelming with the various scenery boasting different vibrant colours, and this extends to both cinematic intervals and the in-game graphics. I should mention that both are of equal quality, but as you would expect the cinematic movies really take the cake with its action packed fight scenes to flight sequences that you will see. The detail on each character is impressive to the extent that you can almost see each curly hair on Sazhs afro to Lightning’s individual hair strands.

You ask what the disappointment is in this game; well, it's mostly due to the lack of freedom you get in the first half of the game, and the lack of traditional stuff you get in an RPG - namely towns and NPCs. But do not despair. As the game progresses, it starts to bloom. Shops are open at various save points, which have increased in number in order to balance out the lack of shops in other places. Freedom is given to you in chunks which is a good thing given the battle system can be a little be overwhelming when you haven’t played any instalments of the Final Fantasy series at all. I have to say that the battle system is extremely rewarding where strategy is concerned. First off, the game uses ATB (Attack Time Bar) where you have three segments at first and you can perform three actions. So in practice, you will see Lightning attack three times. Later on in the game, your character will get more powerful skills and it will take up more bars of course i.e. Blitz is an area attack and requires two bars to perform.

I should also mention that the game won’t bother you with what your party members are doing per se since you will solely control the leader and they will follow your lead. Leading onto this are the paradigms, where you will have to mix and match combat roles with each of your characters such as Commando, Medic, Ravager and so on. This is where the strategy comes into play, where you need to be quick on your feet and switch different paradigms to suit the situation. So let’s take a look at some examples: say you’re fighting a single enemy who is tough but not considered a boss. Do you have a paradigm setting where you go with an all-out offense and hope this works, or do you have a mixture with a Saboteur, Ravager and Sentinel? Well the answer is you start with the latter setting and then you switch to offense to finish or you could have two attackers and a Medic in the back. Either way you have to think about how you fight your battles because at the end of each fight you will get ranked on how well you do. This ranking system is not completely clear to me yet but the main things it looks for is speed, offense, and I think how many times you switch between paradigms.

Will this lead to your characters having more experience points? Nope, but what they have gone with is the sphere grid system from FFX and mixed it in such a way that your characters won’t have levels overall but they will have job levels. This means that they have replaced those experience points with crystal points which you spend on your jobs where the attributes of your character will get higher and higher. Judging by the odd thirty hours I have put into this game, it seems that it gives you the option of pursuing other jobs apart from the three main ones you will focus on. However going down that road means a lot of grinding is involved here, but the rewards are more paradigms settings available to you.

On the equipment front of the game, you will find that you have the option to make your weapons' accessories stronger via investment with parts you will find in your battles. This I feel is a fresh approach from usually having to explore and find new equipment, which you do still do in a way but the game gives you more choice. You can go with the shiny new equipment but start at level 1 or you can keep upgrading your old equipment till it reaches max level and then you get to evolve it to an even stronger weapon. This is one of the game’s more appealing aspects to me, because it is the power of choice you have which will affect how you perform on the battlefield.

Remember I said that the game won’t bother you with what your other members are doing? Well here’s the clever bit of the combat system. As you continue to fight new monsters, your party members will keep attacking it until they find its weakness. This also applies to your characters’ auto-combat option, where the attack options will keep changing until it finds the right ones to use. During the battle, you are allowed to look at the profile of the monster you encountered, which is probably one of the best options to have when you’re fighting a boss with several parts to it and you’re not sure what to use. In addition to this, they have also replaced the traditional character limit break with the stagger system. This works by building up the chain attacks that you and your party members will use on your enemy. Eventually, when that bar is filled up, the enemy’s defences are brought down, allowing you to deal larger damage to it and finishing it off.

At this point, those of you who are FF series fans are asking where the summonses are. The answer is that they will appear at various points in the game. They will also challenge you to fight for the right to use them. This is similar to the twelfth entry in the series where you had to defeat them in order to gain them. What happens when you use them, you say? Well all party members will retreat to allow you to fight with your summon. You will notice that there is a timer on the summons’ life and you have a limited time to activate the limit break.

For the first part of the game you will find that the linearity of this RPG is surprising, and yet it draws you in with the story-telling prowess it has. You quickly find that as the story progress on, it gets so much deeper than you would ever expect. You will watch each of the characters' develop and see the secrets they harbour brought out. I have to point out that the style of storytelling is similar to that of some TV series you have seen. Of course that is not a bad thing considering the ragtag bunch of characters the FF series have put together. You may be forgiven for thinking that Snow is leader of this group at the start of the game or even the main character if you have never seen any of the trailers or previews at all. However, that honour is given to Lightning, who is a refreshingly strong female lead -  which is good given most of the female leads you have seen are the damsel in the distress type or the hard on the outside, soft on the inside type. Along with the female lead is the oldest and probably most cynical member of the group, Sazh, counter-balanced with a happy-go-lucky Vanille who is going to annoy you at first but you will get use to her. Other members include strong-headed and self-proclaimed hero Snow, a young Hope, and the Aussie-accented Fang.

Overall the thirteenth entry in the FF series is something of a wonder.  The storyline is probably the deepest and engaging out of all the games, and though some may argue otherwise I'm sticking to my guns here. The new combat system, which may put some people off, should be part of the attraction to the game itself along with its evolutionary weapons and accessories catalogue. The absence of an option to switch the audio track to Japanese with English subtitles is probably one of the glaring flaws of this game, but that is maybe something that hopefully will be added on in later entries. You may feel that the game has put some blinders on your eyes so that you won’t stray too far from what it has to tell you, but again the game will immerse you and make you forget about the slight flaws you may have found in the game. Don’t forget you are in for the long haul on this game, so don’t be surprised to see the hours zoom by you as the game unravels.