Final Fantasy XIII

Final Fantasy XIII
The Beautiful North American Cover
Developer(s)	Square Greenbacks
Publisher(s)	Sony
Release date	Unfortunately happened
Genre	Action film
Platform(s)	PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Port	Nintendo Sextifor
Rating	T
Would Ronald Reagan play it?	Yes

Final Fantasy XIII is a 2009 rail gun shooter arcade game developed by Square Enix, who would later go on to rename themselves Straight Line Enix in honor of the game. It is the first Final Fantasy game to be released for the seventh generation of consoles and continues many of the series' traditions, such as music, freakish haircuts, comedy token black characters, and lesbian fan fiction.

The plot concerns Mild Downpour Lightning and her quest to save her sister from being turned into a glass statue. Along the way, she must save the world, rescuing chocobos who have been sold into slavery (who reward the player by becoming their slaves in turn) and desperately trying to perfect her "I'm too cool to deal with your shit" face (see image on right).

FFXIII has been described as "an astonishing achievement, the first Final Fantasy game without any gameplay!" by numerous publications, including the respected fan magazine Moogles Monthly. When asked to comment on the development process, lead Grand Poobah Motomu Toriyama shouted "MORE CUTSCENES!" to his staff before reaching for the rubber ducky and continuing his bath.

Gameplay

Rumours of a lawsuit from the makers of the Gulliver's Travels film over this scene were quickly dismissed.

Like other Final Fantasy games, gameplay consists mostly of walking, fighting, staring and greens. Familiar elements remain, such as trying to fight enemies too tough for you and wishing the characters would speak more realistically, but the game also introduces several novel elements, in particular a novel-length collection of text which is constantly updated to remind dim-witted players what's just occurred. The bulk of the game takes place with up-the-skirt camera positioning that follows the character and allies around the worlds of Cocoon and Pulse. Unlike previous games there is no overworld map, which means you spend fucking forever running around trying to move between different areas while staring at Vanille's bum, or Snow's if you're a lady.

Fisticuffs in Final Fantasy XIII are designed to be dynamic, innovative and entertaining to watch. Notable for being the first Final Fantasy game to produce a battle system specifically designed with special needs gamers in mind, the primary method of combat is "auto-battle." This involves pressing one button, typically multiple times, which will prompt your character to engage in a complex, gravity-defying feat of acrobatics that will leave their opponent crying. This highly inventive system allows characters armed with no more than their fists to crush armoured tanks into a thin, mucky paste. Later in the game your characters learn to use Eidolons, Vanille's is used to have sex with everyone, but overall are mostly used to resurrect Hope.

Of particular use is the stagger system, in which you feed enemies so much fist that their skin turns gold and they start weeping uncontrollably, at which point you can kick the living piss out of them.

Plot

The plot takes place mostly on Cocoon, which floats in the sky, has astonishing technology, enjoys a good standard of living and is possibly a province of Dubai. Below Cocoon is the feral land of Iran, also known as Pulse, which is feared by all due to a long-distant war. The game has a highly developed and complex plot but the in-game Datalog keeps everything in check. Many classic plot devices return, such as the Big Fight, the Huge Fucking Monster, the Long Cut-Scene and the Emotional Speech. Divided into thirteen chapters, the plot can be roughly divided into three distinct sections: Govahment Took Mah Baby, Hey Look! A Huge Fucking Monster! and Lunging Wildly at the Pope.

Section One: Govahment Took Mah Baby

The story of Final Fantasy XIII opens on a train during the Holocaust. Adolf Hitler, going by his video game incarnation Dysley, has declared a Purge amongst the citizens of Cocoon who have been in contact with an unnamed threat from the world below. Thankfully, since the developers neglected to give any personality to the game's supporting cast, most of them submit to being evicted from the floating world. Less happy about this are Cloud Lightning and Lionel Ritchie Sazh, who have both been gifted a Personality Trait (bitchiness and humour, respectively) which give them access to superpowers such as anti-gravity panties and sharpshooting. They slaughter the Stormtroopers guarding them and escape from the train. Meanwhile, Snow is leading a team called NORA (No, Obviously, Really Avalanche) in a fight against more guards. Hope, a young teenage girl, sees her mother die due to Snow's ineptitude and immediately vows revenge but is unable to carry it out for half the story.

The group meet up and rush to save Serah, Lightning's sister and Snow's underage girlfriend, but watch helplessly as she is turned to crystal by God (Odin is dismissed as a suspect after appearing as a summon, but much of Valhalla remains in custody). A Long Cut-Scene then occurs and the group is split up after suffering a hallucination about the end of the world being caused by an enormous monster called Ragnarok. The storyline then divides in two, something the scenery has still yet to achieve, and introduces Fang, who is particularly powerful due to having two personality traits (humour and not taking any shit). After a number of events, such as Hope not killing Snow, Lightning not killing Fang and Sazh not killing himself, the group meet up again with the story sufficiently advanced. At this point, the party and player gear up for a Big Fight with Dysley, who it turns out is also God but a much more badass God than the previous one. After the Big Fight the party learn a horrific secret about Vanille and Fang-they're the ones responsible for this Holocaust because centuries prior their Focus had been to turn into some sort of monster and slay God, or something. The party eventually finds itself on Pulse.

Section Two: Hey Look! A Huge Fucking Monster!

The primary distinguishing feature of Pulse is that it contains swarms of Huge Fucking Monsters (which you aren't strong enough to fight) and the ability to travel in four directions (only one of which goes where you need to go). Nonetheless, after the endless train tracks of Cocoon, the sudden 3D freedom of Pulse causes everyone to go temporarily insane, and they have an Emotional Speech. Hope finally admits she is actually a boy, which nobody believes, whilst Vanille and Fang refuse to admit they are lesbians, which everyone else does. Monsters that can be encountered in this section include the Jabberfecker, the Saurusasaurus, and Missingno. All the monsters are immortal and re-appear after a few seconds, thus giving the exercise a sense of futility and repetition, fulfilling the developers wish to make "a Samuel Beckett-themed videogame." Eventually Godot Dysley shows up for another Big Fight and you fly back to Cocoon, none the wiser about the plot but with Hope considerably more sexually frustrated.

Section Three: Lunging Wildly at the Pope

This section opens with a CGI sequence so awesome you'll be mopping jism from your controller for a week. The fact that the party appear to be slaughtering innocent Podracers is a minor detail. With blood still splattering their clothes and dripping from their fanged maws, the party fight their way to Dysley, stopping only to massacre more innocent children in a horrific descent into a guts-fuelled orgy of savagery. When they finally encounter the boss, he stares at them confused for some time before asking "why did you kill all those people? Those soliders had families, you know, and friends, people who cared about them. And why do you keep fighting me? I didn't do anything to hurt you."

Enemies are easily defeated by synchronised body-popping.

The party look at each other, confused, and realize what a horrible bunch of nutters they've been. Unable to bear the public knowing about their shameful actions, they decide the best option is to kill Dysley and fund an orphanage for sick kittens to make up for the damage. A Big Fight occurs in which everyone except Fang and Vanille die. A short torture sequence is played, made up of stock footage from American war crimes in Australia, before the group return with their all-powerful Deus ex machina summon and save the day. Dysley then merges with a God-like monster that looks like the Wheel of Fortune, but they are able to take Him (pun intended) down thanks to Snow's expertise in his specialist subject of cheat codes. After more brain-melting CGI, in which Cocoon takes the form of a giant meteor heading for earth, the party end up on Pulse, free and (more or less) easy, to have a chuckle at the irony that Fang and Vanille are the only characters now dead.

Characters

In Final Fantasy XIII you control up to one of six central characters, while up to two others follow you around in the vain hope they can escape from the giant hamster mazes of Cocoon and Pulse. These characters are controlled by the computer, although the Paradigm system enables you to utilize tactics that amount to shouting "hey! Stop attacking that big goddamn elephant and heal me!" in the midst of battle.

Protagonists

Lightning

Lightning is the central character not the central character because this game doesn't have one. She is instead the character you spent most time controlling, who is central to most of the plot, makes most of the decisions and generally serves as the party leader. She is an original creation for the game, her principle features being the use of a gunblade and having an anti-social exterior. In her spare time she enjoys music, long walks on the beach, chess with human pieces, rubbing cider on her forearms and setting fire to people who annoy her. She claims she's a gangster, but her real name's Clarence. There was also questions raised about her true gender. Some think that she is indeed a trap due to her masculine personality. This is later confirmed in the end when Serah comes back. Due to this Snow forgets embraces the idea of having a threesome with Lightning and Serah.

Snow

Snow is a good, nice, everyday sort of chap who is 7 and a half feet tall and runs around punching giant-ass-fucking robots in the face. You'd probably like to have a beer with him, especially if your local pub is a bit rough because he's the size and shape of a grizzly bear. Everytime Snow talks you will have to fight the uncontrollable urge to roll your eyes. He's very noble, and only wants to protect his true love by being her knight. Snow's job is that of Sentinel, which is Latin for "punching bag" or "PENIS PUMP," though he suffers little damage as his coat is made from the melted-down skeleton of Wolverine. Rumours abound that he took it in single combat, which Snow claims is true. So far nobody has dared comment on the discarded rocket launcher found at the scene of the battle. They probably could, though, because he's such a nice guy and he'd probably let you off and even share a cigarette with you. He's incredibly devoted to his underage girlfriend Serah, and spends the majority of the game bitching about how he will do everything to save her and protect Cocoon.

Sazh

Sazh joins Lightning at the beginning of the game, helping her to destroy a bullet train full of unarmed, pussy soldiers and escape to find her 4 month old baby sister. His motives for this are unclear, although his motives might be linked to the recent death of Osama bin Laden. In an interview he later claimed to be "doing it for the lulz. The lulz and that ass," though the accuracy of this is disputed. He is armed with twin pistols he calls "lefty" and "righty". He is also known to suffer from itchy trousers and a fetish for F1 cars.

Vanille and Hope appearing on the What the Hell Happened Last Night? I Feel Like I've Been Skull-Fucked! Show.

Hope

Hope is a young girl just entering puberty, and her confusion about her body makes up a major sub-plot of the game. Her best friend is Vanille, who she feels a strong and confusingly intimate bond with, but this is quickly brought to an end when Fang confronts her with the warning "if you touch a hair on my pretty little girl's head you'll be shitting your sports bra out of your ears." Since this encounter Hope has come out as a woman, an announcement met with universal indifference with one or two hoots of derision. Hope hates Snow, holding the big sum'bitch responsible for his mothers death, a fact that Snow faces with utter indifference and his happy-go-lucky, Manic-Depressant personality. Hope is known to bitch about everything from the next monster they have to fight to the sun being to bright to pretty much everything else he finds distasteful in the game.

Selphie Vanille

Vanille is a representative from an Australian lolicon festival. At the game's opening she is in Cocoon to scout out local perverts who may be interested in attending. Despite her young appearance she is five hundred and forty-three years old and an experienced New Zealander fisherman, using her rod to snag and capture her targets at will. She serves as the principal narrator, using her charming British accent to tell the story, and spends her spare time creating false rumours about Ashlee Simpson which she sells to Heat magazine. She is fiercely proud of her Irish heritage, and will fuck you up if you mention the potato famine.

Fang

Fang does not take any shit. Let's make that clear. She first appears on a cliff, after not taking any shit from her retinue of soldiers, and then kidnaps Snow, who tries to give her shit which she refuses to take. She then joins the party and helps them with her skills at fighting, protection and not taking any shit. In a dramatic plot twist mid-way through the story she has a confrontation with Lightning, who she takes some shit from, allowing Lightning to slap her before Fang reveals she is the central character's father (this last section can only be found in deleted scenes). Having proved herself a three-dimensional character, Fang finishes the game without taking any more shit from anyone (though she does die). She was voted first place in the Daily Mail list of "fictional characters we want to sex but are afraid might eat us afterwards" phone-in vote. Fang was originally going to be male, but Square-Enix thought that hot lesbians sell better. Fanfiction writers are often prone to give her a penis because of this fact.

Antagonists

Dysley became an enemy of mankind the moment he killed the lovely Quistis.

Dysley

Dysley, or Hitler as he was known in World War II, is a Pope of Discordia who institutes a Purge at the game's opening. Initially he comes across as an average patriarchal psychopath, and it is uncertain whether he is the principal villain of the piece, but an encounter at the mid-point of the game sees him turning into a wall with a face, the most feared of all God's creations. He is currently being sued by Odin for stealing the latter's "I have birds following me around" trademark. He has counter-sued, claiming Odin stole his Popemobile and used it in a drive-by shooting against a gang of giants After turning into the giant ass robot god, he insists on going by the name POPINATOR 7.3 .

Cid

Robin Williams, who has played Cid in every incarnation of the series thus far, was reportedly "uncertain" about reprising the role for the thirteenth time, stating that "the constant cosmetic surgery is taking a toll. I'll do it if they do a sequel to number eight." He was coaxed back at a fee of twelve Powerbars and the chance to play a villain. His fight scene used a body double, Kazuya Mishima, who had previously starred in the family-orientated comedy series Tekken.

Jihl "You Wish" Nabaat

To appeal to an adult male market but tainted by lesbianism with Lighting, Square Greenbacks included Jihl Nabaat (pictured above), who represents an idealised form of that teacher who gave you funny feelings when you first started getting hair on your special place. She might look like Quistis, but don't be fooled, she's older and will make you cry like a sissy bitch if she catches you trying to sneak a peek. She is the only character notable for taking less shit than Fang. definitely the best character.

Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Game

An aptly named boss, SNAITG is an optional enemy who you can locate by playing any number of different games, provided they have a boss element (he has yet to be located in the FIFA Manager series, with the exception of FIFA Manager 09 which ends with a battle to the death against Fabio Capello at the bottom of a mine shaft). His powers range from the pathetic to the all-conquering.

Other Characters

Serah

A whore that Snow picked up at a strip club and suddenly proposes to her. Serah is Lightning's sister and Snow's fiancée. Much of the game's plot revolves around her trying to find decent laser surgery to remove a tattoo she has done at Fal'Cie's Ink Shop. The artist told her it was the Chinese symbol for "damn I'm fit," but she later found out it meant "slap me in public." In her travels she is turned into a crystal, for reasons never fully explained, then she dies and comes back to life. She also thought, Fuck it, i can be a main character too. Which explains why she's the main protagonist of FFXIII-2. She also finds a new boyfriend named Noel but actually dies at the end, which causes Noel to cry like a little bitch. (spoiler alert)

Dajh

Dajh is Sazh's son, and has inherited his fathers penchant for cheerfulness, sporting a badass afro made of cheap rubber and using the Weapon Of Gun. After being used as kiddy-bait by Jihl, he turns into a crystal, only to be revived at the game's climax and aid the party by tearing Dysley apart with his rotten, black hands. He is rewarded with bread and circuses.

Orphan

A cameo appearance by Necron from Final Fantasy IX, Orphan shows up right at the end (like Necron) and you have to fight him when you think you've already won (like Necron). His first form is a piece of concept art designed by M.C.Eshcer, and his second is an invincible wheel that can only be killed after it's killed you at least once.

Cocoon Citizens

We were unable to put together an accurate description for the citizens of Cocoon, as we were unable to speak to any of them and could only listen to various bits of inane toss they would say whilst in earshot. There is, however, intense speculation that the everyday folk of Cocoon are actually running a crystal meth lab, and releasing the resulting fumes into the atmosphere. This may explain why the floating city always looks either hazy or sparkly.

Release & Reception

The lack of exploration caused many gamers to remember that the outside world is, in fact, fully explorable with open-ended and non-linear gameplay.

The game had its release in 2010, and many young teenage boys had a subsequent release when they first encountered Jihl Nabaat. The magazine Gamefappers sent their journalists to break into the homes of players some hours after they had purchased the game. The initial response (10–40 minutes) after commencing play was extremely positive, with many gamers commenting "sure, it's a bit linear, but they all start like that" or "hmmm...how old is Vanille supposed to be, d'ya reckon?" After extended play (2–4 hours), the reception began to cool. Blogger Prick Galooshes wrote "I'm trapped...trapped, I tell you. I can see there's a world out there, but I can't touch it, they won't let me." Many players reported similar feelings, with some older players suffering flashbacks to time spent in concentration camps.

Within a week, responses to the game had taken a nose-dive. Fan comments ranged from the baffled ("why, Square, why? What did we ever do except love you and give you our money?") to the insulting ("nice game...buttweiners!") through to the outright hostile (see image on right). Rioters criticised the game for everything, but particular attention was drawn to the amount of money spent on coding beautiful scenery the player would have to just walk past, a move viewed as particularly wasteful during the recession. Similarities to other games in the series were also highlighted, with one experienced gamer noting "it's a game, where you run around, and you fight things, sometimes there's some talking, or a puzzle. Can't they come up with anything original? Incidentally, Dragon Age fucking rocks! Go Bioware!"

Very few of the people involved in the riots are now willing to talk about their experiences, but Pierre Sputtumum released a book entitled Fail'Cie: The Unlucky Thirteenth. Profits are going towards his purchase of the upcoming game Final Fantasy XIII-2.

Critical Reception

Critical response to the game has been in direct opposition to many fan statements. Bang Gun Bang described the game as "perfect, without equal, unsurpassed in the realm of Football hooliganism simulations". The Huffingberry Doo-Dah reviewer wrote "I haven't been so excited since I bummed that clown, but Snake's voice acting could have been better," whilst the entire lifestyle team from Gaming for Pigeon-Lickers were found dead in their flats after spending eighty consecutive hours carrying out Cie'th Stone missions. Other publications refused to issue a review, saying that Final Fantasy was for "elves and bummers."

Sequel

Square Greenbacks began developing a sequel for the game one year before the original was conceived, to be creatively entitled Final Fantasy XIII-2. Commenting on the unusual name, developer Motomu Toriyama said "well, it's the second game, right? Thirteen was the first, but fourteen is...wait, this is thirteen right? And we did a sequel to seven, so, no, wait, that was a film, right? So, we're not calling it fourteen, because...oh you've all seen the Terminator films, work it out yourselves, fuck you."

The sequel will be a romantic comedy revolving around Snow and his upcoming wedding to Serah. His best friend Sazh arranges a bachelor party one week before the wedding, while his bride is worried about him getting into trouble. Snow and Sazh head off with some of their buddies, except for Hope because he's a wussy little boy-bitch, with the intention of having a good, fun weekend. But when he wakes up with a sumo wrestler, the Ark of the Covenant and no memory of the night before, the laughs just keep on coming! Not to be missed. Starring Will Farrell. (Rated 18)

Fan anticipation to the sequel has been overwhelming. The New York Times observed "there are, as we speak, literally millions of Final Fantasy fans who do not care about the sequel. It's astonishing. You can walk down the street, any street in any city, and see that disinterest is at fever pitch. Everywhere you go, people are not talking about the sequel. Some people have even gone so far as to not know it's coming out at all. We've never seen anything like this, and in the interest of journalistic integrity we have to admit it's a little frightening." Despite this wave of indifference, Square Greenbacks are not worried, stating in a press conference: "Meh."

Elaborating on this, the head of marketing said "we'll be fine. They'll all buy it just as soon as we design a hot chick and start sticking posters up everywhere." When asked about the female gamer market, he replied "the what now?"

See also

• Walking
• Cut-scene