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17 hours into the game and I can officially say that I'm in love with it. The story and characters just keep getting better, and the battle system more intricate/fun. Exploiting enemy weaknesses, careful paradigm shifting, and staggering are musts, having control over the camera in battle is nice as well. Also, they didn't really get rid of towns so much as modify their purpose in the game, which I find doesn't detract from the overall(great) experience. If anything, it cuts away the fat so to speak in my opinion. I should probably point out that my friends who are usually into western-styled RPGs actually want to play FFXIII based on the first two hours of the game I demoed for 'em last night. That should say something about the game's appeal. It's funny that it took about 4 games before I understood why the sphere grid in FFX was so great. Even though it's sort of linear, you still don't have to wait for an actual "level up" per se, and can keep increasing stats throughout battles, although in FFXIII's Crystarium, it's a bit more intricate as you have to pick how you'll balance all the characters throughout all their available classes. I just reached Nautilus, and since there's a shitload going on, there's a bit of a stagger in the framerate, nothing TERRIBLE, but it's there. Onward to more adventure!

This is quite possibly the greatest thing ever.

Shiva!? Odin will end you in less than 10 seconds. I will say that what the game sets out to do in terms of story and combat, it does it well above a lot of other stuff. There were moments when my hairs were tingling. TINGLING. Despite my earlier qualms, this game still continues to impress. Also, linear switch to off at a certain point, though not by much.

I really hope so.

Alright, I'm pissed about something. First major complaint of the game. I'm 8 hours in, and already on disc 2. No, this isn't a beef with disc swapping. Disc swapping actually makes me feel like a game is so epic and long it needs the space. No, this is a problem with the game's length. I'm not entirely sure what happened in the console generation upgrade, but when a game like FFXII can have over 60 hours of main quest gameplay on one disc, while next gen stuff like Lost Odyssey and now Final Fantasy XIII can only do a fraction of that? There's gotta be something very wrong going on. Disappointment...

Finally! A Final Fantasy that will hand me my own ass on a silver platter for making bad tactical decisions. So I've hit the point when you can interrupt groups of enemies fighting each other at The Vile Peaks, and it's crazy. Pick the wrong group to support and you're dead.

Thus far the rest of the game as I've played(about 6 hours in) is just as linear, of course I don't care. Goddamnit this game is pretty...

That would be a metric fuckton multiplied by three, good sir. Anyway, so I'm about 3 to 4 hours into the game, currently in chapter 3(or 4... I forget). To make known the obvious, this game is indeed pretty. I don't think it's hyperbole to state that it's probably the prettiest game I've seen on an HD console thus far... Of course that carries "in my humble opinion" qualifier. I'm also playing on the 360 version, so I'm sure all of you PS3 owners must be even happier with the visuals. This shit looks good. Let there be no doubt that the two largest focuses(pun intended) of this game are the story, of which there is much of albeit in small manageable chunks, and the combat system, which is both blazing in speed and tactical. It is now obvious to me why Jeremy Parish and others stated that the game basically holds your hand while teaching you battle concepts: It is really, REALLY fast, and you need to really have a handle on the basics before you can keep applying more to it. I've already made good use of the "retry" function on more than one occasion, and thank god you heal after every battle and potions heal all allies in one go, or I probably wouldn't be able to keep up at all, and I'm just scratching the surface. I have to say I'm quite pleased thus far, Straight line and all.

So I'm an hour into the game right now, and I can safely say that if they keep the game going down the path I'm seeing right now, it can only get more awesome. Seriously gang, the game is so damned cool. More Impressions later.

Sephfire is awesome, his videos are awesome, thus his birthday is equally awesome. Happy birthday, dude.

I wonder what the main topics are gonna be this year? Please no more of this "Japanese development is stagnating. We need to adopt the standards of the holy grail that is Western development" shtick. Maybe Miyamoto will talk more on how his current project was inspired by watching small rodents. I'm always interested to see what devs and other pros have to say about the industry. Wish I could go. Have fun, gang.

Thin Crust does, which means we should all care.

Well gentlemen, it's time to start the countdown. Little more than 16 hours before we get to see something we've been waiting for for about 4 and a half years.

I have no idea how I'm going to get through 4 hours of my Advanced Statistics class and lab tomorrow night...

I don't know how many spoilers or stuff about the game you guys don't want to know, but here's some battle footage with the different eidolons. http://gamevideos.1up.com/video/id/28152

You'll love Final Fantasy XIII's battle system then. Pretty fast paced and actiony, as well as strategic. Also FFVIII could be tedius, although it was somewhat lessened by being able to refine spells from cards, items, and draw points, which are things I did religiously. Also, why did you HAVE to have ultima or whatever spell junctioned and/or never used it? After a certain point, most -aga spells were more than enough to keep all your stats maxed. There were plenty of options within the system. If anything, I think that FFVIII did it's best to make things seem as "realistic" as possible(other than the plot, but that's another can of worms). Fuck I wanna play VIII again. Gotta beat Okami before Tuesday though...

The problem with X wasn't the fact that it was linear, although if you're gonna make the game a relative straight line, please get rid of random battles, which is what they're doing with FFXIII. The problem with X was the STUPID "puzzling" sections they added in the different temples.

It's actually pretty hard for me to compare MM10's music to any other in the original series. I guess thematically there might be some, but in terms of execution, I can't think of any. Of course it's hard for me to remember every single one.

They've been innovating in Final Fantasy ever since Final Fantasy II introduced a different take on character progression, an actual storyline as opposed to 8-bit D&D nonsense, and a predetermined set of characters. The whole prime directive of the series is to change things up in every installment, while keeping things familiar via a unified aesthetic and certain series staples like chocobos/moogles/behemoths/crystals/Cid/etc. If anything, getting Sakaguchi out of the picture was the best thing that ever happened to the series.

...Them's fightin' words, good sir. Also, I can see where Prophet is coming from. There is definitely a loss in detail on the 360 version, although I have a small(well... if 32" 720p is small) TV, so I probably won't give a crap, however if you're in his position with a big TV like that, like it or not, that's gonna be a huge difference. So did you actually get to play during those 20 minutes, Prophet? What'd you think of it?

...Surely you've noticed the irony in saying supporting this game is like supporting the down-side of video game development, and then following it up by saying how you miss Hironobu Sakaguchi, king of archaic design in our modern age of HD gaming? If not, I've got a bridge to sell you over by yonder knoll.

Never knew that a stick would improve your game that much. Might have to finally invest.

Look I'm just gonna come out and say it: The intro to Pump Man's theme is effin' epic.

Yeah, I just saw some more comparison vids, and the frame rate is noticeably smoother on the 360 version. Guess being the underpowered version has its benefits. Also I read that the disc error is apparently just associated with the pre-release code given to reviewers and such. Retail copies won't have this problem. False alarm, sorry people. Happy gaming to all on March 9th then.