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Final Fantasy XIII Final Fantathoughts

So overdue, but that’s life. Or my life, anyway. But yes, here is an informal review of my overall experience with Final Fantasy XIII. No plot spoilers.

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Final Fantasy XIII Log: Part 6

I’m really close to the end of Final Fantasy XIII this time. In fact, I’m past the end. But there are still no spoilers as I discuss my adventures in the final chunk of the game. So much for beating it before the English version came out, though.

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Final Fantasy XIII Log: Part 5

So I’m definitely getting close to the end of Final Fantasy XIII. Still no spoilers, unless you don’t want to see an extremely vague reference to a plot point from Final Fantasy V.

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Final Fantasy XIII Log: Part 4

More Final Fantasy XIII coverage. I feel like I might be nearing the ending, but it’s hard to tell exactly. No spoilers, as usual.

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Final Fantasy XIII Log: Part 3

Hooray, the Playstations fixed themselves. I thus dumped all kinds of hours into Final Fantasy XIII, and got pretty far. I unlocked more abilities, and got to “Chapter 6.” Still no spoilers.

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Final Fantasy XIII Log: Part 2

Some more FFXIII “coverage,” and still with no spoilers. I wanted to get a little further into the game before I did a second part, but since Sony broke my poor obese console, this is the best I can do for now. And if I waited until they fixed things, I’d probably forget all this stuff anyway.

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Final Fantasy XIII Log: Part 1

There will be no spoilers here, so fear not. I was going to try to do a live-ish collection of thoughts and notes, but it didn’t take long for me to find myself too busy with it to keep stopping to type things. Instead, I’m just going to do a little summary of my experience thus far. I’m currently at a save point shortly after unlocking the “Crystarium” ability system.

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Final Fantasy XIII Preview

So I imported Final Fantasy XIII recently, and just received it the other day, but I haven’t had a chance to play it yet. As an experiment, I’m going to try doing some sort of “coverage” here of my playthrough of it. Unlike most people interested in this game, however, I completely skipped the PS2 generation. Unless you count the PC version of Final Fantasy XI, which I bought when it first came out in the US, and it was horrible back then. Otherwise, I’ve only played I-IX, so this will be my first game with voice acting, and my first game without Uematsu’s music. I don’t really know or care what the deal is with the main song, either. I just don’t like playing Final Fantasy games in English because I’m a bitter old lady.

But anyway, first, I’d like to talk about the version I got. I bought it because it was (and still is, as of this writing) on sale at PlayAsia for much less than its normal price. In fact, it’s less than what the US version costs. And that’s even with shipping factored in, if you pick a cheap option. But even though it’s in Japanese, it’s not exactly the version released in Japan. It’s a Japanese language version of the game released in countries like Hong Kong and Taiwan. But it is NTSC (supporting 480p, 720p, 1080i, and 1080p, according to the back cover), and everything from the manual to the game itself (I have checked that much) is Japanese only. There is one extra sheet that includes Chinese and English translations of the menus and controls, though. But otherwise, it’s almost identical to the Japanese version, content-wise. It just doesn’t have that code for Final Fantasy XIV, which I’m guessing one wouldn’t be able to use unless they had a Japanese residence anyway. So if you are interested in importing the game, this version seems just as good as the one from Japan. Though, I honestly don’t know which song is used, not having played it yet, aside from the opening video and options menu. But I’d assume it’s the Japanese song, since all the other audio is in Japanese.

Anyway, I took some pictures of the case and manual and stuff, for those who might be curious about it. And before you think it, turning the flash off would have made these look even worse. My camera sucks. But click them for full-size. Read the rest of this entry »