Last time you heard from me on this blog, I was eagerly awaiting the release of Final Fantasy XIII. Everyone and their chocobo seems to have written a “my first impressions after the beginning of chapter 3″ post, but seeing as the game changes a lot around that time/after the first three hours, I decided to wait… and then I kind of forgot about wanting to write an entry… and then I got to some scenes that really made me want to write about them, and so here I am. Two weeks later and a good 16 hours into the game.

Do I like the game? Let me answer that with a little anecdote.

On Thursday, I walked into the local electronics store to buy a pack of batteries for my 360 controller because I’m also playing Mass Effect apparently, and I suck at it. A lot. But anyway, there I was, at the store, batteries in hand and. There! On the very top of the shelves, what’s that? Why, it’s a Lightning action figure! A really, really awesome Lightning action figure. Five minutes later, I was walking home 30 Euro poorer but with a really awesome Lightning action figure in my backpack.

There was a Snow figure too and I’m telling you, I was very, very tempted. But I didn’t have quite enough money on me and would have felt a bit too dorky buying two of these. (It would’ve fit though – Snow is a big dorky puppy.) I’m still kind of tempted though and it’s probably good that right now, the only figures that are out are Lightning, Snow and Vanille, because who knows if I could resist a Fang, Sazh or Hope? Will have to resist buying one of those in June.

(Why yes, I love action figures. I just feel bad spending money on them, which… I realise is silly on some level, because I can afford it and other people buy expensive clothes or whatever, Maybe I should just buy Snow anyway, because looking at Lightning on my shelf makes me as happy as… well, as I suppose some people are when they look at a nice painting on their wall, or new curtains.)

… What do you mean, I went off on a tangent? As if I didn’t do that every day anyway.

But my point is, I love this game.
Which is more of a surprise than it seems to be, actually: Yes, I squeed at pretty trailers and had high expectations because it’s the thirteenth entry in a series that has never once disappointed me, but even though, none of the characters immediately hooked me from watching the trailers the way the Final Fantasy XII cast did. And the first two or so hours of the game were mainly confusing in their fast-paced, In Medias Res, Baby! way. And now I love these characters so much I dream of owning a set of action figures of them.

I would go into more detail, but I want to avoid spoilers for now. So let me just say that they all end up feeling very, very real. (Not that you’d be able to tell that from their portrayal early on.) Unsurprisingly, they all have their conflicts, with themselves and each other and the world around them, and up until now the better part of the game has been dedicated to pure character development. I’ve heard people complaining about the pacing in the game’s first half, but I really enjoy watching these characters interact and act and change.

The party also has a habit of splitting up in different combinations and we follow each of them at some point or another, see things from their perspective and control them in battle. Needles to say, that, and the occasional flashback to the days before the events of chapter one, gives us a very good impression on who these people are, and when it comes down to it, each of them (hmm, okay, Vanille not quite as much, yet) resonates with me on some level, and there’s something about all of them that’s just so… relevant to my interests, for lack of a better word. XD

And they’re very much not a team. Yet. Of course they’re getting there little by little, but it feels like, hmm… because they have so many reasons not to (want to) work with each other that they have to overcome first that it feels like once they all pull themselves together, they’ll be a stronger team for it. And I just love that.

I also love that the characters are always relatable (and by extension believable), even when they are not necessarily likeable. Hope is a very good example of that. I love the boy to itty bitty pieces (but by now we have established that I’m just here to gush over the party a lot) but oh does he have headdesk moments. But I could always understand why. These characters and their motivations, and thus their actions, just make sense. That’s how it should be and that’s why I keep repeating myself and say again that that’s why I love them.

Lightning is sitting on my shelf, muahaha! thankfully more than “a female Cloud” and somehow gets more awesome the more sides of her we see. Maybe she should stop punching her future party members in the face though. (The first time it happens, the one on the receiving end is Snow and it says something about their conflict that I found myself cheering for both sides, doesn’t it?)

Snow is, as I have said, a big doofy puppy (and his smooshy romance moments with Serah were a lot more adorable than I thought they would be) who has a hero-complex and more depth than he’d want you to think. But mainly, he’s a puppy.

The irony of Hope “We are all going to die and this is not going to end well and WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!” Estheim is not lost on the rest of the party, but things are looking up. Also, I’ve just met Hope’s dad. I love Hope’s dad something fierce. (Didn’t expect that from the trailers. I still thinks he looks more like a Cid than the game’s actual Cid though. XD)

Sazh was feared by many to be a Black Character Ohemgee! stereotype but after the “Hi, I’m the comic relief!” first hour or so he sidesteps that nicely. (Not to mention that I’d argue that he isn’t the comic relief. He’s just sometimes the straight man to the insanity around him, which is hardly the same.) Haven’t had him or Vanille in my party for a while, but I can’t wait to get back to them; the bits with Dahj have me intrigued.

Vanille is the overly-cheerful girl who hides A Dark Secret behind her constant smile and so we technically don’t know much of “the real her” aside from what her secret actually is. (It’s “foreshadowed” so heavily that I can’t not assume that the game meant for the player to figure it out way ahead of time. Case in point, when it’s finally revealed, it isn’t treated as a big revelation.)

And Fang… Fang is apparently the awesomely sarcastic Knight In Shining Armour for Vanille and I ship them like it’s my job. I want more. Moooooooore!

Uhm, yeah. That’s it for now, I guess. I could also gush over the battle system for a bit (it starts as press-x-to-win and the game takes its sweet time until it introduces more, but once chapter 3 comes around and with it abilities, paradigms, the Crystarium and other fancy terms (strategy!), it gets pretty exciting) but I’ll just leave it at that and dedicate this post fully to Final Fantasy XIII‘s characters.

Who are nothing short of amazing. Smooshy love declaration over. (Yes, I realise that I haven’t actually said much about them at all, and maybe I’ll do that in a future post that’ll thus give some minor character spoilers. But right now everyone seems to be rather desperate to go into the game as unspoiled as possible, so…)

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