Final Fantasy XIII has proved that the number ‘13’ isn’t unlucky as it has been vastly successful since its release in December 2009 (Japan) and March 2009 (Rest of the World). The franchise, being one of longest running stories of all time; and fans getting more engrossed with the complex battle for survival that Lightning faces in Cocoon, this sequel is a hit for the sake of its wonder and amazement.

Looking at the Storyline for Final Fantasy XIII, the majority find it a good continuation; but somewhere only a spiced blend of the well known storyline. With 5.5 million copies already sold, no one is really in a position to criticize this FF follow up; but to be fair; most feel that a few more innovative twists could have made this game go platinum. The World of Cocoon is still at war with the fal’Cie of Pulse and the last war has left an aftermath of paranoia. The Sanctum government of Cocoon has still got their army PSICOM set against Pulse as the magically capable fal’Cie and their human slaves, the l’Cie. Lightning is still trying to rescue her sister from Pulse; but let’s not spoil the fun in giving away any more of the story. One could be hinted though, that the act picks off from Final Fantasy X and X-2 rather than FF XII as far as the story is concerned. Overall, it’s not that 9/10 generalized ratings of the game is unduly given.

The development and music of the game is worth more than the while. The graphics by developers Square Enix, as Japanese animation is always; never ceases to really take you away to fantasy. Though there has been some controversy with the Xbox and PS3 versions, the PS3 version seems to be better to play. At 1080p HD resolution and built on a 7th generation gaming platform, the team has released two more parallel version named Final Fantasy XIII (Versus) and Final Fantasy XIII (Agito) which are parallel games with no links, Agito being the portable version. The FF franchise has seen better music, but nonetheless, the music sold 16,000 copies on the first day of the OST release.

Though original development for this release began for PS2, the game was modified to PS3 prior to release. When the comparison screenshots released though, there were Xbox 360 logos on top, for which Enix apologized to Sony and PlayStation. On another controversial front, the public launched a lawsuit against Square Enix and Sony America on June 2, 2010; stating that freezing bugs in the game system was causing glitches and physical damage to the consoles. As expected, Enix blamed the console while Sony blamed the disc. Regardless, the game and its parallel versions are one of the biggest gaming success stories and will remain so for quite some time to be.

The Xbox 360 version of the game was released in a 3 DVD set while the Sony PS3 version came as a 50Gb Blue-ray disc. With almost equivalent competitiveness in both sales and product reviews, people still rate the PS3 version just an inch above Xbox. While complaints with the system against Final Fantasy XIII may be present for PS3 gamers, overall, this 13th act of the hugely popular cult game franchise FF is in itself a 5 star game with fanatical fan following, thus promising more Fantasy to come.

Tags: Final Fantasy XIII, Playstation, sony, Square Enix, Xbox