47. Final Fantasy XIII
PS3, 2009


I don't care if it got a "terrible" score of 83 (critics) and 7.7 (users) on Metacritic, I really liked this game. The highlight for me would be how well we got to know the characters. Perhaps with the exception of Fang, I really feel like I got to know each of the main characters in this game to a notable degree. Not just a case of "this is my story" but also a case of their personality. This is probably a product of the improved voice acting (I know some people hated Vanille, but I didn't mind after I got over tennis grunts), the snippets of dialogue we get from them as they move around and, of course, the improved graphics which brought a lot more variation in the facial expressions of each characters, well beyond that of Final Frowntasy XII (seriously, I can't remember any of that Ivalice crew smiling, ever - I'm sure they did, but when I think of their faces... all pouty, all the time).

It's true that there wasn't much to do and that did annoy me just like it annoyed pretty much everyone else. I didn't like the fact that I couldn't return to the old areas... but at the same time it made sense for the story. You're refugees on the run, why would you go backwards? As for the story itself, I feel it had the potential to be so much more. I still kind of wish that we saw something majorly dramatic, like Hope actually succumbing to the stresses he was under and turning into a Cie'th and the other five having to kill him. I feel that would have been a very notable moment in FF history. I guess they just couldn't bring themselves to do that. Same with Sahz, although I would have been mortified if he actually went through with that. Still, with all said and done, I really did enjoy the game and I've had the urge to play it again sometimes, so I'm sure I eventually will.

I also really liked the music in this game, which is very underappreciated. I think this is because of the amount of voice acting in the game and the loud sound effects in various locations. Danielle and I use Snow's Theme as our go-to music for boss fights when playing FFXIV.