Xiii game series

Belgian author Jeanne Van Hamme's graphic novel XIII comes to life on next-generation platforms as a first-person shooter featuring cel-shaded graphics and an engine based on Epic Games' award-winning Unreal technology. Playing the role of an ex-secret agent who has lost his memory, players must piece together the clues to his dark past before it's too late. The game follows a similar format to the graphic novel from which it is based, as much of the story is told through a series of flashbacks.

Both the Xbox and PC versions include online multiplayer options. What do you get when you take a first-person shooter, add a French comic, mix in some cell-shaded graphics and a comic book-style presentation? That game, XIII "thirteen" , is the latest first-person shooter from Ubisoft, and while it's not as interesting as you might expect and doesn't offer much beyond generic FPS fare, it's still a decent enough shooter in the end.

Why the confusion? You see, the problem is that "Steve" has lost his memory, and isn't quite sure who he is or what he's done. After regaining consciousness on a beach, our hero quickly finds himself hunted by agents desperate to shut him up.

There are six playable characters and two guest characters. Although the game focuses on each of the playable characters equally, most of the story is told from Lightning's perspective. Cocoon is plunged into chaos when the Sanctum discovers a Pulse fal'Cie in an old Pulsian landmark in Bodhum. Fearing that anyone that has been in its vicinity might now be a l'Cie servant of a hostile fal'Cie from another world, Cocoon's governing body enacts a Purge to remove everyone who happened to be in Bodhum during the discovery.

At the center of everything is Serah Farron, a local girl who had unwittingly wandered into the vestige and been made a l'Cie and is now held captive by the fal'Cie therein. Serah's sister Lightning sets out to save her amid the Purge. She ends up meeting various allies of circumstance before the fal'Cie Anima 's abode: Serah's fiance Snow and two youths caught up in the Purge he's been protecting, Hope and Vanille, and a gun-wielding airship pilot Sazh.

As they locate Serah, she crystallizes after asking Lightning to save Cocoon. Believing Serah to be dead, Lightning leads an attack on the fal'Cie Anima, who briefly transports the group into another realm. They come face-to-face with the god Pulse that brands everyone a l'Cie, showing them a vision of the mythical beast Ragnarok destroying Cocoon. Back in the real world, the group must come to terms with being unwittingly been made enemies of Cocoon, as if they don't follow the path set out for them by the fal'Cie, they will become mindless monsters known as Cie'th.

The members of the group react to their predicament in various ways: Snow makes protecting Serah's crystal his priority; Lightning sets upon a path of revenge against Cocoon's governing body, the Sanctum , and all fal'Cie with Hope, who views her as a role model, following suit; while Sazh and Vanille choose to run from their fate.

They learn Vanille is harboring a secret of having been a l'Cie from Pulse all along, and she and her friend Fang—who joins their group—were involved in the war between the two worlds over six hundred years ago, sleeping through the centuries in crystal stasis. After settling their differences, the party decides to work together to stop the fal'Cie's plan and gain the help of the Cavalry , a rogue army regiment that posits their wish is to free Cocoon from fal'Cie rule.

The l'Cie learn everything was a ruse set up by the fal'Cie, who have manipulated their every action from the shadows. The fal'Cie's ultimate purpose for Cocoon is to be a "farm" for human souls , which the fal'Cie wish to expend to summon a god they call the Maker from another realm.

Trying to protect Cocoon despite it going against their Focus, the l'Cie gather in the fal'Cie Orphan 's resting place, the fal'Cie that powers all the other fal'Cie in Cocoon. As the party learns Orphan shares the other fal'Cie's goal to sacrifice Cocoon's citizens, they conclude there is no way for humanity and fal'Cie to co-exist.

The party declares their real Focus is to save Cocoon and kill Orphan. As Cocoon falls from the sky, Fang and Vanille summon the mythical beast Ragnarok to erect a crystal pillar to sustain Cocoon above Gran Pulse, and the world is saved.

The main cast has an unjust fate Focus forced upon them and seek a way to escape it and do what they believe is right. Ultimately free will triumphs over fate, as the party rejects their Focus and follows their true desire to save Cocoon.

The themes are present with the characters of Serah and Cid Raines , who similarly defy their fate, and with the interactions of Hope and his father , who tells Hope he must find his own path in life. On the other side of this coin are the fal'Cie, unable to follow their heart's desire as their fate is predetermined by their creator. Despite lacking magical powers and immortality like the fal'Cie, humans are still implied to be stronger in the end due to possessing free will.

Orphan explains to the party that humans' infinite potential is why fal'Cie chose to make l'Cie of men, to carry out tasks the fal'Cie themselves cannot accomplish. Having a white l'Cie brand may represent a human's free will triumphing over the bond of a fal'Cie-given Focus, as at the end of the game, all of the party's l'Cie brands burn out, which is known to halt the process of turning into a Cie'th.

Many characters lose their homelands and loved ones, and the different ways they deal with their losses are at the center of their character arcs.

While their first reaction might be anger and vengeance, the party must come to terms with their losses and ultimately realize that revenge is futile, and the only way to cope is to move forward. Related themes are the themes of guilt and running from the past, things the party is forced to face if they wish to move on. Other central themes are theocracy a system that governs under a single god recognized as the supreme ruler and totalitarianism a system where the supreme ruler controls all aspects of life, and any opposition is forbidden.

Cocoon is led by the fal'Cie Eden that communicates through Primarch Dysley , who makes its orders known to the rest of Cocoon. The military enforces the Sanctum's policies without question while justifying their actions by claiming they are for the greater good and necessary to keep the peace. The Sanctum uses propaganda and false pretenses to control the public and cover up its true intentions, the prime example being the Purge, a method to slaughter civilians supposedly tainted by Pulse by pretending to cast them out to the lowerworld.

The Cocoonian society pushes their own fears away by Purging anyone connected to Pulse; it's a personal revelation to Lightning when she realizes she is doing the same in initially having set out to destroy Eden. Another theme is the union of two worlds. For centuries, the peoples of Gran Pulse and Cocoon have despised and lived in fear of one another.

The fal'Cie acting through the Sanctum brainwash Cocoon's people to believe Gran Pulse to be hell and to fear and hate anyone and anything having to do with Pulse.

The people of Pulse call Cocoon a "floating nest of vipers" and hate its people for luring Pulsians to their world and stealing their resources. The party soon realizes the two worlds and their people are more similar than they thought.

The two worlds become one when connected by the crystal pillar formed by Ragnarok. Nobuo Uematsu was originally announced as the composer of the game's vocal theme, but later decided to give the duties to Hamauzu after being hired to work on Final Fantasy XIV. The Japanese soundtrack was released on January 27, , with two versions available for purchase. Leona Lewis sings the English theme song for the western localizations, titled " My Hands ".

Yoshinori Kitase explained the decision to use a different song was due to difficulties translating "Kimi ga Iru Kara" into English. The logo art by Yoshitaka Amano. It had a tricky development cycle, starting as a project for PlayStation 2 , and requiring a brand new engine. Its overarching concept was "a future world fantasy" and "people fighting against fate". The battle system concept was to maintain the strategic nature of command-based battles but create battles similar to those seen in the film Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.

Two hundred units were allocated to be sold in Taiwan. On November 13, , the game creators released a video with interviews and new footage that announced its international release date. One month before the game's release, Square Enix had begun promoting the game via a tour bus where gamers could preview and play the game, until March 9, , Final Fantasy XIII was released worldwide on both PlayStation 3 and Xbox It contains the game packaged with the following exclusive content:.

It includes a brand new Easy Mode and is packaged with the following content:. On July 21, , the Japanese PlayStation 3 version got a free update, which introduced Easy Mode difficulty, to get on par with the Japanese Xbox version released a year earlier.

It disables the menu when walking to access the Shroud menu. The first story is called "Encounter", and focuses on Serah becoming a Pulse l'Cie. The second story is called "Stranger", and is about when Vanille and Fang awoke from crystal stasis and began adjusting to Cocoon life. The third story, "Family", focuses on Sazh and his son, Dajh, detailing how Sazh came to own the Chocobo Chick and how Dajh fell into the Sanctum's clutches.

The fourth story, "Search", details Vanille and Fang's separation, Fang's encounter with Cid Raines, and joining him to locate Vanille. Part five of the novel is titled "Friends", and focuses on Hope Estheim's life with his family and friends before the Purge. The sixth story, titled "Present", involves Snow buying engagement necklaces and Serah finding a birthday present for Lightning. The seventh and final story, called "Tomorrow", is about Fang and Vanille preparing to become l'Cie during the War of Transgression and Vanille getting ready to be Purged to Gran Pulse in the present day.

A patch update was released in December , which included customizable rendering resolution options previously absent in the initial release of the game. The game, distributed by Broadmedia Corporation, runs on smartphones thanks to G-cluster Global Cloud Technology, meaning players need to be connected to the internet to play. The application is free to download and try for the first 30 minutes, with a 2, yen in-app purchase allowing users full access.

The game is played on a server, and the footage is sent to the player's device that, in return, sends controller inputs back over the air. Square Enix recommends players play on a wi-fi network with a stable 3Mbps connection. The Crystarium system was one of the game features that fell under criticism due to emphasizing the game's linear nature.

In January , it was voted "the best game ever" in the Famitsu reader poll. The game's Metacritic score stands at 83 for the PlayStation 3, and 82 for the Xbox , signifying "generally favorable" reviews. Final Fantasy XIII has been hailed as a technical milestone with its presentation of CGI cutscenes and the almost seamless transition of visual quality between cutscenes and real-time gameplay. Many have appreciated the game's soundtrack though some feel the replacement of the game's original theme song with Leona Lewis's "My Hands" was unfortunate.

The battle system has been generally liked, with the increased speed and the depth of the Paradigm Shift system. The story, characters, and voice acting were mostly received well with reviewers, stating the characters worked well together, and the interactions between them made up for shortcomings in the storyline.

Many, however, reacted negatively to the game's linear nature, especially in the first ten chapters on Cocoon compounded by the absence of traditional towns and little interaction with non-player characters. Many also noted that the slow pace the game opens up, with the Crystarium system only expanding at specific storyline points to allow the characters to learn more abilities, and the relatively late point the player is allowed to choose their battle party, contributed to the game's linear feeling, some citing it "boring".

Game director Motomu Toriyama has since stated the lower-than-expected review scores resulted from reviewers approaching the game with a western point-of-view, and reviewers were used to games where the player was given an open world to explore.

He noted this expectation contrasted with the development team's vision in that it "becomes very difficult to tell a compelling story when you're given that much freedom". Final Fantasy XIII was ultimately unexpectedly polarizing and is the first Final Fantasy main title to elicit such strong fan reactions. The game later received "mostly positives" user reviews on Steam after Square Enix released a patch update to fix most of the issues in December By April, American game sales reached an estimated , units for PlayStation 3 and , units for Xbox As of May , the Microsoft Windows version sold over , units on Steam.

Final Fantasy XIII is the first Final Fantasy title with European packaging artwork that does not only feature the game's logo , but the main protagonist as well. Browse episodes. Top Top-rated. Photos Top cast Edit. Greg Bryk Amos as Amos. Aisha Tyler Jones as Jones. Virginie Ledoyen Irina as Irina. Wole Daramola Mozambique as Mozambique. Caterina Murino Sam as Sam.

Hugh Tran Duncan as Duncan. Bruce Ramsay Vargas as Vargas. More like this. Watch options. Storyline Edit. It is based on the Belgian graphic novel series created by Jean Van Hamme and William Vance, about an amnesiac protagonist who seeks to discover his concealed past.