Final Fantasy XIII (2009)
Final Fantasy XIII is a 2009 role-playing (rpg) video game made by Square Enix Product Development Division 1 and Square Enix.
Cocoon floats above the older world of Pulse, a gleaming sphere run by godlike machines called fal'Cie. When a handful of strangers are marked as l'Cie, cursed servants of those powers, the population turns on them and the military hunts them down. Lightning, a hardened soldier, and a mismatched group of fugitives run for their lives while trying to decode the fate branded onto them. Square Enix built this thirteenth Final Fantasy around long cinematic set pieces and a fast Paradigm battle system that rewards switching combat roles mid-fight. The look is sleek, the pace relentless, the mythology dense.
Quick answers
What is Final Fantasy XIII about?
Cocoon floats above the older world of Pulse, a gleaming sphere run by godlike machines called fal'Cie. When a handful of strangers are marked as l'Cie, cursed servants of those powers, the population turns on them and the military hunts them down. Lightning, a hardened soldier, and a mismatched group of fugitives run for their lives while trying to decode the fate branded onto them. Square Enix built this thirteenth Final Fantasy around long cinematic set pieces and a fast Paradigm battle system that rewards switching combat roles mid-fight. The look is sleek, the pace relentless, the mythology dense.
When was Final Fantasy XIII released?
Final Fantasy XIII was released on 17 December 2009.
Who made Final Fantasy XIII?
Final Fantasy XIII was made by Square Enix Product Development Division 1 and Square Enix.
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A few thoughts on Final Fantasy XIII
Fans of its rules-heavy fantasy and found-family fugitives should try Fullmetal Alchemist, where siblings bend a strict magic system while fighting a corrupt state and a hidden god. For more of the journey-and-combat rhythm, Hunter x Hunter scratches the same itch. Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children delivers the series' cinematic sword-and-sorcery in film form.
Sprawling fantasy sagas ruled by gods, prophecy, and consequence
Final Fantasy XIII floats Cocoon above a hostile lower world governed by godlike fal'Cie, the kind of scale these other sagas share. Oathbringer and Brisingr build entire histories around chosen bearers of power, Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon stake empires on bloodline and prophecy, and Wizard and Glass carries a doomed love story across the same kind of vast, rule-bound cosmology.
Marked, hunted, and cast out by the very people they used to belong to
Lightning's group becomes l'Cie, branded by fal'Cie and hunted by the military that used to protect them, and that turn from citizen to fugitive drives every pick here. Attack on Titan and Fullmetal Alchemist mark their casts with visible signs of what they've become, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children's Geostigma survivors carry a similar stigma, and Saint Seiya's bronze saints answer to gods who never asked their permission.
Tragic myth-tinged adventures where found family fights against fate
Under the spectacle, Final Fantasy XIII is a story about people who barely know each other holding on to save one of their own. The Song of Achilles ties its heroes to a fate the gods already wrote, Rurouni Kenshin and Inuyasha wrap old wounds and demon curses around a small band traveling together, and Hunter x Hunter keeps its found family bound by loyalty more than blood.