Nowgamer.com's fluent Japanese-speaking Ryan Winterhalter recently reviewed Final Fantasy XIII. Despite giving the game a 7.9/10 he admitted that it didn't live up to the hype, and said: "while individual aspects work well and give motivation to keep playing, other aspects fall flat."

He praised the "entertaining" characters, but was disappointed with the scenarios they were placed in and the villains who failed to "invoke any of the strong emotions that previous antagonists in the Final Fantasy canon, like Kefka or Sephiroth, have."

Winterhalter also enjoyed the combat system and loved the "exquisitely detailed architecture and structural design" of the environments, but despite this "it doesn't feel like a real place" and was akin to "navigating characters through a movie set."

Go to the source for the full review.

[Discuss in the Final Fantasy XIII forum]

Ultimately, the rest of the game suffers from similar problems. The characters are engaging and interesting, but the scenarios they're placed in fail to engage the player. The environments are beautiful and detailed, but this art feels like little more than wallpaper thrown over a tunnel that players walk through. It's clear that Square Enix has some of the most talented artists and designers in the industry working for it. Where this game stumbles, where other Final Fantasy games succeeded, was in taking the talents of these people and synthesising them into a single whole that's greater than the sum of its parts.

A game that never comes together properly. However, the certain individual aspects of the game and its battle system are of such high quality that it’s still engaging and fun to play... most of the time.

Miss Razz via ps3.nowgamer.com »