An artistic masterpiece, with a story just as fantastic, does Square-Enix hit the spot again?

Fantastic visuals; Brilliant voice acting; Deep, enjoyable story.

Extremely linear; No freedom until 30 hours into the game.

A cocky self-proclaimed hero with a charming sneer and a heart of gold. A sultry, no-nonsense ally you can rely on for a sly quip and a warm hug. These characters sound like standard role-playing stereotypes, but to Final Fantasy XIII's credit, they transcend formula and wriggle into your heart.

A diverse and mostly excellent cast of characters; A great original world; fleshed out by a compelling story; Fun combat system keeps you on your toes; Magnificent production values

Exceedingly linear exploration and character progression; Vanille will get on your nerves in a big way

Final Fantasy XIII is set on the world of Cocoon, a world that is controlled by magical beings called Fal'Cie. These beings control everything from the climate to food. The citizens of Cocoon are content with this arrangement and see the Fal'Cie as their guardians.

Square Enix invite us to take part in hectic battles featuring a bunch of great characters. But is this really a welcome evolution to the classic RPG series?

Fantastic characters; great graphics; amazing environments

Shamelessly linear; streamlined gameplay; monotonous

Final Fantasy XIII is not a good game. I don't just mean it's not good in comparison to other games in the FF canon. Nor am I saying it simply fell short of the expectations built up over its four years of development. It's not a good game, full stop. The characters are not likeable.

This millennium hasn't exactly started well for the Final Fantasy franchise. It kicked off with Final Fantasy IX which, in truth, struggled to match the quality seen in VII and VIII.

Final Fantasy XIII is a beautiful, unique and immersive video game which demands total surrender from both long-time fans and brand new players.

I can't believe how bad of a review Final Fantasy 13 got. It's my first Final Fantasy game ever and I absolutely love it. Sure it could be a little less linear, okay a lot less linear, but the graphics are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in a video game, period.

"It's the end of the road." "But at least it's not the end of the line." The conversation between two wooden characters in Final Fantasy XIII is a fitting description of the Final Fantasy series.

The Final Fantasy series has been around for a long, long time - well, since 1987, when the very first FF game appeared on the NES. In all that time, the game had a staggering amount of sequels, add-ons and spin-offs, probably more than any other game license out there.

The art direction is great; as are the visuals; music and sound effects; the gameplay is actually quite good and engaging when it gets going; a satisfying amount of different skills and combat abilities for each character

Excruciatingly slow beginning and tutorial; equally slow and poorly told story with infantile and clichd characters; you'll probably end up skipping most of the cut-scenes (and my God there are a lot of them)