For those who didn't already know, Final Fantasy Insight's Final Fantasy XIII Introspective feature is something I'm running for the week running up until the release of the game this coming tuesday. Each day I will focus on an aspect of the game from its development in the last two years and talk a bit about it, as a way of trying to prepare you for the game's release.

Two Days Left: Music

The Musical Personality of Final Fantasy XIII.

Everyone has an element in games that means a little bit more to them than the other elements, for some reason embedded within them. Sometimes its something obvious, sometimes less so. In my case, that something is a game's soundtrack, which I always feel contributes greatly to the personality of the game, and lends it a sense of atmosphere. Somewhere dark and foreboding just wouldn't be the same if it's background music was a happy J-Pop track (unless it's Silent Hill, because I think that combination would just freak the hell out of me).

Final Fantasy XIII is the second main Final Fantasy title to be composed by someone other than the series veteran Nobuo Uematsu, who had single-handedly composed the first ninth games, co-composed the tenth game, and contributed considerably to the first of the many soundtracks of the eleventh game. When the twelth game rolled along, compositional duties were handed over to the traditional composer of the 4th Development Division of Square Enix games, Hitoshi Sakimoto. The soundtrack of Final Fantasy XII was something I'd been greatly looking forward to, as I was a huge fan of Sakimoto's previous work, but I was left overall disappointed. Therefore, when Final Fantasy XIII rolled along, and Masashi Hamauzu was announced, I was worried to a degree. Although I was a huge fan of the little of his work I'd heard at that point, as his most prolific works were as one of the three composers of the Final Fantasy X soundtrack (Hamauzu has generally been referred to as the breakthrough of that soundtrack, with many reviews stating that his work outshone that of Uematsu), and the atmospheric and moody Dirge of Cerberus -Final Fantasy VII- soundtrack, on which he brought in Ryo Yamazaki to contribute a few pieces and arragement, to a very successful end result.

Despite my desires to not want to get too excited over the soundtrack, the first track revealed (Blinded by Light) -on the very first trailer of the game shown nearly 4 years ago- hit straight at me, especially as it used some of the more experimental synthy and electronic elements he'd used to great effect in Dirge of Cerberus. Following this, his new sountrack was released, for the not-so-very-well-faring Sigma Harmonics. Despite the mediocre sales of the game, the soundtrack was a real gem, and was only hampered by it's short duration (the soundtrack being only 37 tracks, with a vast majority of them running at 1 minute or less, for a total duration of under 1 hour). As time wore on, we found out that Hamauzu was bringing back Ryo Yamazaki onboard as a contributor, and was also arming himself with Mitstuto Suzuki, a man who I feel has not been used at Square Enix anywhere near as much as he deserves.

Suzuki is a man with a very electronic and ethereal compositional quality to him. Despite having worked at Square Enix for several years, his contributions to games have been minimal, with his biggest works for the company being 2 original albums -In My Own Back Yard, and Neurovision- which are well worth the iTunes buy in my opinion. It wasn't until The World Ends With You that he first came to real game notice, having arranged a few of Takeharu Ishimoto's pieces, after which he also helped Hamauzu on the Sigma Harmonics soundtrack. Suzuki's most noticeable work, however, came with a second collaboration with Takeharu Ishimoto on the soundtrack to Dissidia -Final Fantasy-. In that game, he did the arrangements that sound the most vastly different from the rest of the soundtrack, which included a new synthy approach to the traditional Prelude theme. With all these announcements, and the promise that the game's vocal theme was to be composed by Final Fantasy legend Nobuo Uematsu, I confess to steadilly getting more and more excited.

Within the last few months before the Japanese release of the game, however, fears began to settle in. In September 2009 it became known that Uematsu was not contributing to the soundtrack, and that Hamauzu had worked on the vocal themes of the game himself (like Final Fantasy X-2, the game contains 2 vocal themes, though one is more of an "insert piece" by the vocal theme's singer, and not recognised itself as a theme to the game). Later information also revealed that the game was going to end up with very few of the traditional musical themes that the series had become known for.

Despite my general apathy towards Final Fantasy XII and its soundtrack, I can easilly say that it has one of my favourite arrangements of The Prelude, even if it only lasts for a short time. Similarly, I may not like Sakimoto's interpretations of some of the more famous pieces from the Final Fantasy series, but at least they were there, a tie to the series. Final Fantasy XIII uses just one single recurring musical theme, although it used twice. This particular theme is the traditional Chocobo Theme, and it is found on the soundtrack as both Chocobos of Cocoon - Chasing Dreams and Chocobos of Pulse (in Japanese, both of these tracks followed the traditional de Chocobo format in being Cocoon de Chocobo and Pulse de Chocobo). In themselves, the Cocoon version of the theme is actually just an upgrade of a previous arrangement of the Chocobo Theme that Hamauzu had composed himself for the original Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon game called Chasing Dreams.

Despite promises of Hamauzu's take on Uematsu's Victory Fanfare, the final game does not contain one. Toriyama spoke of this relatively recently, in that it had been planned, but when it was decided that the game should be as streamlined and sleek as possible, they wanted something shorter than the traditional piece, so Hamauzu was asked to compose something new. There's also no Prelude or Final Fantasy, though that said, there is considerable debate as to some elements of comparability to The Prelude in Prelude to Final Fantasy XIII, which compositionally has some very similar musical elements, and passages in Final Fantasy XIII - Miracles have been compared to Final Fantasy. These comparisons, although sometimes stretching it, are not too far outside the realm of possibility; in Final Fantasy X-2, the Chocobo Theme by Takahito Eguchi and Noriko Matsueda is a brand new composition, but a single bar of it is virtually note-for-note the traditional theme by Uematsu. Similarly, Hamauzu himself has a string of notes in a piece of music played in Dirge of Cerberus that is a note-sequence seemingly lifted straight from the battle music of Final Fantasy VII, and considering this piece of music is played as several characters from Final Fantasy VII come to help Vincent, the comparison is easilly made.

Now, the vast majority of my problems with the music are out of the way, and what we're left with is a soundtrack that is quite simply amazing. Instead of sticking to a "feel" of music as is sometimes the case with soundtracks, Hamauzu decided to simply compose each track as seemingly right for its situation, and ranges through a variety of different styles, from his signature style (deep pieces using piano and small string sets) to rock (Snow's Theme) and blues (Daddy's Got the Blues). This could have been potentially dangerous if he'd decided to not reuse musical themes throughout the game, as is usually the case with Hamauzu soundtracks. Instead he united these vastly different styles of music by quite heavilly reusing several musical themes, most prominantly Final Fantasy XIII - The Promise, which could be described as the game's musical theme.

Final Fantasy XIII features the most use of vocal pieces in the series so far, with several of the tracks containing singing passages, either lightly for short times, or tracks that focus almost entirely on the vocals. The majority of these are performed by either Frances Maya (an English-Japanese singer who also contributed lyrics to her pieces) and Mina (a Japanese performer), and with several different choir sections. There are also two very special guests in this soundtrack, composer Masashi Hamauzu's own wife and daughter! His wife, Matsue Hamauzu, performs a single track on the last disc of the soundtrack, Dust to Dust, whilst his daughter Aya is one of the young female voices featured a lot throughout the soundtrack (and I think she really sounds quite eerie at times).

This is not the first time Hamauzu's wife and daughter have featured in Final Fantasy, both have a bit of a background with the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII: Matsue was one of the two sopranos recorded and sampled for the original recording of One-Winged Angel, whilst Aya is the incredibly eerie female vocalist on Sign on the soundtrack for Final Fantasy VII Advent Children. Matsue also went on to be one of the sopranos in Final Fantasy VIII's Liberi Fatali and FITHOS LUSEC WECOS VINOSEC.

Overall the music of Final Fantasy XIII -recorded by the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra in Poland and smaller strings groups in Japan, as well as synthesised by Keiji Kawamori- is a beautifully-crafted soundtrack, which I personally feel to be the best work of Hamauzu's career. With the music such a lovely thing to listen to, I am looking forward to seeing how it lends itself to the actual game.

I'm afraid this mini-analysis of the soundtrack became something of a review of sorts at times. I apologise for that, I'd intended to be a bit more technical, but got slightly lost along the way by my opinions of it.

Well, that ends Day Six of Final Fantasy Insight's 7-day pre-release Final Fantasy XIII Introspective. I only have two more topics left to discuss before the game's release on Tuesday, and tomorrow I will cover the game's Characters.

For those who didn't already know, Final Fantasy Insight's Final Fantasy XIII Introspective feature is something I'm running for the week running up until the release of the game this coming tuesday. Each day I will focus on an aspect of the game from its development in the last two years and talk a bit about it, as a way of trying to prepare you for the game's release.

Three Days Left: Myth

The Myth behind Final Fantasy XIII.

World backstory and myths have become an integral part of storytelling in the Final Fantasy universe as a way of deepening the histories of the worlds we're meant to buy into. Even the original Final Fantasy game, whose plot was generally sparse at best, tried with a last-minute plot-vomit about time travel and reincarnation given to you by a group of random sages that stand in a circle.

13 games later and these myths have become more pronounced and established, from the 1000-year old extinction of magic to god-like beings having steered the course of events of the world for hundreds of years, through space travel and a race of ancient beings who could communicate with the planet. Final Fantasy XIII comes with a brand new myth to complement its story, revolving mostly around the god-like beings known as the fal'Cie.

Firstly, there's the two "worlds" of Final Fantasy XIII: Pulse and Cocoon. Pulse (also known to the people of Pulse itself as Gran Pulse) is actually the name of the main planet of the game similar to the fact that we live on Earth. Cocoon is a floating mini-world in Pulse's atmosphere, the very existence of which is governed and regulated by a group of fal'Cie without whom Cocoon would physically be able to exist. Cocoon has a single government called the Sanctum, which controls virtually everything that goes on within the walls of the continent. The Sanctum is a single body which includes the actual government, but also its own army known as the Public Safety and Information Command, or PSICOM, which can be deployed for a number of tasks, which includes the safe delivery of the people of Bodhum to Pulse in the Purge that opens the game.

The Purge is a huge task undertaken by the Sanctum just under two weeks before the beginning of Final Fantasy XIII. Backstory to the game, detailed in the Japanese-exclusive (exclusive for now, as far as we're aware right now) prequel novellas Final Fantasy XIII: Episode Zero, explain that 11 days before the game begins, an investigation team discovered the Pulse fal'Cie directly beneath the Cocoon town of Bodhum. The exploratory party all became l'Cie, and the confusion and fear from not understanding the meaning of their Focus caused them all to become Cie'th. Following this, the Sanctum declared Bodhum to be a risk to Cocoon due to its proximity to the fal'Cie, and began an exercise to force all of its citizens to Pulse for the safety of the rest of the mini-world's inhabitants.

The fal'Cie are living beings that are born/created around a crystal, which acts as their power source, and the fal'Cie are gifted with certain powers as a result. The fal'Cie are found across the world of Final Fantasy XIII, both on the surface-land of Pulse, and the floating mini-world of Cocoon. The fal'Cie of Cocoon seem particularly geared towards the everyday life of its citizens, with them all seeming to contribute towards living conditions in this "utopia", with some regulating food production, and with some even creating the weather effects and sunlight. There appears to be little that the fal'Cie can't actually do, which also includes granting regular human beings with additional powers and purpose by turning them into l'Cie.

The l'Cie are people "blessed" (cursed is more like) by the fal'Cie in order to achieve a Focus for them. A Focus is a special mission given to each l'Cie, and it is sent to them in the form of a vision or dream, which they must decypher to accomplish. Whether the l'Cie completes or fails to complete their Focus is inconsequential, as no matter the outcome, the end is equally bad. Failure to complete a Focus results in the l'Cie turning Cie'th, whilst completing the Focus causes the l'Cie to turn into a crystal, an unliving state now constantly in the service of the fal'Cie (who can reanimate the l'Cie should they wish to make use of them once more). The time given to complete a Focus is determined by the l'Cie Mark which appears somewhere on the l'Cie's body, and it will steadilly change over time until its final design causes the l'Cie to become Cie'th. In the case of the Pulse fal'Cie that turns the main playable party into l'Cie, the l'Cie Mark is a series of arrow-shapes with a closed eye in the middle. As time goes on, more arrows appear, and eventually the eye begins to open, and the full opening of the eye signals the end of the Focus. The time to complete a Focus can vary drastically with the psychological state of the l'Cie, with one who panics and worries finding themselves losing their Focus time extremely quickly. L'Cie are granted a power created from their selves to help them in their Focus, the Eidolons. Eidolons were the focus (pardon my pun) of yesterday's Introspective post, so I won't go over them again.

A Cie'th is the worst of the two evils when being given a Focus: failing to complete the Focus causes the l'Cie to crystallise and their bodies to twist and they will become something much less than human. Trapped in a heart of endless despair they become little more than monsters, with misshapen bodies and twisted claws, attacking anything near them. The only trace of their former human selves appears as their face, which can still be seen somewhere on their new bodies. Some Cie'th with strong wills can actually retain more of their human selves, both mentally and physically, in an undeniable similarity to Final Fantasy X, in which the dead can become Fiends, or retain their former selves through strong will, becoming Unsent instead. A Cie'th can still complete it's Focus, and thus change into its human Crystal form. This can be achieved accidentally, or even by someone else completing the task they were originally set as a l'Cie, as the task is still completed, thus the Focus is deemed as completed. A Cie'th has a glowing red core which feeds it energy, and over time the energy can dwindle. Should the energy run out, Cie'th turn into crystal tombstones which still have a minor allowance of communication, with which they mostly tend to beg for people to complete their Focus for them.

Well, that ends Day Five -and the first in 3 days to be posted on the right day- of Final Fantasy Insight's 7-day pre-release Final Fantasy XIII Introspective. I only have a few topics left to discuss before the game's release on Tuesday, and tomorrow I will cover the game's Music by Masashi Hamauzu.

People who visit Square Enix Europe may have recently noticed that the site underwent a redesign to bring it inline with the Japanese and North American versions of the website. At this point you have noticed that the "Members" tab had a "Coming Soon" label on it, well thats no longer the case.

This time yesterday, followers of Square Enix Europe on Twitter will have received a message telling them (rather secretively) that the Members section is coming soon and that you can now register there, which also provided a link to the Members site.

>> http://member.eu.square-enix.com/en

At the moment the contents of the website are extremely bare, there's a clickable reel that takes you to various recent Square Enix Europe websites, but you can also register an account, and register compatible games to your game shelf. After a bit of experimenting (and a lot of searching), Joe and myself discovered that it appears any Square Enix published game in Europe after Dragon Quest: Chapters of the Chosen (Dragon Quest IV for visitors from the rest of the world) in September 2008 is published with a code to register. The code is usually found in the game's instruction manual, near the back on a bright red page, and is made up of 8 letters and then 4 numbers in a white box. It seems an 18-digit code is also available, which I think will be applying to new/future games. My experimentation revealed that even non-Square Enix developed games, as long as they're published by Square Enix feature a code, as confirmed by my copy of Disgaea 3 containing a code. Here's a full list of games I believe are able to be registered (I've tried to organise them chronologically from date of release in Europe).

Console Games

- Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon
- The Last Remnant [Currently Unconfirmed]
- Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time [Wii Version - Currently Unconfirmed, but the Nintendo DS version has a code, so this most likely will too]
- Star Ocean: The Last Hope [Xbox 360]
- Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers
- Star Ocean: The Last Hope International [PS3]

Handheld Games

- Chrono Trigger
- Star Ocean: First Depature
- Star Ocean: Second Evolution
- Dragon Quest: Hand of the Heavenly Bride [Currently Unconfirmed]
- Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time [Nintendo DS]
- Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume [Currently Unconfirmed]
- Dissidia -Final Fantasy-
- Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days

Non-Square Enix Games

- Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice
- Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure [Nintendo DS - Currently Unconfirmed]
- Disgaea DS [Currently Unconfirmed]
- Persona 4 [Currently Unconfirmed]

All the games listed as "Currently Unconfirmed" is simply because either Joe or myself don't own the game and haven't had a chance to check it for a code, so if you can confirm this (or point out a mistake to my list), please feel free to let me know.

We can assume that all new upcoming games will feature a code (possibly the 18-digit code the site goes on about), so I'll meet you all on tuesday for updating with Final Fantasy XIII's code.

At the moment, there aren't any points associated with registering the games (like you do in Japan and North America, which brings associated rewards with it), however, the site is very bare-bones this instant, so maybe we can hope for a change in the future.

Source: Square Enix

For those who didn't already know, Final Fantasy Insight's Final Fantasy XIII Introspective feature is something I'm running for the week running up until the release of the game this coming tuesday. Each day I will focus on an aspect of the game from its development in the last two years and talk a bit about it, as a way of trying to prepare you for the game's release.

Four Days Left: Eidolons

Summons: Transfomers Style.

These days, summons are just about as traditional in Final Fantasy games as Chocobos, which have featured as summons themselves at time in fact. Out of 12 titles (we're not including Final Fantasy XIII just this second), 4 games (IV, VI, IX, and X) have featured them as centrally important to the plot, with a further 2 games (VIII and XII) featuring them in some important fashion within the plot (having not played Final Fantasy XI enough, I can't comment on that, but I think the Avatars  are important in the Chains of Promathia expansion pack, I'll have to ask Joe or Gaia), and Final Fantasy XIII once again brings them to the foreground.

In Final Fantasy XIII, summons are known as Eidolons, as they were in Final Fantasy IX, and later in the Nintendo DS remake of Final Fantasy IV (and reused in Final Fantasy IV: The After Years). Instead of featuring one dedicated summoner, or every character potentially having access to most, if not all, the Eidolons, the plot of Final Fantasy XIII follows by having each character in the main party have access to a single summonable entity based on their selves: their Eidolon. As a result of being chosen by the fal'Cie, the main party each face their own personal summon at a point of crisis during the game, where they must do battle with them in order to gain them as summonable allies afterwards.

The battles against the Eidolons are one of the most strategic element to Final Fantasy XIII, and they are generally believed to be a leftover of some of the original battle design work by former battle director Toshiro Tsuchida. At the beginning of each battle, the Eidolon will curse their potential summoner with Doom, forcing the player to try and maximise strategy to take down the Eidolon as quickly as possible or face death, and thus re-attempt the battle. Once the player defeats the Eidolon, the summon will allow the character to call upon them when needed.

When summoned in battle, the character will channel the Eidolon through a summon crystal that is designed as a representative of the character's personality. For example, Snow summons Shiva out of a heart-shaped crystal, which represents his strong passion and conviction. The Eidolon replaces all characters in battle other than its summoner, whom they will fight alongside, and they will stay in battle until their summon time expires, or they are felled. Summon time decreases over a short period of time, and switching to their Gestalt Mode instantly depletes all the time left in favour of the transformation.

In Gestalt Mode the Eidolon takes on an alternate form that involves the summoner being able to ride them. This actual mode was originally not intended for full gameplay, and was exclusive to Shiva turning into a motorbike for the purpose of plot within the scenario. However, the battle programming team went ahead and created battle mockups for the Eidolons and ended up persuading the higher-ups (including director Motomu Toriyama) to turn it into a specific part of the gameplay. Whilst in Gestalt Mode, the player has full direct control of the Eidolon, and inputting specific combinations of button-presses results in the summon using certain abilities. Each of the four basic abilities cost a certain amount of a gauge attributed to the Eidolon, and using the special finisher ability will cause the gauge to deplete entirely in order to use the attack. Once the Eidolon disappears, all party members are fully healed, making summoning a useful strategic tactic when in danger.

All the summons of Final Fantasy XIII have a transformation sequence switching them from one design to another, which required the art director to give them an overall mechanised design to create a logical fluid transition. There are only six useable Eidolons in Final Fantasy XIII, one for each of the main playable characters, and they were steadilly revealed over the years up until the game's release in Japan:

- The Shiva sisters for Snow Villiers, who combine to turn into a motorbike.
- Odin for Lightning, who turns into a horse and two swords (wielded by Lightning).
- Brynhildr for Sazh Katzroy, who turns into a gun-mounted racecar.
- Bahamut for Oerba Yun Fang, who switches from a bipedal form to a flying dragon.
- Alexander for Hope Estheim, who turns into a non-moving fortress blocking the way of the enemy.
- And Hecatoncheir for Oerba Dia Vanille, who becomes a walking machine-gun turret.

Though Final Fantasy XIII features few playable summons, a contrast to Motomu Toriyama's last entry in the Final Fantasy series (Final Fantasy XII Revenant Wings), several of the more traditional summons feature in some way in this outing, be it as part of an entertainment show, or even the name of some of the game's fal'Cie.

Well, that ends Day Four -technically published an hour into Day Five in my timezone, but since most of my readers come from America thats fine- of Final Fantasy Insight's 7-day pre-release Final Fantasy XIII Introspective. We're now over halfway through my list of topics (to which I just had to hastilly add an extra topic after realising that since started on the tuesday before the release, I needed 8 topics, not 7 *cough*) to discuss before the game's release on Tuesday, and tomorrow I will cover elements of the game's Myth.

For those who didn't already know, Final Fantasy Insight's Final Fantasy XIII Introspective feature is something I'm running for the week running up until the release of the game this coming tuesday. Each day I will focus on an aspect of the game from its development in the last two years and talk a bit about it, as a way of trying to prepare you for the game's release.

Five Days Left: Battle System

How to get strong in Final Fantasy XIII.

Every Final Fantasy game comes with its associated battle and growth systems. Whilst the vast majority of the main series have had variations of the Active Time Battle (ATB) system, first used in Final Fantasy IV, and later retconned into the first 3 games, on top of the Experience Points (EXP) and level-growth system, the series has occasionally deviated to feature some other systems.

In a switch back to tradition for Final Fantasy XIII, the ATB system returns to this game, alongside a new growth system called the Crystarium System. Though returning, the ATB system has been given a significant redesign to focus on allowing the delivery of fast-paced combos so that the action is continuous, giving you little time to plan, with the character performing the action as soon as you confirm the fact you want them to.

This was not always the planned case, however, as original reports of the battle system from the developers claim that the system were to be a lot more strategic than this, though still with a focus on action, which they wanted to be a video game equivalent of the action seen in Final Fantasy VII Advent Children. At the announcement of the project Toshiro Tsuchida had been revealed as the game's battle system. Tsuchida is strongly known as a man who puts emphasis on strategy in his projects, with his battle system in Final Fantasy X being a turn-based system requiring pre-planning to see it through safely, and the Front Mission series (of which he has directed most titles) are also very strategy-oriented. He went on record as stating that he was developing a system that'd rely on character placement on the battlefield, and where you'd pre-select your commands, which would then be executed, and characters would take up new locations based on the last movement.

At some point in production, it must have been decided that Tsuchida's system was too "heavy" for what director Motomu Toriyama wanted for his vision of a "sleek, streamlined game". He was replaced with Yuji Abe (a name I don't personally recognise), who went on to design something much more fast-paced, where you could generally see the effect of what you chose to do as you choose to do it. Along with this replacement came a number of other changes, the battle HUD was completely overhauled, the Overclock System that had been mentioned a handful of times early in production disappeared, and there are probably numerous other differences. Certain elements of Tsuchida's work seems to have stayed behind, however, as certain battles (against the Eidolons in particular) have been described as almost completely the opposite of other battles in the game, requiring a high degree of strategy and patience, much more the style of Tsuchida. Unlike most Final Fantasy games, though like Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XII, battles are no longer random. In Final Fantasy XIII, you can see your enemies on the map before encountering them, and how you run into them will affect battle placements following the short transition into battle.

This new iteration of the ATB system brought with it many changes, two of the biggest being the lack of MP for the use of casting spells, and the fact that you are fully healed after every single battle. MP was dropped in favour of using an ATB cost system, whereby instead of waiting for the ATB gauge to fill fully, and then using your attack (or MP-costing ability in the old games), every ability in the game "costs" a certain degree of the ATB gauge, a system that was touched upon somewhat in Final Fantasy X-2. Once the gauge has reached that required amount, you can launch the attack or ability, and if you have more than that, you can even string together multiple different attacks and abilities to form combos.

Restoring your health fully after every battle was initially met with some mixed reactions, as it seemed that the difficulty of the game was being reduced to an almost farcical amount. However, those of us who played the demo last April can testify to the fact that individual battles themselves have been made much harder, and that its not uncommon to be on your last legs before finishing a battle. Enemies can hit hard and often, and you see your health depleting rather alarmingly quickly, and your characters being restored to full health after battle is, at times, incredibly necessary.

The game's growth system, the Crystarium System, is a new system for Final Fantasy XIII. In many ways it is obviously based, and is an evolution, of Final Fantasy X's Sphere Grid, and similarly to the Sphere Grid it does away completely with EXP for characters. Instead, after battles you win Crystogen Points (CP), which you spend on the Crystarium to buy new abilities and statistical changes. Unlike the Sphere Grid, the characters don't share the same board, with each character in Final Fantasy X having their own independant Crystarium based on the shape of their summoning crystal, and within it containing all the abilities and stats they can earn for each of their 6 Paradigm Shift roles (Paradigm Shift roles will be covered more thoroughly in a future Introspective dedicated to the game's Characters). Unlike the Sphere Grid which would let you learn anything as you go, the Crystarium has several restrictions placed on it: you can only access an ability or growth if you've learned certain other ones first (for example you can't learn Fira if you haven't already learnt Fire), some characters can't physically learn certain abilities (Snow doesn't learn Fire-based magic at all), and you can't access certain portions of the Crystarium until you reach certain points in the game. All this has been effectively put into place to prevent players from turning their characters into ultimate battle tanks too early in the game.

A final, major, point to the game's battle system is its Eidolon summoning system. However, I won't cover that just yet, as my next Introspective post (due to be posted after I finish work tonight, as I missed yesterday) is dedicate to the game's summon creatures.

Well, that ends Day Three (technically on Day Four) of Final Fantasy Insight's 7-day pre-release Final Fantasy XIII Introspective. I still have several different topics to talk about over the next few days, and later on tonight you will get to see the next post, dedicated to the game's Eidolons.