Having been deemed a threat to Cocoon, humanity’s floating safe haven, our protagonists need to fight for what they believe in and try to cure their curse.

Gameplay are currently selling copies of the game for £24.98, which is exactly £3 cheaper than Gamestation’s next best price of £27.98.

• Click here to buy Final Fantasy XIII for £24.98 from Gameplay

As we’ve come to expect from the Final Fantasy series, the story is exceptionally well thought out and full of rich well rounded characters that are delivered to the audience in one of the most beautiful games to date.

The combat system has been designed to make you think about the roles you assign your characters and how the many different combinations of these roles will work together whilst fighting. The battles become more complex as you progress through the game and luckily this makes them more interesting instead of infuriatingly difficult.

Unfortunately, the lack of freedom and linear gameplay during the first 15 hours or so is likely to lose the interest of hardcore RPG fans, and by the time the game opens up its very much a case of too little too late.

If you’re happy to compromise about having your hand held by the computer throughout the beginning of the game, then Final Fantasy XIII will reward you with a fantastic tale that is brought to life by outstanding graphics.

Still in doubt? Check out Matt’s review here.

Now that Zavvi have gone and bumped their price of this game up by £2 to £28.95 – effectively eliminating the good that was done by the APRIL2 voucher which now means you can get it for £26.95 – the cheapest you can find an Xbox 360 copy of FFXIII is over at The Hut for £24.73.  Pick up this game and you’ll be plunged into one of the shiniest RPGs ever to be seen, embroiled in a trademark tale of a band of rebels striving to reveal the true colours of a militaristic, overbearing government.

• Click here to buy Final Fantasy XIII for £24.73 from The Hut

Final Fantasy XIII isn’t a bad game particularly by any stretch of the imagination. It’s by far the best looking title in the series, and it really tries very hard to suck you into its narrative – one that is rich in twists and turns and surprising revelations and copious amounts of ham-acting. It’s all pretty ridiculous, which is what we’ve come to expect really.

It’s ironic, then, that whilst one half of the game strives to suck you in, the other half does it’s very best to push you away. The first half of this game is essentially an RPG on auto-pilot, and runs the risk of alienating and, dare I say it, boring players not taken in by the pretty colours. The combat system is a smooth ride to be sure, but it doesn’t make up for twenty hours of pushing ‘Up’ and ‘A’ with only cutscenes for comfort breaks.

The game does get better, when you finally reach Gran Pulse the game opens up, bursting free of its shackles and delivering upon its promise. You are finally able to switch around your party, deviate from the main story for the odd side mission and simply explore this sumptuous world into which you you have been dropped. But Square missed a trick not allowing you to explore this rich and detailed world from the word go, and I fear many might be off-put by an extended prologue that forces you to grind your way forward.

You can check out my full review here.

Thanks to goonertillidie at HUKD

Collector’s editions can often turn out to be a great big pile of rubbish, often featuring one or two art cards and a poorly made figurine. The one for Final Fantasy XIII boats a hardback book featuring lots of artwork from the game – from initial character designs to CG rendered environments and the like – alongside a soundtrack CD, which is pretty nice considering that the music in this game is one of the best things about it, three Eidolon art prints, some nifty packaging and a l’Cie brand decal.

The art prints and the decal you can pretty much just chuck, but the book and the CD actually make this a fairly interesting package, although whether their worth £10 more than just the game is open to debate. If you do fancy nabbing the Collector’s Edition, then your best bet is to head on over to Coolshop where they’re selling the 360 version of the game for £39.99, £5 cheaper than nearest competitor ShopTo.

• Click here to buy Final Fantasy XIII Collector’s Edition for £39.99 from Coolshop

FFXIII is the most beautiful game in the series to date and will dazzle you with it’s graphics, although less so than on the PS3. However, it’s hamstrung slightly by a tutorial that stretches out for 20 hours, feeding you endless linear gameplay with little to no choice, broken up only by relentless fighting and shiny cutscenes.

When the game does finally kick in, it’s a magical experience, and FFXIII’s true colours are fantastic to behold indeed, but the slog you have have to grind through to get there might well put off the very casual gamers that Square were probably trying to reel in with this change in direction.

You can check out my full review of the game here.

Thanks to amibees at HUKD

I posted a deal a few days ago suggesting that the £32.85 price from ShopTo was the lowest price you could find for Final Fantasy XIII, but it seems those canny cats over at the Game Collection weren’t happy with that and so they’ve dropped their price for the Xbox version to just £29.95, saving you just under £3 which could buy you a beer or a couple of oven pizzas or a beanie baby or three quarters of a ride on the Tube or thirty penny sweets (goddamn inflation!).

• Click here to buy Final Fantasy XIII for £29.95 from The Game Collection

Final Fantasy XIII was clearly built backwards by a team of men and women with balls, metaphorical or otherwise, made of titanium. Instead of trying to impress you from the start with gripping gameplay, immersive narrative and an expansive game world ripe for glorious exploration, Final Fantasy XIII funnels you through a series of narrow corridors in varying locales and makes you fight, fight and fight again.

It’s very pretty to look at, in fact the graphics are frankly astoundingly good even on the inferior 360 version, and system evolves into a deep and complex strategic setup eventually, but you see eventually is the operative word with FFXIII. After five hours of condescending hand-holding you’re fed up already, but after twenty!

The second half of the game, when you eventually reach Gran Pulse and can finally alter your party of characters who are finally starting to develop (arguably a first for the series) and go on some side quests and enjoy a little bit of choice (Choice? In an RPG? Who would have thought of such a thing?!) does open up the game a lot and suddenly the comatose cocoon of a game (sorry for the pun) bursts into life as a beautiful butterfly. There’s a great game hidden amongst these three discs, you’ve just got to slog for a few hours to get there, which seems a little bit backwards, but maybe that’s just me.

FFXIII is a solid game that’s really boosted by its exceptional presentation, but it strikes me that it was only halfway through development when omeone reminded Square that they were supposed to be making a game and not an even more nonsensical version of Advent Children.

Check out my full review here.

Thanks to Alena at HUKD

One of the oldest series in videogaming is back, and it’s shinier, slicker and more nonsensical than ever. Eschewing series staples such as towns and party micro-management for an altogether more streamlined, action-oriented approach, Final Fantasy XIII reveals itself to be one of the most striking, and divisive, games of the series to date.

Xbox 360 owners, although having to make do with slightly less impressive graphics and multiple discs, will be pleased to know that ShopTo are currently offering the Microsoft-friendly version of the game for £32.85, saving a you at least £2 on everybody else.

• Click here to buy Final Fantasy XIII for £32.85 from ShopTo

I was achingly disappointed by the first 15 hours or so of this game. Sure, it’s pretty and yes, the combat is pretty damn nifty – a smooth meld between the favoured ATB system and the gambit system of FFXII – but you can essentially push ‘Up’ and mash ‘A’ for 15 hours and you’d pretty much get all the way through.

The second half of the game – when you eventually reach Chapter 11 and Gran Pulse stretches out before you like a field of dreams – is much more of the sort of open affair you might expect from a game following the expansive FFXII. Here the game opens up and you can take on side-quests and start swapping round your troupe of fighters and mixing and matching to your heart’s content.

I gave Final Fantasy XIII a 7 in my review (check it out here), and I stick by it, but many might not make it to the second half of the game which would be a shame. The overbearing tutorial hides a gem of a game, full of surprisingly rich characters, an entertaining narrative woven from pure nonsense and a combat system that will delight strategists. It’s a hard game, one that starts off deceptively easy but then spikes massively at various intervals, but one that’s well worth the opening slog. You might not come back for a second playthrough, mind.

Thanks to Alena at HUKD