I'm going to date myself a bit here, but I remember waking up the morning of October 1, 1991 a wide-eyed gamer thinking today was going to be the greatest day of my life.  I was 11 years old at the time, and that date happened to be the day Final Fantasy II released (later renamed FFIV in North America) for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.  The Squaresoft (now known as Square Enix) role-playing game was one of the biggest Japanese titles to hit North American shores that year and at the time considered the pinnacle of the RPG genre.  To this day FFIV still stands as one of the all-time greatest role-playing games of our time.

Ever since those days whenever a new Final Fantasy game gets released it feels like a national holiday for all gamers even remotely interested in RPGs.  The Square Enix series is still arguably the reigning king of its respected genre, despite intense competition from western developers such as Bioware, Bethesda and Gearbox Software. 

So it's now March 9, 2010 and after 4.5 years of development, Final Fantasy XIII has finally arrived -- and it's no longer a PS3 exclusive.  As Microsoft announced at E3 last year, Final Fantasy XIII would also appear on the Xbox 360 in North America and Europe, leaving many die-hard PS3 fans around the world in utter shock.  Ever since Square Enix decided to ditch Nintendo in favour of publishing Final Fantasy VII on the Playstation the Final Fantasy brand has been near synonymous with the Playstation family of consoles.  Every major series installment since has appeared on a Playstation console, most of which were exclusive (Final Fantasy XI being the most notable exception).  Despite the shock, as someone who likes to remain console neutral, I couldn't be more happy that even more gamers have been given the opportunity to play such a hugely anticipated blockbuster title such as Final Fantasy XIII.

There are some differences between the PS3 version and Xbox 360 version worth noting.  In an interview with Famitsu, Square Enix confirmed that the video and audio is compressed on the Xbox 360 version and will ship on 3 DVDs.  In contrast, the PS3 version will be uncompressed and appear on a dual-layer blu-ray disc.  So, if you have both consoles, you might want to pick-up the PS3 version to avoid any disc-swapping during gameplay. 

Now, the folks over at Digital Foundry, a group that often digs deep into multiplatform games for comparisons, have gone on record stating that "Final Fantasy XIII on Xbox 360 isn't anywhere near as impressive as it is on PlayStation 3".  Keep in mind that Final Fantasy XIII was developed with the PS3 as the lead console, and later was ported to the Xbox 360.  The site does recognize that while the PS3 version is technically superior, the Xbox 360 provides essentially the same gameplay experience. 

Says Digital Foundry:

"So, occasionally fine, sometimes grim: a statement that effectively sums up how much of Final Fantasy XIII looks on Xbox 360 when compared to the PlayStation 3 game, meaning that if you own both consoles, there really is only one choice when it comes to the purchasing decision.

Despite the cutbacks, the in-game graphics are still attractive, the gameplay is fundamentally the same as the PS3 version and it's clearly a cut-above much of the other JPRG fare available on the console. That being the case, despite falling short in direct comparison with its PS3 sibling it's still a decent game."

Of course, words only go so far to describe the differences between the two versions, so I encourage you to check out the image and video comparisons on the Digital Foundry website.

Well, I'm off to get some sleep, got to rest up for a big day of gaming tomorrow.  I would love to hear what everyone thinks of Final Fantasy XIII in the comments section.

-----

Final Fantasy XIII - Image Gallery