Remember the Twitter contest we ran a while back? Our winner, Evan Denion, was kind enough to supply us with his impressions of his prize, which you can find below. Thanks Evan!

Hello, my name is Evan Denion. You may recognize my name, as I won the Final Fantasy XIII Twitter contest. Well, I'm here to share the wealth with you. In the sense that I'm going to tell you how it's going, not that I'm going to give you my game. Now, I have purposefully been avoiding any kind of media based on FF 13, so you might hear some stuff that's been done by other people, but here we go.

Visuals and Sound
All I can say is my jaw was locked in the dropped position for about the first half hour. I am playing on a 32" LG 720p 60hrz television, so I'm sure it could look even better, but honestly it is the most intense, amazing thing I've seen this far on either 360 or PS3. The surround sound is really fantastic as well. Most of the time your party members are walking, chatting around you, which is realistically rendered with surround sound.

Battle System
I didn't like FF 12, primarily becaause I detested the battle system. Now while I didn't read much, I did see early videos of FF 13 and was a little worried by the notion that I wouldn't be able to control all my characters. After I started playing however, those fears were quelled -- FF 13 is very fast paced, and utilizes the Active Time Battle (ATB) system to give you control over every character. A new addition to the ATB in this Final Fantasy incarnation is that different moves take up different amounts of ATB gauge.

As I mentioned before, I like using all my characters, but with how fast-paced the battles are, I have my hands filled just managing one character. Although the original videos resembled FF 12's system of running around, don't let it fool you. Characters and enemies do move around a little, but you don't control it: your characters will run up and attack when necessary. The main thing you'll notice about this is that there are some Area of Effect attacks that can be tricky to time. I would highly recommend choosing the option to select enemies from the screen rather than the list.

One thing confused me from the beginning of the game; I didn't really have many options available during battles, save two: "Attack" and "Command." "Attack" lets the computer determines the best move to do at the moment is and fills up your ATB accordingly, while "Command" allows you to decide for yourself. It seems kind of boring and too easy to do it the "Attack" way, though. Luckily you can choose if your cursor starts on "Attack" or "Command," and there is also an ATB Easy choice in the config menu.
I miss the party change option like FF 10 had.

Optima Change
The Optima system is basically a job system (pick which Final Fantasy system you want to compare to). You get different stats and attacks based on your job. I don't know yet if all characters can access all jobs, but you can at least access new jobs over time. So far I have unlocked Attacker, Blaster, Jammer, Enhancer, Healer, and Defender. I don't know if there are more or not. You can change your Optima in battle, which instantly changes your party's classes to others, which have been predetermined and set by you earlier. I found out after 30 minutes and a few deaths against a very irritating mini-boss how important changing classes can be.

General Gameplay
FF 13 starts you off in the heat of things. There are tutorials that show you how to play, and which basically answer the question "What is that option/status/random thing on the screen?" as soon as you see the option/status/random thing and ask yourself what it is. There are a lot of cutscenes, but I think it's par for the course, Final Fantasy wise anyway. I mean, older RPGs have tons of cut scenes too, but containing sprites with text, instead of full amazing animation with voice acting. There is no real craziness in the running around part of the game -- you run around, fight enemies which appear on the screen instead of random encounters, and occasionally activate little circles which allow you to jump over terrain.

Crystarium
The Crystarium is pretty interesting. You could look at it as a simplified version of the Sphere Grid from FF 10, if you want. At the end of every battle you get Crystal Points (CP) instead of Experience Points (XP), and you can use these CP on your grid towards new abilities or health/strength/magic upgrades. However, where the Sphere Grid let you do anything with any character, the Crystarium is pretty straight forward. You basically choose which class you want to upgrade and when. I'm not sure which I like better yet ... but I will say it's tempting to just go spend every CP as soon as you get it.

Final Verdict
Well that's about all I thought of that I wanted to talk about. I am really enjoying the game so far (I'm about eight hours in and have just scratched the surface). The story is not super creative, but it certainly isn't a copy of any other FF game. The character's personalities are ... hmmm ... good and bad. Snow and Vanille get really irritating with their almost catch-phrase like use of "I'll protect it!" and "Let's run away :D" respectively. Sazh provides for some good comedic relief, while Hope has the angst requirement covered.

In short, I really like this game, and highly recommend it for anyone who likes RPGs. The battle system feels pretty fresh, and requires some thought (I'm looking at you tough-to-break enemies). So what are you waiting for? Go out to your gaming retailer of choice and pre-order now!!