XIII Reviews
With no AI improvements and a clear design choice of using 3D models, the aesthetics of the original XIII spoil it more than they improve it.
Review in Greek | Read full review
If you want to play XIII, look for the original. Just skip this reimagining.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
This remake of XIII not only fails to recreate the source material but also fails as an enjoyable gaming experience.
You can easily imagine a world where the XIII remake is a success, but sadly this isn’t that world. Broken is about the nicest thing that can be said about this remaster that is somehow worse than the original.
Microids and PlayMagic delivered what looks like an unfinished game, with many bugs hindering the story progression and other problems like the bad enemy A.I., leaving just the original plot and the good cel-shaded graphics as the only positives.
Review in Italian | Read full review
We’d strongly advise against playing XIII on current-gen hardware in its current state, at least. Next-gen, the game is considerably better but there’s a lot that’s still not quite up to scratch. We’d certainly advise waiting on this until at least the first update is live, but what we will say for sure is there’s other inherent problems here that go beyond re-balances and tweaks.
Fans are better off playing the original on PS2, Xbox, and GameCube. The remake is barely playable in its current state.
In all honesty, XIII from 2003 wasn’t that great of a game to begin with. PlayMagic clearly wanted to modernize and improve what that game did, while keeping the integrity of the game in-tact. But for some reason or another, just couldn’t come through on that. The game’s best feature is its cel-shaded graphical fidelity, being a remake that looks better than it plays. If you manage to pick this up, though I’d recommend you wait for patches and updates, you’ll either appreciate what’s been done or be convinced to pick up XIII – Classic instead.
The XIII remake is best described as absolutely incompetent. A game from 2020 shouldn’t look, play, sound, and perform worse than a 2003 title that wasn’t even that hardware demanding back in the day to begin with. I am baffled with how unfinished and unpolished this game is. I may have played worse games this year, but I seriously doubt any of them, be it Fast & Furious or Road Bustle, infuriated me as much as this remake. The more I play it, the more I loathe it.