Everyone remembers their first time.

I entered the Final Fantasy realm a little bit later than most considering it took until the 10th installment for me to actually give the beloved series a try, but once I fired up the disc and saw the first CGI sequence, I was hooked. From that point on, I was a Final Fantasy junkie, spending hours upon hours of my time playing the RPG and loving every second of it.

For those of you who are as addicted to the leveling up, random battles and never-ending plot twists as I am, you are more than aware that Square-Enix will be releasing the 13th installment of their trademark franchise in March. But for those of you who are new to the series (i.e. Xbox 360 owners), Final Fantasy XIII will be the ultimate role-playing experience and will be available for the first time on the Xbox 360.

I have had a chance to look at some of the screenshots from the game and there is only one word to describe it, amazing. The graphics are jaw-dropping and the attention to detail is something we have never seen in a Final Fantasy game before. The battles look intense and action-packed, introducing some new innovations to the franchise including the all-new Ultimate ATB (Active Time Battle), Paradigm system and Gestalt mode. The menus appear to be colorful, vibrant, easy to navigate, and it looks as if Square-Enix has gone back to a leveling-up system similar to FFX’s Sphere Grid.

In addition to the great new graphical features, Square-Enix has even enlisted the help of multi-platinum; Grammy-nominated singer Leona Lewis to voice the theme song for the North American version entitled ‘My Hands.’ Fans of the franchise will be able to hop on their Chocobos and pick up Final Fantasy XIII March 9th, 2010 for either Xbox 360 or Playstation 3, but for those of you who cannot wait, check out our Final Fantasy XIII gallery.