Five hours in and the story is a convoluted mess. There are so much things to take in and not enough explanation to make sense of everything going on. I can even understand why they did it this way too, as SE successfully created an entire damn world full of alien concept and alien words that leaves the average gamer scratching his head in confusion.

How do you cram that much lore into the beginning of the story for it to make more sense yet at the same time produce a playable -enjoyable- game?

I don't know to be honest, but it's certainly not how FFXIII has done it.

The disjointed story is compounded a mediocre caste. There's Hope 'the whiny the bitch' and Vanille 'the voice that can drive the enemy to commit suicide' (Seriously if I had to listen to that voice all the time I'd stab myself as a mean of escape). There's Snow the hero (aka the thoroughly unlikable paedophile), Miss dark mysterious emo and the token black guy (who incidentally has probably the best voice acting and also the best line so far in the game).

So a disjointed and confusing story with a caste of character that is tolerable at best (and move into unlikable at worst) leaves me with no ability to empathise or sympathise with anyone or anything.

This my friend is called disconnection, and its a nasty nasty shock coming from a fan of the series that was spellbound by VIII and mesmerised by X.

From review comment, I KNOW that it will get better and to be honest, at least part of the problem is probably my own mind providing me with rose tinted memories of past Final Fantasies that I still cherish to this day.

But alas the illusion is broken. No matter how good the game get later on, it will never be as 'perfect' as the VIII and X of my memory.

Agreed !

Lucky Square Enix still has Dragon Quest :S

The beginning is the most important part of the game.
If the game failed to grab me in the first 10 minutes (minus intro), I stopped playing and put the game back in the box and onto the shelves.

Agreed, if not for the fact that this is Final Fantasy that would have probably been its fate. The first 2 hour of gameplay was also a series of 'x' 'x' 'x' which didn't help matter at all. The gameplay have thankfully improved alot after the first 2 hours (after they finally introduce the paradim shift) because otherwise I might just cry.

Disclaimer: I still have to play XIII
But I saw so many people comparing it unfavorably to previous games, that indeed it looks to me like a case of nostalgia-tinted glasses.

In particular, for example, "disjointed, clumsy exposition" and "annoying, clicheed cast" might as well describe my experience with most of FFX. Just replace the token black guy with a Jamaican comic relief and you're done. You've got the whiner, the stoic warrior (comes in the furry variant), the goth witch.

The fact that by all means FFXIII seems to be much closer to X than XII (which i adored, gameplay and cast and writing and all) is actually one of the reasons why I'm not that hyped about this latest game. The fact that you find it not that good in contrast to FFX is what puzzles me.

I don't want demean in any way an experience you loved. I am curious about what can be said about the game per se when compared to FFX, trying to cut down on the subjectivity and nostalgia as much as you can.

With regards to X, it was the game the convince me to get a PS3, I played it at a friends place on an imported PS2 with the original voice acting in Japanese and all I saw was 'awesome' everywhere.

That's the nostalgia factor.

Now to the meat. Please be aware that unlike a lot of the critic, I couldn't give a flying fuck about the game being too linear. I found nothing wrong with the linear progession, but what I found absolutely fucken confusing was the unfolding plot.

In X the main character is as clueless about the world he stumble into as the rest of us. its alien but you get to learn the expirience with the protagonist as the story progress.

Here everyone has already caste their die, and it feels like I've flipped open the middle of a book and I'm looking at a climax with not clue of a head or tail. That's the start of the trouble.

Now to character. First let me say that I did not like all of X's character either and the English voice actress for Yuna needs to be strangled.

But I played it (with great difficutlies) in its original Japanese language and I liked Yuna and Lulu and even though I dislike Waka, he didn't grate me in the same way as Vanille and Hope currently does. The two character combined are enough to kill a lesser game.

Seriously, the first time they gave Vanille a gun and she went 'pow' and pretended to shoot Snow left me absolutely speechless. The seriousness of the situation and her response was just mind bogglingly stupid.

All I could think of in my head was OMFG Snow! You just handed an semi-automatic to a RETARD and asked her to stand guard!

So yea, again I admited that a part of the reason of my disenchantment is nolstalgia and expectation not met but the story is very poor (atm) imo.

I've seen better story unfold in lost odyssey, valkyria chronicles and even star ocean (mainly becouse they're more coherent).

I usually like games/books/movies that throw me into a context and let me do the effort, as the run-of-the-mill  exposition tricks (I lost my memory / I come from another world so youl'll have to explain everything to me) have grown quite thin for my tastes.

The cast sounds awful, but it won't be the first time I close both eyes on that for some other redeeming quality... I am playing through SMT:DDS 1 and 2 after all.

Thanks for the further explanation, anyway :)

Wow, I couldn't disagree more mibou. Couldn't disagree more.

I think I'm being very bitter atm. The gameplay btw, is fantastic after they introduce the paradim shift (dare I say very addictive). But the story just didn't flow for me. I keep feeling as if I'm a fifth wheel trying my best to fit into to THEIR story (which sounds totally odd since there is no 'i' in this story).

A friend who is more later into the game than myself told me to read the database to better appreciate the story but that just pissed me off even more.

I'll cool down and try again in a little bit. And to be honest I will probably love this game by the end but man the opening left a sour taste in my mouth.