I am a great FF fan, and I knew even before starting playing FF XIII, that I would love it, but I never expected that I would get so much love for the game. So far I am on chapter 11 and I am having a ton of fun. Those are the things for me that make FF XIII an amazing game

1) No useless characters: From the beginning to end, you get to play with every characters and I have never felt  any one of them useless unlike in others FF (Kimari in FFX, Penelo in FF XII...)

2) Paradigm shift and every roles or classes are important: When I first used the Paradigm shift, I started believed that I would only need the Medic and Commando class, but Ravager, Synergist, Saboteur and Sentinel are as much as important and need to use them depending on the battles. From older FF where people used classes, there were some that didn't even existed for me.

3) Story and challenge. Very good story and the game is really challenging. I am the type of player who will never run from a fight, love grinding and love exploring, but still had difficulties with some bosses and even some regulars beasts.

Some of the complaints I have about the game is: the Leveling weapon and accesory,  and making Gil. So far I have only bought items, i havent bought any weapon, any accesory and Gil seems to be really rare for me. I still haven't level up any weapon nor accesories either. They are all at level 1. But I am looking foward to level them up for the very difficults missions.

So the game is really amazing, and if you are an RPG fan and didn't play the game yet because of bad review, you are missing a very good and amazing game

Final Fantasy XIII is great game, I just wish they gave more control to player and do away with bottlenecking everything. The linearness didnt even bother to much.. just the lack of control

no need to knock FFXII another great FF game

I stopped reading at "No useless characters."

huh!? Vanille is actually very usefull in the game she has some of best and most needed magic in the game. I think snow was the most useless character. They made you play without him for so long that i never ever incorporated him into my style, he was my least used character

Talking about the story, Vanille being out of it *literally* wouldn't have affected it all.

Considering she was responsible for alot whats goin on. I dont think thats fully acurate

She has two grains of importance.

EDIT: Shit! Font size doesn't work!

I actually only started playing this a couple days ago because I was busy playing SO:THL International, among other things.

I'm part way through Chapter 6 and I am really enjoying myself. The game is definitely very linear right now but it doesn't bother me a whole lot. The story is very interesting, Lightning is cool, the battle system is very fun and the graphics are wonderful. Lake Bresha was stunning to look at, as was the beach part at the pier. In a way I'm enjoying the linear aspect right now, as it's making things easier for me. I"m an RPG completionist where I need to do every little thing, so less side stuff means I can get through this game a little quicker, haha.

It's no Final Fantasy X, but I'm liking it a lot.

I found a use for her just now.

I really don't believe that there is a useless character in this game. From beginning until late in chapter 10, u had to play with every single one of them and its feels to me like the battles were more challenging than the characters being weak. This is what I meant by useless characters. And story wise, I think they role in the story was very decent. Not like other characters who just tag along with a party and not having any benefit or reason to be there in the first place.