Oh. Well, it grew on me.

Well, khuutra did you know background art designer Isamu Kamikokuryo (everything other than characters I think), did both 12, and 13.

Not saying you have to like both, as sometimes great artists have periods of drawing crap.

Well at least 13 was better than 12.

it was funny, I remember 12 and my story so well. was excited but the fanboys almost ruined it for me. Game came out in Japan to rave reviews, but I was hesitant. turned out to be tied for my second favorite FF game. Basically did everything right, most notably the emphasis on side content and exploration.

If you adore Final Fantasy XII, chances are you'll hate XIII. It's linear (moreso than X), has virtually no side content (aside from some hunts near the end), no freedom, no variation, and you hardly have any control over the combat. As people say, the game plays itself, you're just along for the ride, inputting the commands. There's virtually nothing to explore, no replay value, there isn't even an option to play through it a different way, like skyrim. The battle system looks awesome but that's about the extent of it since every enemy requires a specific strategy to defeat (that you'll repeat ad nauseum), the story is bland and poorly told (though the world its set in is really deep and nuanced if you're willing to read through an in-game encyclopedia), the characters are all flat cliches, and...did I mention there was basically no plot?

It's Final Fantasy 10 if it took away all the things that made Final Fantasy 10 good.

12 was good although i don't really like the characters. 13 is just bad though, there is nothing in that game except maaaaybe the graphics thats any good. If the game didn't have Final Fantasy in the name it would just be another random JRPG.

Although I obviously have a different view to you, especially on Final Fantasy XIII, I agree with this post. Nice to know you can see the similarities between X and XIII too.

You and I are likely to mince words in about two weeks when XIII-2 comes out...

And I'm very objective, I just really, really hate XIII. 

You aren't going to play it are you? To be honest I think you would like it less than the first.

And yeah, I know, I got that part. Nothing wrong with hating anything anyway, you just have to handle it the right way, like you did in that post above, you spoke the truth.

The tendency for hugely hyped games is the majority will rate it higher because it's bigger budget. If you actually read the bulk of text, a number of reviews that made valid criticisms still gave it a decent score. Another example of this phenomenon would be GTAIV, I doubt many would think it's truly worthy of 98 even though all the critics scored it highly.

There are decent JRPGs out there although for me I don't think any have really managed to replicate the epic feel of Chrono Trigger, Grandia or the older Final Fantasy games. They're mainly low budget, strategy JRPGs or more action based RPGs like Demon's Souls. Just ordered Xenoblade so hopefully that'll change that.

Hey Khuutra, glad you've decided to play it.
I've only just begiun myself, and my friend played it for half an hour and he decided to get it as well.

I think it's easily the most friendly FF in the series.
You don't have to heal up anymore. You're going to do it anyways, right? And you're going to just farm to buy potions anyway, right?

The game isn't as linear as people make it seem, and the other games were often less linear than people make them out to be. FF12 is probably the least linear in the series, while all the "world map" FF's are just fake freedom. You can't really explore until much later, and the exploration is often just a waste of time.

Also, FF13 is beautiful. Absolutely stunning. The story is great. It makes sense why they have magic. The active battle is spectacular. Enemies moving around is what adds the "luck" to the game. Sometimes, an enemy will move up to attack, and while it's retreating from its attack, your character might swing and miss because of the drop back. Fuckign brilliant way to handle misses, on top of the random miss here and there.

I've liked every FF I've ever played except for 9.
To rate the ones from 7, I'd say it goes 12, 7, 8, tactics, 13, 10, 9
The only problem is that those first 5 are so closely scored with each other, then 10 and 9 aren't as good.