No matter how good you think the story is, that part is pretty subjective. I'd love to be with you on 13's story not sucking, but it was presented so atrociously badly to the point you literally had to read an encyclopedia to GET all of what's going on. I read some of it, but I was thinking "this is the worst example of storytelling I've ever seen in a game."
as Yahtzee said, "This isn't good storytelling Squeenix, you're supposed to weave exposition into the narrative not hand the player a glossary to read through!"
so yeah, the stuff about class and segregation is all THERE, they have all the elements to make a great story and world, but they REALLY dropped the ball on this one in so many ways. Hell, you don't even know anything about the characters till 10 hours in...most games that's when it's winding down and preparing for the final boss fight.
And also, I'm torn on Western RPG's, I've just started playing oblivion for the first time and as much as it's everything FFXIII is not, (open world, complete freedom, etc), I'm finding it doesn't have ENOUGH direction for me. Finding that balance between freedom and linearity is challenging, I won't deny that, but with Square-enix having succeeded so many times in the past, I know this was simply a fluke, not lack of ability. Sadly, the game sold like hotcakes (almost 6 million, which is more than XIII) so they'll likely make XV a lot like this, and they're making a FFXIII-2 (or so its rumored)
Time will tell on my thoughts on Oblivion, so far I'm liking it more than not, but I still don't like the complete aimlessness of it all.
**Edit**
Final Fantasy XIII-2 has been announced officially. http://gamrfeed.vgchartz.com/story/83574/updated-square-enix-announces-final-fantasy-xiii-2/
Now here's what the game needs: Fix the gameplay, make the world more open, give it a more interesting story. If they can do these three things, I'll be buying it simply becuase I do love the series, but I'll be approaching this one with a lot of caution, same as Final Fantasy vsXIII
My Console Library:
PS5, Switch, XSX
PS4, PS3, PS2, PS1, WiiU, Wii, GCN, N64 SNES, XBO, 360
3DS, DS, GBA, Vita, PSP, Android
