It's an epic piece of shit. I finished it two days ago.
Anything and everything that could've been done wrong aside from graphics/music - was. I'm going to write a full review on it soon, and I don't expect it to get more than 4/5 from me.
Frankly, from dancing around like a teeny little girl after the E3 '09 trailer, which I watched like 100 times, to crashing with what is easily THE biggest gaming disappointment of my life, The devs @ SE have truly outchurned themselves. That "game" is more of a masturbatory experience of the director and producer than it is anything else. It doesn't even strive to be a game. Here's the quick summary of its "gaming process":
1 - run forward. NEVER FORGET TO RUN FORWARD! Never ANYWHERE else!
2 - OMG a battle! Shift paradigm, press X to death. Shift paradigm, press X to death. Shift paradigm, X to death.
3 - ROTFLOL they let us roam free! Aw, absolutely nothing to do there =/, only lame weak monsters w/palette changes and size changes.
end. The steps just change positions from there.
Or, even shorter:
Battle - press x - scene - boss. Rinse, repeat. Nothing else in there.
Don't even get me started on the characters... w/o any specifics... but spoiler haters should avoid this anyways:
Lightning - (1) aw nothing to live for =/ (2) :D we must survive
Snow: (1) I'm teh hero bitchez!
Hope: (1) aw I'm angsty =/ / (2) I turn 180 degrees!
Fang: (1) I'm against you! (2) I'm with you! (3) I'm against you! (4) I'm with you!
Vanille: (1) aw must run away (2) must face on!!!!!!!!!!11
*Sazh unreferenced because he seems like the only one that has something close to a personality. The same is true for Cid Raines.
In the whole freaking game, the ONLY scene that seems anywhere close to emotional or real, is that certain one with Snow and Hope. Everything else is either bravado bullshit, too convenient for character, *cough* development, or just not believable. The whole premise and dialogues are retarded, not to mention that character interaction is so small and in-between that the only things you pretty much know about the characters are the outlines shown in the scenes. Not to mention that throughout the whole game, you see only 10 characters. No time for more, REALLY? Or is it no need for more?
Also, the obsession with the whole freaking (stupid) story is so big, that you get NOTHING else but that and some excerpts from legends (also related to said stupid story, but written really well!). Nothing on the side, nowhere to divert your attentions, no real encompassing Fabula (THE IRONY!) because surprise surprise, there's NO ONE to interact with. The WHOLE formula is Battle-scene-falcie teh slaver bastards!!!-boss. It NEVER diverts anywhere, which leads me back and around to how freaking repetitive that waste of money is. It's depressing - I braved through the whole game up to Orphan's Cradle thinking that SOMETHING'S GONNA CHANGE, but after getting hit in the balls what that "press-x1000 times-fest", I really fucking snapped. Is there nothing else you could do? Does gran pulse not have enough possibilities?
"but everybody's dead, dude"
No. You're too fucking obsessed with whatever you were trying to let out of your system that you forgot to add simple interaction that is present in any and all RPG's that I've played so far. I am playing an RPG game to experience the world, the characters, get into another dimension basically. In the repetitive battle-fest that is FF XIII, there is nothing like that. Not a person in sight, no place to visit, no thing to do but BATTLE BATTLE BATTLE with a shallow watered down system.
FF XIII-2 should kick off with "we're sincerely sorry" and be given away free to apologize for the time the fans wasted on XIII, as I believe nothing was given in return. Just a surprise ending, shitty gameplay, and shitty everything else.
I could get by with the soundtrack and some screenshots. But I had to throw money at the limited edition. That'll teach me.
@smbu: My condolences. Honestly. A plain black PS3 does better than that.
