Worst jRPG I've played so far and propably the biggest dissapointment I've ever had in gaming. I've loved every single FF-game I've played until XIII.
I found the content of the game lacking because, there's really nothing in the game expect a long long pipe filled with monsters and battles fought for you only by pressing X and your teammates are automated with no way to choose what they should and should not do, so the battles got really monotonous quick. They can't even use some of the better and more visual abilities they unlock or summons since only the character you play with can do those.
The area opened up slightly in the end but then the game was over shortly after that and it still had nothing noteworthy but monsters. No towns that felt like towns just hallways, no sidequests, NPCs/side characters are uninteresting and they exist just to say that one sentence unless they get some cutscene-moments. It didn't even contain any puzzle sections or mini-games like in earlier FFs.
The game has absolutely no roleplay elements whatsoever and nothing to do expect continue to the next scene which usually contained some manic-depressive moments or something very random, one scene someone is really hyper and in the next one he/she starts crying or bitching. Majority of the cutscene didn't even have any point, they were just random cutscene-fillers in-between the few storyline advancing cutscenes. Whole storyline was about bad guys just being evil cause they want to bring back a god, why? and your party running around places until they decide to finally be heroes.
The crafting system wasn't too interesting, just throw stuff on the items until you get boosts in stats, though boosting them will negatively affect getting more crafting material since better weapons shorten the time you have to kill enemies for that 5/5 ranking which improves item drop rates. Though I finished the game with only first stage lvl 10 weapons easily so the leveling wasnt really even necessary. :/
Leveling was also linear-ish as all other aspects of the gameplay, only occasionally you got a branching orb and that's it, you either get it now or later and all the characters will play allmost exactly the same each playthrough because of the linearity.
The monsters were recycled a lot, there were maybe 20 different monsters and atlleast 2-5 variations of each one, usually only difference was color.
I did not like that the summons were transformers I found it so damn cheezy, though that was a minor annoyance compared to everything else and on the plus-side Sahz's, Snow's and Hope's transformation made me lol. :P
The only thing Squeenix didn't fail in this game were the visuals, it's easily one of the better looking games this gen. But a big company game in development for so long (+4 Years), I'm extremely disappointed. Sadly I'm trying to platinum it but I'm struggling to find the interest to play it again. I will most certainly sell it once I'm done.
I think the game would have worked much better as a movie like FF:Spirits Within
@Boutros, Getting 5 star wasn't too hard if you're just sluggish on upgrading your equipment since they decrease the time you have, I propably got 5/5 atleast in 95% of all my battles and usually only when the enemies were radically weaker I got 5/5 less often but that didnt even matter then since the items I would have gotten would be near useless.
Only effect in getting 5/5 is the increased the chances of getting items to increase your weapon levels.
