I liked FF XIII quite a bit. However, I seem to be a bit different from many other Final Fantasy fans in that I'm not going to demand that every Final Fantasy be exactly the same. I'm going to continue to judge each game on its own merits.
That's what I kind of hate about Final Fantasy at this point, the fans in general. Ugh. Every release is the same. MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WHO DON'T EVEN PLAY RPGS buy it and then fucking whine about it on the internet. Then there are those who can't move past FF7. It was good game, it was very pivotal in the industry, but if you want THAT GAMES, go replay it. Personally, I will always think it was a step back from FF6 in every way except graphics but to each their own.
Now, speaking as someone who has been an RPG fans since first discovering Final Fantasy (1) on the NES, there are a few points I'd like to touch on:
1) Towns - Enough already. I don't understand the whining over towns at all. Who gives a rat's ass if you can talk to Random NPC #173, and why? Towns are often the point where my interest in an RPG drops and I have to force myself to put though. I recently tried to play an old classic RPG but quit right near the beginning because the first town was massive. I wanted to pull my hair out because I don't like missing anything but damn if I don't hate wasting hours just for that reason. A few games do towns well but many of them simply use them as time sinks. I was totally fine with FFT excluding them and I was fine with FF13 not having them, either. And why the hell people get upset about not having separate weapon/armor stores I will NEVER understand. That's just another time sink, having to go back and forth between them. I liked FF13's solution in that regard.
2) Linear gameplay - Anyone who loved FF7 but harps about FF13 being linear deserves a titan-class facepalm. I don't even know what to say about that. Many Final Fantasy games, and many RPGs in general, are highly linear until late in the game. A lot of them just mask that with the illusion of being open, where you can go places but it's either somewhere you've been with nothing to offer or it's someplace new with nothing you can do until a certain plot point has been cleared.
I've really, really, really grown to hate these "OMFG, Final Fantasy HAS to be EXACTLY like the formula!" I despise that kind of limit on creativity and imagination. Final Fantasy is in trouble but it's mostly because some fans are demanding it stay stagnant.
Now, if I had control, I would like to see a likable main character, similar to FF9. That's gotten rare in Final Fantasy lately. I would also like to see the kind of emotional depth FF6 brought, as well as the large cast of characters it offered, where there was no single character being the "main". However, even if none of that happens, I'll still play the game objectively and base my opinion on how much I enjoyed the game itself and NOT on how its bloody towns compared to earlier games.
