Final Fantasy has always been one of my favorite franchises, but X-2 was terrible and FFXIII was somehow a lot worse. The music, the characters, the linearity, the ridiculous autoplay, the flat storyline, I agree 100% with the OP.
I actually enjoyed FFXII though, it was very well made and Balthier alone makes the character roster better than all of XIII's put together, some disagreed with the real-time mechanics of FFXII and said it was "too automated" once you unlocked enough AI instruction sets, but it was always fluid and offered a lot more direct control regardless through pausing and deeper (and better) menu's and the licensing system shits on the Crystarium, in my opinion.
I don't even understand why XIII bothers going into turn-based combat when you're left with being only a spectator most of the time anyway.







