I'm skipping it. Too many good games out there and it just doesn't grab me enough to sink the time. Think I'll pick up Demon Souls instead. My friend raves about it. Maybe I'll play it down the line when it's cheaper. I don't really get the extreme FF love in general. I mean, I loved FFVII too at the time. And I liked FFX ok. I did skip Xi and XII, somaybe it's just been too long? But I'm just having a lot of trouble getting too pumped about it.

I should've elaborated on the linear thing, I don't see linear as necissarily a bad thing either.

You basically follow intestine shaped maps around killing repeated instances of the same monsters that have no AI but to follow you if you get in range and stop at the edge of their spawn area, then go back.

There is NO character interaction, just the cutscenes you are given.

The combat system so far seems VERY poor... switch between attack or defense stance and simply click attack with your main guy (or pick an attack to do if theres a group mob). Theres no incentive to level since everything is done automatically apart from your main guy anyway and theres no excting new skills to get and try because you can't try them unless its for your party leader.

WIthout being able to initiate a conversation or part of story without hitting a set cutscene and with nothing to explore apart from strict intestine shaped paths this is REALLY boring and BAD linear so far, similar to streets of rage but with an RPG shell. I hate sandbox games and love linear story telling but this is linear in a bad way.

The only real rpg that matters right now anyways is still Demon's Souls.

I'd say the vast minority (something like 10-15%) of people who play games even read game reviews. And less than that percentage read those reviews to have them influence their gaming purchase. Factor in that Final Fantasy has always been a game that has a pretty solid fanbase and most people were already hyped for the game, the only people who would really be swayed by 'reviews' were people who would have most likely been leaning towards not getting the game already, and the review was just an excuse not to get the game.

Most likely, they would have put off getting the game in the first place until a 'friend' or 'another game' gave them an excuse not to get it. In short, I don't think reviews are a mjaor factor to the sales of FFXIII.

I’m not sure ...

For most games, the first week or two of game sales are heavily driven by people who are committed to buying the game; and unless the reviews are abysmal it is unlikely that they will have much of an impact on these sales. With every successive week after that word of mouth and media coverage becomes more and more important to drive sales; and if people read a review from Google news that gives it a low score, or their friends are talking about how the reviews were right and it was a let down, this could have a fairly major impact.

With that said, it all depends on whether the media people are paying attention to is negative or positive about a game; and whether their friends think the reviewers are correct or wrong. It is likely that games like Just Dance (as an example) got more positive press from non-gaming focused sources and the people who bought it would disagree with the negative reviews the reviewers gave it.

Too Human

It is possible that negative reviews will impact it, but I just don't see it.  Like I said, the vast majority of people who wanted the game will be buying it reguardless.  Because its a Final Fantasy game.  If it was something like Fire Emblem or Mario RPG, then they might hesistate.  But this is Final Fantasy and they made their minds up based o nthe name of the game, not what a reviewer said.  Long term however, it could be impacting like you said.

However, on the flip side, the majority of scores are stil reviewing the game bwtween 8.4 and 8.9.  So the game is still getting 'good' scores.  So unless you are a major fan of the series or trying to compare the games score to past titles, you probably are going to look at the score anyway and say 'it looks good'.

fixed