The Cube of gaming... you have to be rivited on every word in order to even begine to comprehend the story?  Sorry fail... and Star Ocean 4 makes perfect sense... until shit goes crazy... but that's what happens when you mess around with Time/Space

Finally someone says it!!! you are the man Mibu!

Anyone here hate the characters.

I hate all of them except for Sazh (the black dude). Lightning was suppose to be the new Cloud because her original concept was to have her appear as a tough and mature character, instead she whines more than most of the characters in the first 3 hours of the game.

and Vanille, well she should have been ditched during the early development of the game 5 years ago.

Disclaimer: note that there are some swear word in this post, please skip if you're easily offended: *And still no spoilers! Damn I'm proud :)

Well I'm now 8 hours in and story is making a bit more sense... After reading the datalog (ick) I now understand most of the terminology and concept, I'm also (as I expected) beginning to like the story.

It won't win any Oscars but I know what I was getting into when I buy a JRPG so I can enjoy it for what it is. Ignore some obvious plot-holes and find yourself immerse in an alien world that can only come from a guy who is on crack and is also Japanese (in other word: awesome sauce!)

Now the caste of characters...

Firstly: Sazh is a fucken legend! He is a one man artist of doom and destruction. Nevermind that he sucks in battle ATM, he is the MAN of WORD and WISDOM and easily the most likable character of the caste. I'd say he is carrying half the story just by himself atm and his the only character besides Lightning that I haven't felt the urge to kick in the ass yet.

Hope is still a whinning stuttering brat. The fact that his character is semi-believable as an 'ordinary' kid that got dragged into this doesn't make him any more endearing. I found myself wishing on more than one occasion that I had the mother rather than him. She was likable and a Milf to boot.

Lightning is a bitch, but since she's being a bitch to the rest of the caste I find I actually like her. (Even Sazh since he has some of the best comeback line and reactions ever when interacting with bitchy-Lightning)

Snow... is still a pedo... he just seem to have gotten dumber as the story goes on though, so now I'm calling he the dumbass pedo, and since he looks like a damn hobo, I'm now officially calling him that dumbass pedo-hobo. I am however, supremely jealous of his twin demon-chick sandwich action (heeelloooo SHIVA!) and wished on more than one occasion that I was a dumbass pedo-hobo (only less dumb).

Vanille... oh god Vanille, she's like the village idiot with a stick, I feel dumber each time I hear something come out of her mouth.

So summaries after 8 hours: Story gets better! Sazh is legend, I like bitchy-Lightning and Vanille should have been abortioned.

Hehe, you know what convince me to buy 8? The CG intro... And 10? The damn trailer with Suteki da ne. Both were visual porn and damn if I wasn't a grapic whore back then (still am) the game I grew to love, the visual gave me flash-orgasm.

I love Vanille's voice.
Hope's voice I hate, sounds like a mix of Vaan from FFXII and Edge from SO4(when he's in that whiny mode after the other earth is destroyed)

I was receiving a blow-by-blow account of the first several hours of the game from a friend last night who happens to be one of two or three people in real life whose opinions on games I truly respect.

He basically mirrored the Edge review (that he hasn't read) that so many of you were blasting as being unfair. He complained about the writing ("That's what heroes do" and "Moms are tough" being the leading groan-inducing candidates), the lack of being able to do ANYTHING outside what the game railroads you through (including even leveling), and was pretty blase on the gameplay itself.

Between some of the reviews and his accounts of the first several hours, this title went from a "meh" to a "do not purchase" for me. Maybe I'll pick it up after it drops to under $30 used. It's too damned bad that Square has apparently lost the ability to make a solid console RPG; there's still a soft spot in my heart for even mediocre JRPGs (after all, I did rather enjoy Blue Dragon not that long ago).

It looks like I'll stick to handheld JRPGs because those seem to be the only platforms doing anything interesting.

My opinion on FFXIII is different from the OP I played it last night for 3 hours. The game plays like a movie where you are shows a particular point in time and then there is flashback taking you to that point and beyond. FFxIII employs it realy well. It even uses narration between scenes to emphasize it.

As far as the story being a mess is concerned, I was actually amazed that I learned so much lore in the first 3 hours (hint read the datalog as pointed out by the game itself).

I am not as pleased with the combat as I might have liked but I think it is a natural evolution of FFXII and is quite good. I just wish it had the tagging ability from Last remnant. I have read that as the story progresses so does the combat so I am sure it will get even better over time.

The game seems very new comer friendly and should appeal to everyone. It seems less action-y than a few of its predecessor's so far (which i think is a good thing).

The issue about linearity is overblown in my opinion, FFX consistently comes up as one of the best titles ever made and it was completely linear. An RPG is ultimately trying to tell a story and the more control a director has over how the story is told the better it becomes. I have read that only the first 20 or so hours are linear which doesn't seem to be too bad for a 60+ hour game.

I also think it is ironic hat people who decry linearity love FPS and TPS games that are generally completely linear.

Just my $0.02

Well what else did you expect after Crisis Core :P

And what's this with the database? You have to read it in order to understand some of the terminology and whatnot, and they couldn't bother spending a few minutes explaining those words to you? Fail!

has anyone else noticed that the back of the box on the ps3 version uses images from the 360