I see. Well.. I'll make up my mind about it when I start playing it once I'm done with FFVI.

FFVI is awesome BTW. Maybe I'll make a thread about my impressions some day so that people can see how a total JRPG noob reacts to the series :)

Well, that was fun. Now I haven't actually beaten the game yet, I'm on the final boss, have been for a while really, I got bored 'leveling' up on Pulse so went back and went to the final boss. 1st attempt, 1/5 energy gone from him, dead, fair enough I thought. 2nd attempt, I think I looked and had 150,000 left to take off. Easy I thought...wrong, he does a move that I know is take off a lot of energy, it's done the same thing 40 times already, so I quickly switch 'paragigm' and get ready.

This time it was stronger, this time my main character dies from being on nigh on full health. My other characters had died numerous times in that battle, I revived them easily.

Stupid game...okay so that was a side rant but it counts...right?

^ Just please add *SPOILERS* if you are going to add any information that may spoil the plot for others. Especially if you are talking about the ending.

Nope, not going to mention it now, just annoyed it all, I'll just re-read it to make sure I've not mentioned anything already....nope, oh well.

*skips merrily away*

FFXIII feels on-rails compared to Uncharted? LMFAO. Any person on this planet who has beaten FFXIII will laugh their ass off when they read that comment. It has one of the biggest explorable worlds I have ever seen in Final Fantasy. You can go wherever you want and take on whatever mission you like. There are huge areas of the game that a player would not even see if they didn't explore. And you think that's too linear? Uncharted literally gives you one way to go the entire game. You either go forward or you ain't going nowhere.

Right now my clock in FFXIII is at 80 hours. The game completely opens up at chapter 9, which you can reach in about 13-15 hours. In other words, something like 70% of the time I've spent playing the game has been open-world exploration, and doing whatever I want.

If FFXIII is BY FAR the most linear game you have ever played, then you must have missed Uncharted, Heavy Rain and Metal Gear Solid 4. Nevermind actual on rail shooters.

he jst beat the chptr 9 boss, I spoke to him by wall pst, so he dusnt knw about any of tht. Bt in the chptrs he is in, he's right its as linear as uncharted, bt linearity isnt bad imo.

Fair enough. but to say a game feels like it's on rails compared to uncharted, when you have not even played long enough to reach the open world, is just wrong. I got a platinum trophy in both Uncharted games and I have spent more time in FFXIII then I did in those two games combined.

Yeah, i agree with akibafan, linear isnt necessarily a bad thing. if you look at FF10, the gameplay was actully very good, like a lot of other linear based games eg God of War. lets you focus on the story and gameplay more imo.

imo, i feel FF13 was a dissappointing game because of the direction Kitase has taken the series. did anyone think that there were far too many cutscenes, i mean its like we're playing the game to experience 6 hours worth of cutscenes. imo it should be the other way round; as in the cutscenes should provide us with direction and motivation to play the game and experience the gameplay and the atmosphere. we should'nt be playing the game to watch the next cutscene, thats not good gameplay imo. 

in FF13 there are 6 hours worth of cutscenes and this is why i dont like the way the series is going, a game should be about gameplay not watching movies, those are important to an RPG, but there not the core the game, which is where Kitase has gone horribily wrong imo. i dont think Sakaguchi would have ever let that happen to the series.

HAHAHAHAHAHA. @ OP Danm that about sums up what I would say about final fantasy.

SQUARE has lost it and they lost me as well.

When I bought my Wii, the first console this generation I got without knowing for sure if I ever would get a another one, I thought about what I may loose. Final Fantasy XIII was one of those games and my conclusion was that the series were not that appealing to me anymore. I had seen the artwork and some trailers: too flashy and teen to my taste, that's what I thought.

Then the game came out and it received a lot of hard reviews. That really took me by surprise. Even the amount of people saying it wasn't worth it.

Time passed by and I decided to give it a chance. For old memories sake.

The truth is that though I can easily empathized with the OP, I came to  the game with really low expectations and that may have done my experience even sweeter. I loved every element of the game. Yeah, at the begining it may have been a bit disappointing not to be able to micro manage during the fights (on a tactical level of sorts), but trying to see why they thought macro management was a solid option was nice and even fun for a change.
I do agree that chapters 9 and 10 could and should have been erased. They really don't add much but time consuming events and fights, but overall, it was a fresh and beautiful experience.

I am looking foward for more tradtional takes on Final Fantasy in the future. At the same time, I'm glad I know I can enjoy just as much what they are offering now.