I'm really getting sick of people saying FF13 is marking a decline in the series.

Guess what. FF8 was a piece of shit. Then we had FF9, the best game in the series.

On to FF13:

Very fun game. Nice little story, good battle system... and that's what the entire game was really.

I think I remember some walking, but my memory is a bit fuzzy.

Come on, be fair now. 

You remember Vanille, and the amount of annoyance she caused you

Btw I liked Vanille. She wasn't annoying to me. Fang on the other hand...

It's very good! Not my favourite FF, but still incredible.

Wow, really fang annoyed you? REALLY?

It's my biggest dissappointment this gen. I hoped for so much but got so little. Easily the worst Final Fantasy released for me.

The good:

• Nice battle system
• Good world and lore.
• Some cool cut-scenes.

The bad:

• Too linear and in an obvious way (no attempts to disguise the linearity at all)
• Towns? Oh yes, it has them in pretty much the same way God of War has towns. I think the only except is with Sazh and Vanille where you actually get a bit of exploration.
• Optional side-quests are all fights. 50hrs of story 50 hrs of grinding battles on top is not fun, no matter the battle system.
• Poor story-telling techniques. I'm not talking about the cut-scenes but the data-log. Having a text book of lore to read on screen off the menu ruins immersion, but is neccessary to get a full understanding of the story. Many games (including Final Fantasys) have used the interactivity of games to help tell the story, instead they made it completely passive.
• No variety in gameplay. It basically amounted to run, grind, boss repeat with no repreive, no puzzles, little to no interaction and basically nothing in between.

Probably the worst RPG I've played this gen which is a shame as you can see it took a lot of work and effort but had some horrible design decisions.

Oh yeah. She was trying to steal Lightning's thunder. Vanille was just an innocent child.

She was 19.

Vanille is the worst FF character in the world.

She was bipolar so much I wanted to punch her stupid face in. Going to Nautilus she was all "YAY! Happy forest, I'm so happy, this is fun! :D" Then when it starts to rain "WAAAH! IT'S ALL MY FAULT! I shouldn't be happy! DX" Oh, and what she says makes me want to punch her too. "I was hoping the rain would disguise the tears, like my cheerful personality, but I know that it wouldn't" or some shit like that. 

Her 3 accents didn't help either.

But I DO love madness and I guess Vanille was as close as you can get without the developers even trying.

Your not the first to say that, but personally I didnt check the data log once. Sure they dont literally explain what is falcie, lcie, cocoon ect but you understand soon enough by playing the game. I actually think the story telling was one of the strong point of this FF.