Amazing game, 9/10 as good as Vesperia...almost.

FFX Lovers UNITE!!!    XD

Anyways the battle system was NOT my cup of tea at all, but I chalk that up to personal preference and doesn't take away from the fact that the game was of stellar quality. I felt like the story aspect was hugely under-developed; the substance was there but they just didn't do much with it! Cid was hardly even a character and I had no ill feelings toward *SPOILER* -----------Barthandelus ----------*END SPOILER" because he wasn't a good villain. I only felt slightly opposed to him because he was snobby and was "the bad guy."

I actually liked all of the characters, or wanted to, even Hope and Vanille who everyone complains about. They did so little with Fang (the most interesting character in my opinion) its disgusting. If you are so inclined to read the datalog for long stretches of time it will fill in the gaps that the spoken dialogue leaves, but I only discovered this fact about 3/4 of the way through the game and was left very irritated (the little tutorial in the beginning didn't tell me that this is where a large percentage of the story gets told, GRRRRR!!!) The battles honestly could have gone a bit quicker. Look at the difference between Behemoth fights between FFX and FFXIII. It's just too much to battle this one fucking enemy for like 5 minutes only to be RAPED by its fucking sunder attack. FUCK!

Sorry about that aggression, but it was truly infuriating. But even after all these issues and more, I still acknowledge it as a great game. It was not what I was expecting at all, and I think that's why we have such polarized views on th quality of the game. If I had never played a Final Fantasy I would have probably enjoyed it a lot more. So, great game but not the best FF by any means.

I am patiently trying to platinum it now, but that's far as I just started Mass Effect, and I have Mass Effect 2, Fallout 3 and Resonance of Fate waiting in their case for me.

I gotta say that though I treasure my memories of old Final Fantasy games, I wouldn't be too afraid to say that this is my favourite one. It is really hard to tell, really, and I could doubt and take my words back any minute. What I won't doubt by any means is that I really loved XIII, I loved its characters, its story, its music, its battle system and I even learnt to love its flaws and whatnots.

It is an outstanding game. Too bad that people were expecting something else and didn't just embrace the experience.

It was a fun romp, but I'd be hard pressed to play throuhg it a second time.  The entire section leading up to Gran Pulse just feels artifically elongated to pad the length of the game, and even the awesomeness of Gran Pulse was somewhat dampended by the fact that you spend a good 20 hours in the same area.  But it was such a fun area!

Overall it was very good.  It has an awesome battle system (though incredibly tedious against enemies with high health - they should've designed the enemies around the system better), a beautiful artstyle, and great graphics.  However, the dialogue can be pretty cheesy, and the characters for the most part lack any realistic sense of motivation driving their actions.  They tend to act rather bull-headed, with their actions driven entirely by emotion, emotions I often wonder why they even have.  It can be quite silly on the whole, but the story was interesting enough to keep you playing through the game.

This was like 2 months after release but:

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=108429

Also, in the highly likely event that you will hate this game and not want to continue with it. I just have one warning Naz. Don't fall for the "oh, the game opens up after Chp 10." It's a lie and a trap to keep you playing.

Probably my least favorite FF game.   I don't understand why FF always have to try to reinvent the wheel.  There was just too much deviation with this FF than all the other FF game IMO.  A lot of game elements that defined the FF franchise were nowhere to be found in FFXIII.   

Most people who don't like the game are not just trying to find something to complain about.  Most of us here grew up on FF and love the franchise.  Nobody pays $60 for a game just to complain about it.  I really, really wanted to enjoy the game, and I played through it in its entirety and gave it every chance to impress me, but 80 hours later, it hasn't impressed me and there were many aspects of the game that I didn't like.  It's not unfair criticism, it's criticism based on my experience with the game.  Just because you think it's a masterpiece, it doesn't mean that anyone who disagrees is being unfair to the game.  I openly admit that I'm a FF fanboy, and it's a sad day that I have to admit that FFXIII just didn't do it for me like the previous entries in the franchise. 

I... guess, after trying a friend's copy, I can congratulate FF13 for one thing: dethroning FF8 as worst RPG ever. And yes, I say this being aware of games like Mystic Quest out there. Would it be bad to say that I prefer the RPG game in Retro Game Challenge to FF13?

Bad. It isn't enjoyable. I couldn't even finish it...