Isn't it PREEETTTY?!

I agree with this more than anything else you said. I used to be a huge FF fan myself, but I started losing faith around FF8. I never thought I'd play a game (let alone a Final Fantasy) that I disliked (at times) more than FF8.

But I did find the combat at least somewhat enjoyable near the end. It isn't so exact that you have to "do this or die". That relates the idea of a sort of unfair/random difficulty that I didn't find to be the case. I found the game super easy for the most part, with a little bit of easy during the 'free-roam' part.

Granted, I stopped once I got to farming the adamantoise or whatever they were called so I didn't take on the hardest of enemies. I was going for all the trophies before I finally just stopped caring.

All in all, I did enjoy some parts of the game. Was it worth it? Hell no.

If I want to sum up my experience with WRPGS like Oblivion or Dragon Age I would sound pretty much like this. After 30 hours of playing Oblivion I found not 1 thing that I liked about it. Dragon Age was also a really bad experience... At the same time FF 13 is still the best game of this generation for me (so I would be one of the 5). I do not want to change your opinion, since you just expect something different form a RPG.

Yes, it is linear. And that is the strong point of the game. The story is very intense because you are bound to concentrate on it. And that is making it very memorable. It is just not possible to ignore the Main story because it is the main point of the game. It should amount to like 80-90 % of the game. What I hate about WRPGs (that I have played) is that they do not offer a thrilling Mainstory. Instead they rely on Sidequests (the old repetitive go fetch this and kill that and then return. The same thing over and over in every game). I find it sad that the "main story" often only amounts to like 20 % of the game. The quality of the Main story is also not that great and I did not found them memorable ... they were pretty generic instead.

Spoilers ahead!

The story of FF 13 had some very heavy main topics. It borrows from the Naziregime and wanted to show, what can happen if you use propaganda for a long time and how people start to adopt this way of thinking as their own and start to act on their own. The whole starting scene with the deportation train was a very heavy scene. The thing is that the population feared everyone who only came close to a Pulse object and were willing to deport them to Pulse which was regarded as certain death... I remember the scene where you saw Barthandelus grinning devilishly during the news report because he realized that his plans were going well. The Government did not have to order it because the citizens where demanding it earlier...

The developers wanted to make the gamer think about what is going on. That was one of the main topics of the Nazi regime. Was the civil population in fear of the Regime and acted passively out of self defense or were they active supporters. Especially the young people where raised with propaganda. Did they adopt the propaganda and were truly believing the propaganda? The citizens of Cocoon were seemingly believing the Propaganda and they feared everything regarding grand Pulse. The whole story was built around that element... although you were trying to be loyal to Cocoon and protect it everyone feared and hated you. They didn't even wanna listen to you. And thats why it is okay for me that this game has only a few moments where you could run around in towns.

I also found the characters portrayed really well. Hope was a strong character, although he suffered heavily during the first chapters. He was sentenced to death only because he was near the site where they found the Grand Pulse object.
Than he had to see the death of his mother. So he was alone and had nowhere to go. And he was not a soldier or fighter... He was portrayed rather weak and vulnerable, and that is what I somehow liked about him.

FF XIII was not a story about heroes... it was a very dark story about one of the darkest moments in recent history. It wants to make you think about what could happen if people give in to their inner fears and how fear can turn into hate... and how hate could ultimately lead to the destruction of the world. The main villain was not Barthandelus or Orphan... it was "Fear"... FF XIII just shows how brilliant japanese story telling can be.

Another topic of the game was, that although the Fal'Cie were beings with immense Power they did not have free will. Humans, weak compared to the Fal'Cie, however have the Power of free will. The Fal'Cie could not destroy Orphan although they have immense Power. They can't force Humans to do so... Even if they make a L'Cie he just could refuse to fulfill its focus and just become a monster... so they plotted a plan spanning over 1000 years to incite fear within the population and let it slowly turn into hate. They could probably make a whole game covering the events happening 1000 years ago..

So in total I think the story is really deep because there was put a lot of thinking in it. It is not the generic "an evil force is trying to destroy the world blablabla". It was spent a lot of effort in creating the motives of the Fal'cie and the characters.

The Story wasn't told mainly via the Log. Most of the story was told in the Cutscenes, the Log only gave further background information. The log is also available in the Kingdom Hearts series, so it is not a brand new FF13 exclusive feature.

The Paradigm system is not preset, you can choose any available combination of jobs as you like. But you have to customize them yourself.

Exploration has never been a vital element of the Final Fantasy Franchise. You were always tied to the story and had to visit the locations in a predetermined order. The games always opened up a little if you were close to the end. The world map never allowed free travel since there where always mountains and rivers blocking the paths. They were never meant to be like Oblivion where you could go wherever you want after you have left the Prison. Sidequests also never had that importance. You had several secrets available at the end of the game to get the Ultimate Weapons, spells or Summons. But they were always only a few. But since FF 7 they often put in some mini games (Gold Saucer, Triple Triad, the card game of FF9, Blitzball, Monster Hunting). FF 13 had another round of "Monster Hunting".

For me FF XIII has an enormous replay value, because I just want to relive the story again. I will probably play it through every 2-3 years, because the story is so memorable. And that is the main point why I buy a JRPG. I want a story that is very deep and leaves room for interpretation. I do not take the role of any of the party members, but I watch the game and think about what is going on. I am more like a beholder and that is one of the main differences to WRPGS. They do not want to tell a story or make you think about a certain topic... They just give you a playground and give you the illusion to play as you like...

That could be your problem wtih the game. You try to identify with a character and are annoyed when they do not act like you want or when you have to do a quest that you don't like to do. And thats why I find WRPGS to be so boring. You start with creating YOUR own character, the story is told through the eyes of YOUR character and YOU should decide what to say most of the time (although you do not have real freedom, since you can only choose from predetermined lines and often your choices have no heavy impact on the overall story). If I want to exaggerate a little bit I could even say that they outsource the storytelling to the gamer and make you pay for it...

Enjoy it, one of my favourite games of the generation.

While I'm mainly on Runa216 side of things. I understand the points you make and why. The comparisons of racism placed into a populations minds to outcast those who were different, in this case Pulse l'Cie and Pulse inhabitants in general but the same thoughts were distilled in the mind of the Pulse inhabitants when they existed all those years ago. It's mentioned in the stories and datalogs, is it not, that there was a war between the 2.

While a clever plot point, it is how it's explained that is what lacks here. No matter how good of a story, if it's not told in a good way, people watching it/reading it will not view it as good. Many previous FF games you didn't have to know everything or read through datalogs to understand the history of the world as it was simple yet explained as you went along, when you arrived at a location or if required. This game started going on about Fal'Cie this and l'Cie that and I didn't know what any of it was just that apparently it was bad at this time I had to go forward to progress the story in the hope it would be explained, adding their focus just confused things more (especially the amount of times they said it). The underlying story about the god like beings and what not is good, the extras about each person's involvement and this l'Cie stuff just confused things for me anyway.

I agree with you on exploration, most FF games start with a linear path, follow the path to progress story but allowed for freedom of movement between locations via the world map, a distinct missing factor in this game.

The Paradigms were preset, I don't remember being allowed to choose 3 I wanted to specialise in and when the other options opened up for each character, they were so more expensive they weren't really options.

I tried playing the game again recently. I completed the story once for the sake of it but did so because I felt I had to, starting to replay it again I got really bored doing the first 1hour just pushing X and running toward the next enemy, pressing X again.

Graphics are pretty though...so pretty.

Could it be that you mean the Crystarium instead of the paradigm? The Crystarium is preset and you can only follow the path with minimal choices. In the end it is similar to the FF XII system but in FFX III not everyone could learn everything possible.

Spoilers Ahead!

The war between Gran Pulse and Cocoon was setup. The Fal'Cie hoped that Cocoon would be destroyed during that war. Fang and Vanille were chosen to become Ragnoraok, Vanilla however choosed not to fulfill her Focus and so Cocoon was only damaged 500 years before the events of FF XIII. Barthandelus realized the situation and made a plan. He built the ark and put the crystallized Fang, Vanille and the Pulse Fal'Cie inside just to be set free 500 years later.

His master Plan was to incite fear and let these fear transform into hate for 500 years. He wanted to create a civil war so that the people destroy Orphan themselves. His Plan B was that he could convince the L'Cie to destroy Orphan. Either way, he had 2 plans at the same time, so he was not totally relying on the L'Cie to destroy the Orphan.

He set the L'Cie free and made sure whole Cocoon was aware of it. Literally all events on Cocoon were set, so that the L'Cie are under permanent stress. A key scene was when he hunted them down in Palumpolum and at the same time let them be rescued. The escape from the airship was also set up... The key scenes to understand the story are the ones with Barthandelus... He really was a clever devil...

The clever thing about the plot is, that Barthandelus found a way to destroy Orphan without having to convince L'Cies. He used hate and fear and let them thrive for 500 year. And then using a Pulse relict and media reports of Pulse L'Cie on Cocoon to slowly incite a civil war on Cocoon.

FF 7 also had a very complex story. I had to play it through a second time to fully understand what actually is going on with Cloud, what Zacks role in the game really was and why Sephiroth had Powers over Cloud. The key scene to understand everything was the secret scene down in the shinra villa in Nibelheim. Don't let the complexity of the story make you think that it was weak. I had to think much about it until it finally everything made sense.  I am sure that you could enjoy the story better in a second playthrough, now that you know the role of Barthandelus, Vanille and Fang from the beginning.

@ Exploration. There was a worldmap, but it was not really there for exploration. Most of the time you had only 1 location to go further and the map was limited by rivers, mountains and water at every side. The only purpose of it was to show different undergrounds that determine which enemies you will encounter (forest, mountain, beach or grass, etc). Only FF 12 really had some large maps, that had several entries. There were also maps, that you could visit a second time and gain access to new areas, which is rather uncommon. The world map wasn't that impressive graphically anyway, since it reused the same patterns everywhere.

I understand, that some people are upset that you gain access to new abilities halfway through the game. But really, how much abilities did you have in FF 7 until you left Midgar? Most of the time you had to simply attack by pressing X. Since you had to level up your materia, it took you a while to get the real strong abilities. Or Final Fantasy 9, where you had Zidane as main Character. Since he was a thief, you could only use attack, steal or item.... not much choice too, but nobody cared. FF 13 is not much different to other FF9, since they varied from game to game. Some had more customization, some not. Some had specialized characters and some had characters, that could learn almost every single ability. Some had more secrets, some had less. And While FF XIII did not change that much, the way JRPG are reviewed had changed very much.

Easily one of the best games out there.

Yes, Crystarium, sorry. But it's not in any way similar to FFXII License Board. on the Crystarium you were set so you had to follow the path of the chosen skill, you couldn't branch off to another. In FFXII, I could have one character completely specialise in Techniks and power while another in defensive magiks and healing but I could chose anyone to be this roles.

Removing the spoilers, I understand a lot of that but it might have all been explained while i was turning off from the story itself because of the many things that happened before the start of the game that I was meant to research to understand. I just felt the narative in gameplay was not on the level of any previous FF game and what I've come to expect from the series as a whole. Even small characters like Cid and Nabaat, while main roles in story were introduced in one scene then gone the next so to speak. Before I even understood their role in the game.

Zacks involvement wasn't needed to understand the story though, he's a minor character fans and SquEnix have turned into someone more important (not played Crisis Core so don't know what's been added there). It was Cloud's mind and delusion that built the story.

And FF9 had a very set amount of abilities but those abilities to be set in any way and learned in whatever order you wished. Yes it had preset battle options but I found it far more diverse in it's battle system then FFXIII

No matter how good you think the story is, that part is pretty subjective.  I'd love to be with you on 13's story not sucking, but it was presented so atrociously badly to the point you literally had to read an encyclopedia to GET all of what's going on. I read some of it, but I was thinking "this is the worst example of storytelling I've ever seen in a game."  

as Yahtzee said, "This isn't good storytelling Squeenix, you're supposed to weave exposition into the narrative not hand the player a glossary to read through!"

so yeah, the stuff about class and segregation is all THERE, they have all the elements to make a great story and world, but they REALLY dropped the ball on this one in so many ways.  Hell, you don't even know anything about the characters till 10 hours in...most games that's when it's winding down and preparing for the final boss fight.  

And also, I'm torn on Western RPG's, I've just started playing oblivion for the first time and as much as it's everything FFXIII is not, (open world, complete freedom, etc), I'm finding it doesn't have ENOUGH direction for me.  Finding that balance between freedom and linearity is challenging, I won't deny that, but with Square-enix having succeeded so many times in the past, I know this was simply a fluke, not lack of ability.  Sadly, the game sold like hotcakes (almost 6 million, which is more than XIII) so they'll likely make XV a lot like this, and they're making a FFXIII-2 (or so its rumored) 

Time will tell on my thoughts on Oblivion, so far I'm liking it more than not, but I still don't like the complete aimlessness of it all. 

**Edit**

Final Fantasy XIII-2 has been announced officially.  http://gamrfeed.vgchartz.com/story/83574/updated-square-enix-announces-final-fantasy-xiii-2/

Now here's what the game needs:  Fix the gameplay, make the world more open, give it a more interesting story.  If they can do these three things, I'll be buying it simply becuase I do love the series, but I'll be approaching this one with a lot of caution, same as Final Fantasy vsXIII

@ all the people saying Oblivion is aimless......

NOT TRUE AT ALL. Oblivion nailed the feeling of forging your own path, that is the whole point of the game! Tha game is as aimless as you want it to be. Runa give oblivion a chance, once u pick a guild and follow the story of atleast one guild to the end, you will find out how deep and masterfull oblivion is. If you have the game of the year edition then it's like you have atleast 5 games in one(maybe more than that!). The only gripes i had with oblivion was animation and little irritating stuff like bugs as well.

Sorry for off topic post :D