Unexplainable - given how huge of a fucking travesty XIII is. It's easily the worst FF I have ever played. Everything but the music and graphics sucks so bad that it looks as if they deliberately engineered it to be horrible.

No character development. No story. Incredibly repetitive. Ends abruptly (did I mention that the story sucks?) Either way, it does.

I've never been so disappointed in a game, ever - unless the ending I got is not the real one or something.

I was pretty riled up seeing the first western reception, but hell, it's not nearly as harsh as it should be. I gave the game a 5 - and it now seems that I was overly generous.

Making a full review soon. UGH.

P.S: My apologies to EDGE - their review is the only fair one after "playing" this "game".

Brandpower!

then again, considering the wealth of high quality RPGs this gen.....

Sir, you have no idea how right you are.  Can I add "broken gameplay mechanics", "No sidequests/minigames", and "A Completely stupid and dumbed down fighting engine"?  

YES! How did I not say that?

Dude! Triple Triad! Blitzball!

(though, you are clearly not a fan of FF VIII/maybe not a fan of X :P )

I greatly disagree with you.  The Final Fantasy VIII card game was epic, the 9 card game was decent but not as awesome, The Gold Saucer was great, Blitzball was phenomenal, etc...most FF games had some sort of minigame that was a lot of fun and it's a shame to not have one in XIII.  If you don't like them, you don't have to play them (the rewards are good but not necessary to complete the game).  I'd rather have the option and chose not to use it than not have the option and later decide I want it. 

FF series have more fan base.

ME2=one of the best game I've ever played this gen
FF13=one of the worst FF game ever played

Thanks for that buddy. I actually had it in mind but didn't have the guts to write it! It's funny when you see that EVERY website picked
Skyrim as the best RPG of E3 like they all already discarded FFXIII-2 as a major RPG. But man, all those different sites, and they all have the same tastes! What's this world?

FF is FF, it sold because of brand recognition. I bought it and I thought it was OK. I platinumed it in 72h, because I played at night while I was listening to the radio. I like listening to sports programs while I play something mindless (so I don't have to follow the story and the program at once), just because I can't just listen to the radio doing nothing.. FFXIII was good for this.

But I have to admit the game's story (or its execution, the idea was quite good) was quite lame, and the linearity too much. I mean, a linear story is one thing. But linear levels (corridors) is too much. Also, no sidequests or minigames.

And I agree this will have an impact on future games, starting no doubt with FFXIII-2.

Well I see the general feeling is that a lot of people bought into PR/Brand. Although I don't want to believe it I can't discard the possibility. That's why I invite everyone to give their opinion in a poll here

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=132071&page=1#

so as to see to what extend FFXIII could have disappointed/satisfied. Please take a minute to pick a response and give me your feeling after playing FFXIII.