@ Boutros:

Oh yeah, really complex. Fight once, twice tops, jot down the pattern and apply paradigms. Clearly a varied battle system, that.

...and usually you will get off with 5 stars right off the bat.

@ Selnor: I'm glad you agree with most of it, but the graphics, IMO, were extremely well done. Frankly, outside of music, that's the only thing SE put effort in... everything else is on a kindergarten level.

That's beacuse a big part of a fight happens before you actually engage the enemy. You can only have 3 paradigms ready once you are in a fight so you have to make sure those 3 paradigms are adequate to beat that enemy in it's most efficient way. You also have to choose your party members carefully. Items also feel like they make a difference unlike most other JRPGs. Of course the game isn't very hard in itself but it leaves place for you to challenge yourself.

^^6 paradigms, not 3. Which is a good lot.
...unless you mean the battles that they force you into with a different party than you had before.

Yeah 6 my mistake. But since your party always changes you have to update them often.

Somewhat often IMO.

Toward the end, I used Fang - Sazh - and Lightning/Vanille depending on the situation.

Since the interface was really intuitive, so were the switches. Hope and Snow also become useless.

It's like FFX, except it has more choices. You can decide whether you want to further develop your skills in medic, commando, etc role. In FFX, all you did was follow a linear path in the sphere grid. It isn't until near the end of the game where you could set up your characters, but it's too late by then. There are harder enemies where you have change up your paradigms. I liked the HP refill; it saves me time from doing it myself.

I also like the no towns. Screw all the townspeople that play no role in the story and will never be seen again. I don't care about your daughter getting married or your husband's job. FFXIII eliminated the filler.

I think this is more accurate!

And in XIII, you didn't follow a linear path until the end *rolls eyes*. In FFX, all the enemies are also bitches. None are a threat and if you die, you start from the same stop, barring any penalties and hardships. Oh, shit, right, that's XIII!

"too late by then" - my ass. The true leveling, the one where where you actually modify the grid and teleport around it, starts then. We didn't play the same game, clearly.

Also, nice one, about no towns. Because a desolate space full stupid lobos, flans, and behemoths is that much better *eyes circle in socket*

Like I said, you had several roles to develop. You could ask yourself: should I develop my medic role, so I can get some healing skills? The next crystal in this role gives me more strength, but the other gives me more HP. Which one should I do? In FFX, you activated the sphere and moved on to the next. Nothing excting. All it does is waste your time. They should have stuck with an ordinary level up system.

When I finished activating all the spheres in one of character's section in the grid, I was in the final dungeon. I did fine following a linear path, so why start now? Anyways, all you do again is pick a path and go back to linearity in the sphere grid. FFXIII, on the other hand, gave you more roles, and each had different skills.

FFX is easier than XIII. You can change characters during battles. One of your party members is about to die. What to do? Oh right, just replace him/her with another party member. FFXIII was more challenging because you had to take care of the leader first. It's all over if that person dies; it adds tension to the battles. Also, I'm glad you could restart battles. Screw wasting time trying to reach the place you were at when you died, having to fight the same enemies, watching the same cutscenes and then dying again at the same place and starting over. Nice to see that FFXIII eliminated the frustration.

Gameplay > talking to people you don't care about. FFXII had the best towns with a lot of NPCs, but I never spent my time talking to any of them.

You could jump grids and get specific spells from another one far before the end of the game, and you could customize your weapon and armor customizing them that way, FFXIII you just choose which linear grid to follow, and ultimately if you don't pick certain ones for certain characters it's just a waste and FFX had some exploration,FFXIII you are basically running down glorified hallways the whole time and alot of people critisied FFX for the direction it went, and FFXIII is far worse then FFX