The new battle system is all about flexibility. Since your characters can fulfill 3 roles efficiently at the same time you have to adapt your play style. Items were necessary in the old games because you might just not want to "waste" a spot in your time with a permanent white mage that can do only little damage.

You need healing? Just switch paradigms and put a healer and heal yourself. Are you taking too much damage? Just put a defender in. Do not forget that every role grants your whole team a stat bonus. There are some heavy damage moves from enemies where you are meant to switch to 3 defenders for 3x defense bonus.

The lack of mp also can be justified. The mage is not meant to be a damage dealer like in the former FFs. The mage's job is to shock the enemy so that the melee can do heavy damage. Sometimes you hust have to sacrifice offensive power for a defender.

I somehow missed a proper equipment system to be able to raise the defense sufficiently (no armors...). But instead you are getting the status boni via the paradigm system.

Do not underestimate the weapon system. The various level 2 weapons each have their own nexus abilities if you equip the right accessories and you can get different benefits from them.

The main difference in FF XIII is that you are not the "public hero" who is going to save the world from the evil villain. In this game you are the "public enemy" and you are feared by the people. You just can't run freely to the towns of Cocoon, that just wouldn't make sense story wise. The same goes with the sidequests. You should get the feeling of being constantly under pressure and that you are running out of time. It just wouldn't make any sense storywise if you would waste time with some minigames like Blitzball or Triple Triad or Monster Hunting...

You are meant to beat the game first and then you can "free roam" on Grand Pulse and do the cieth statues missions. Your Crystarium will only be fully unlocked after beating the game.

Thats why I really liked Final Fantasy XIII. Square really cares about delivering a great story. I really liked how the characters had different interpretations on their "dreams" and seemed so unsure about what their actual focus really is. I really felt a deep connection between the story, the characters and the whole world.

Thats the big difference between Final Fantasy XIII and Oblivion in my opinion. FF takes the story serious and you face the consequences of the story development. In Oblivion... I got the impression that the whole game is only consisting of sidequests and the main story is absolutely not important at all. So I would rather say that non-linearity is a problem for me. You just can't tell a great story without a focus on a linear setting... that is my opinion at least.

Hell froze over means something very unlikely happened. Which in context means Runa decided to purchase the game.

And about the battle system of FFXIII, I don't know but it just clicked. I loved the battle system.

You poor fool....I feel so sorry for the horror you're putting yourself through

1. God help us.

2. Same, it started to get a bit boring at Chapter 7 but the later boss battles spices it up again.

Final fantasy 12 and 13 were so bad i couldn't finish them. I don't even think i got to the half way mark.

What's wrong with the story on XIII? I loved the story, from beggining to end.
And also I think the voice acting is pretty good AND Vanille is by far my favorite character in the game.

Can't understand the hate this game gets...

PD: btw, FFXII was awful, the characters were awful, the story was great, the combat system was awful and the gambit system sucked balls. But anyway, I respect that game :P

That's pretty much the reasons.  Though I am interested in what the OP has to say about this playthrough.  It's been what, a year since Final Fantasy XIIIs release, plenty of time to look at this game from a different perspective.

lol we feel the same about 12

I've been looking into Final Fantasy XII, from the trailers I've seen the characters look so bland. Were they all cloned from the same person or something? Think I might go with X-2 instead.

I spent 120 hours with FF12 (finished the game) and 116 hours with FF13 (finished the game and got the platinum trophy).

Now in hindsight I don't think I hated 12 as much as I thought I did, I'm actually getting nostalgic thinking about it. And while 13 does have a lot of nagging problems, they still didn't get in the way of my enjoyment of it. Not one of the best FF's around, but I still had fun.