It's hard for me to comment on the dialogue. I have become desensitized to bad dialogue since so many games are guilty of this even when they do have great stories. Many final fantasies themselves are guilty of this. Everything else seems subjective. The narrative I never honestly understood; likely because I just wasn't interested enough to pick up the details but the presentation was markedly above average which I do think is part of a good story. Linear progression likewise can be seen as a positive if you enjoyed the story and didn't care for any distractions.

I'd say we're about equal in terms of our likes and dislikes. Strangely enough one thing I always hate in some rpgs is huge sprawling towns that are time consuming to navigate and do everything as I feel it interferes with pacing. This was one thing that about XII that bothered me so in some ways I was glad that XIII didn't have any towns. i would have preferred if they simply had more small towns that had their own themes though.

final fantasy games had great stories but you wouldn't call the dialogues shakespearian

I enjoyed FFXIII. It was quite fun.

I don't see why so many people hated it.

I understand what you're saying, but it's not quite as simple as that. If they didn't want it to get compared to its predecessors, it shouldn't have carried the Final Fantasy name.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't hate FF XIII as much as most people do - X is my most hated Final Fantasy. But the fact is it does carry the FF name, and for a lot of people that means association with a lot of things. World maps, exploration, turn based battles, character progression, sweeping epic storyline etc. FF XIII got very little of those things right.

With sequels to games, I expect them to evolve from the original design. FF XIII (and to a lesser extent X) felt like redesigns rather than evolutions. They'd taken everything people loved and disregarded it to change the direction. It's a bold move to take with an established franchise, but not always the right move - especially if you're expecting positive fan reaction.

I will insist here, in the back of the box itself it says: "Featuring an unforgettable storyline, a battle system blending action and strategy..."

The game had a very clear action overtone. It's not an RPG a 100% and I don't think they were not going for that.

In order to incorporate towns they would have to make serious changes to the concept of the game. It wouldn't have been the long cinematic ride they were going for.

Sadly I think there is some merit to this statement. I do appreciate XIII now just for its production values and the fact that they risked taking a plot driven approach. Many people cite this approach as the reason it didn't work and I think it just didn't work in the case of XIII. This was likely a case of poor timing with the advent of western rpg's that are more focused on open ended exploration. If a game with a loose plot and non-linearity can succeed (fallout 3, skyrim) then I fully believe a linear game can succeed on the same scale it just needs a more open mind from the public.

if i was a developers and saw this, i would be like "there's no pleasing you people !" no offence, there just some many different opinions.

If you wanna talk about redesigns XII was really out there. At least with XIII they tried to go back to narration.

I don't know, i simply cannot see XIII as a seriously lacking RPG because to me it's clearly an rpg/action game, 60/40.

(maybe rpg/action/strategy 50/30/20 if i have to be pedantic.)

What? I'm not allowed to be completely negative about singular aspects of the game without being called a fanboy or a hater? I don't understand. 

Yeah, I get that.  I try not to talk about XII because I've never really given it a fair chance (only the first 8 hours or so) so I'll leave my judgement until I give it a proper go.

With FF X, I see many people list it as the last truly great Final Fantasy.  That's great, I'm happy for them, and I'm sure Squeenix is happy too.  For me, it was just a shift for the worse in every direction from VII - IX.  Really didn't like any of the characters, found the plot predictable and the environments were far too linear for my liking.  Which is why I didn't end up being so disappointed with XIII in fact, my expectations were a lot lower!