The sequel is doom to fail now with such huge hype.

I think it will act as a quick cash-in since the subject is still hot but it will die quickly and will be poorly received.

All we can hope now is for a reboot.

But where do you draw the line?  Gaming journalism gets flack for giving games free perfects other than being paid off, Runa wants to write an article discussing the problems with the game.  His article he wants to create is a critique, which is what gaming journalists fail to do anymore.  He mentioning that the article will be flamebait for the fact that Final Fantasy fans are way to hardcore.  I mean Perpride here literally said I didn't ilke Final Fantasy XIII because it was released on the 360, completely ignoring the game's shortcomings.  Yet I get called an Xbox hater because I found flaws with the game and am dissapointed with the game.  If there wasn't such a polarization with the game's fanbase he probably wouldn't have mentioned the article as "Flamebait".

I'd say we have a larger problem with reviewers giving popular games intentionally low scores to drive traffic to their article. You see some lesser known group give a GOTY candidate a 4 or a 5 and create a big fuss. It's one of the things that Jim Sterling is practically employed to do. Runa is pretty acting the same way (loud and pompous) with his FF13 article.

And about the polarizing fanbase, that's true of many series and certainly not just of FF13. Just 3 or 4 years ago, you'd have people say that FFXII was an abomination of the series, Square is too far gone, etc. etc.

Anytime bro.

Yes this is true, but what I was trying to get at, is that he wouldn't have mentioned "flamebait" unless the fanbase wasn't as "hardcore" (I guess that would be the word).  I mean, he didn't like the game, he stated he wanted to write an article explaining the games issues, more than "Linear game = bad" which is what most journalists are saying.  He wanted to break the game down and discuss why certain gameplay mechanics, and story mechanics were poorly implemented.  But, that's just what I feel, I don't think he should have been banned for mentioning "flamebait" in this context cause anyone making an article discussing Final Fantasy problems will lead to flaming regardless.

If the sequel flops don't worry we'll do a reboot right away and hand the reigns to someone else. 

New combat system? I'll give it a chance.

Same old crap? Pass.

Uhg, the sooner they let this "series" die a cold lonely death the better. I am a HUGE FF fan but everything surrounding FFXIII is a giant black cloud over SE. FFXIII in the grander scheme of things is not a terrible game but it falls well below what we expect of FF games. Let me vent for a minute...

• Linear as all get out. FFX was linear too mind you, but at least the environments were actually interesting and story was captivating enough to distract you from all the tedium. Finally at the end game there was still a surplus of areas yet un-explored, an actual airship to travel in, and many unlockables to mask this fact in FFX. These are all things FFXIII missed. 
• No towns. I actually like the fact the game has the little all in one shop computers but the world felt dead without cities to interact with.
• Weak main plot. Mainly it comes off as weak because most of it is never fully explained. Not to mention majority of the game the main characters have NO CLUE what their purpose is or how to go about it. It seems that the characters were chased 75% of the game only to finally stumble upon the final boss and make a very hastey and rash decision....all on a whim. Stupid.
• Weakest character roster I have seen in an RPG in a long time. Lightning, Sahz, and Fang were the only barable ones. Vanille made me want to drive a screwdriver through her skull everytime she spoke and I am a person who usually defends Japanese voice actor choices. Hope had a very lame plot device with his very juvenile rage towards Snow, didn't even make sense for a kid. Snow was just the most annoying to me as he was always gun-ho even though they would do a 180 on their direction several times through the story.
• Combat was actually GOOD...mostly. I thought Paradigms were cool. People argue they take away the interaction but lets be honest....if we are a warrior class in any other RPG, we already know "attack" is going to be selected 9/10 times. They just saved you the trouble. Same goes for the other classes. I DO wish we could have altered each class's behavior a bit. I did not like the fact they forced you to only control one character. This was a device to make the game harder than it rly should have been because often times the AI was stupid and would not act quick enough(I'm talking about you Hope).
• Crystarium is simply a poor man's Sphere Grid. How annoyed were we all when we found that the game actually STOPS you from power leveling? What a cheap difficulty mechanic, very reminicent of what they did with FFXIV and the whole blocking how much exp u can gain in a weak. False longevity.
• lets not even get into all the behind the scenes nonsense that went on with this game's development that probably feeds into many gamer's disgust with this game.

forevercloud3000 if i had a penny for every time someone critisised FF XIII for being a bad rpg when it's not really an rpg nor was it developed as one.

it's a hybrid between action / rpg and strategy. they didn't even try to make a world for the player to interact in. the very concept was to make something completely story driven and closely directed. yeah, it was meant to be the most spectacular ride possible. that was the concept, after the open XII make the best story driven game there is. final fantasy is not a run of the mill console rpg, they do have the responsibility to push things forward and not fade into obscurity like the good ol 90s square rpgs did because that is what happened to them in the last decade. ff xiii didn't die a cold death, it was the one that did it.

for the story for the first time in FF history Motomu tried to escape from the classic anime/rpg theme of protagonist - antagonist confrontation and make something new; focus on the friction between the members themselves against an immovable godly force. It is one of the more complicated story lines to follow and that was the point, not the final confrontation but all the little things in between. and Vanille is great

FF XIII-2 is obviously a far cheaper production and they did manage to pull a more than decent experience out of such small places. as a megaten fan i loved the idea of capturing monsters and always going for the stronger ones. dont forget that parts were outscourced to tri ace, it was all about being more productive. so with a 2.5m in sales its no wonder why they are encouraged to go for a proper conclusion.

stop critisizing FF XIII for all the things it was not. it's juvenile

Why are they focusing too much on Lightning? The spin-offs from FF7 is one thing, but FF13 is hardly comparable. FF14 will be released soon for PS3, and then there's FF13-Versus. Those are rather more worthwhile news. Surely, there must be more interesting characters other than a female Squall.