I too prefer XIII-2 over XIII. I'm not a masochist, why would i enjoy a game that forces me through a linear path full of random battles, cheesy writting, dificult and with no possibility to change my party during the first half of the game? Nope, nothing was worth the effort.
XIII-2 didn't had such. It was well paced, without a crapload of characters dragging the story down (2 main, 1 antagonist), the rest of the party could be made of monsters, which were fun to hunt, evolve and mix. Had plenty of scenarios to explore plus different endings/paradox endings (XIII had only one ending, and sucked). All in all, a sweet short and balanced RPG.

A fun 1000g also. I believe it took me about 45h to get all the achieves. But i had Lightning in my team. Best com in the game. The DLC was pritty. I bought it on a discount week though, otherwise it wouldn't be worth the price. :d

Since you asked, I think it is a really girly game, that is easy, has a lot of button mashing, has a horrible story and characters, but looks really good doing it. The terrible characters alone make this one a lot worse than 13 for me.

Noel seems like a unich.

Interesting. I did like 13 and I also like 13-2. I mean, I didn't LOVE them, but they were very good games imo. But I never thought someone who didn't like 13 would enjoy 13-2, as I felt it was more of the same with some little improvements. Anyway, keep having fun with it, that's what gaming should be about and not about disappointment and whining :)

Girly game- nah. This game has balls. [spoiler] It's not often that a game ends with a main character killed and the villain alive.[/spoiler]

Easy - Try the later challanges or the colosseum boss battles if you seek challange in XIII-2. XIII isn't even that hard. Just cheap.

Lot of button mashing- You mean QTE, but either way, as if you pressed a lot of buttons to get through FFXIII! At least XIII-2 breaks the monotony. :p

Terrible story and characters- All you do in FFXIII is running from "th3 police" and chase for each character resolve. Which you get in the end after beating one of the most uninspired bosses of all time.

XII-2 involved time-traveling shenenigans that allowed some fun and unpredictable scenarios. Liked or not the characters.

Here, I think I should make my usual point, that linearity is not really a negative characteristic in a game. It is just a characteristic.

With Mass Effect and Skyrim being all the rage, some people decided that every game should follow this "trend" and have choices and be open world just for the f*** of it.

The very concept of FF XIII was to provide a closely directed game, that delivered the scenario the best way possible. You can't deliver that level of focus with an open world game. Let's not forget they never intented to make a traditional rpg game in the first place.

I thought XIII-2 was the superior game at first as well, but as the story continues you can tell the Square-Enix is trying way too hard for the time travel to be relevant.

I enjoyed both Final Fantasy XII and XII-2, although I liked XIII more. Final Fantasy XIII just seemed more polished, and I didn't really mind the linearity (and this is coming from someone who has played the hell out of Skyrim). Overall, I really enjoyed the battle system from the XIII series, and I really like Lightning as a character, and am looking forward to the next game.

The game was disappointing in my opinion. Horrible dialogue, pacing issues and the ending o_O.... The only good thing was Noel Kreiss. I hope Lightning Returns is better and includes Noel Kreiss in some way. Oh well.

I have to agree at some points the dialogue was not well written.

I thought XIII-2 was excellent. Caius was pretty beast. My only major complaint was that it was pretty easy. Which seems to be the new shitty trend for games these days.