I also loved the world and lore, but I still got all of that information from the cutscenes alone.

I'd say their biggest mistake in terms of storytelling was locking up stories and information about Etro in the cie'th stones. It's important information that you can only gain through side quests and reading the datalog (none of you guys probably dug deep enough to spot that).

The cutscenes barely scratch the surface of the world and lore. There're extra layers of depth to the world and FFXIII universe that can't be grasped in detail without the datalog.

The cutscenes only imply the different aspects of lore (which is why you can get the basic jist of the world and story from the cutscenes), but often covered in a mountain of dialogue that would be better placed in a teenage rom-com. This in itself means it's necessary to read the datalog to get the deeper aspects of the story, which is not a great way to tell the story. Locking these aspects of the story behind the datalog and the repetitive side quests did the game no favours.

I enjoy it. Like I enjoy the Codex in Mass Effect. But the difference is that the game doesn't rely on the Codex to explain crucial things. Some aspects of XIII were told "very lightly" and thus, making you go to the Datalog to fully understand things you shouldn't really have trouble understanding.

Sorry I had some buisness to do today and couldn't respond to all the lovely people here sooner!!

I wanted to buy it in 1995 but decided to rent it first, ended up finishing it in 1 or 2 rents it was so simple it was pathetic. I had the same problem with Phantasy Star 4 on sega genesis, rented it once and finished it so why buy it. I love both of these games they're very well designed but far to simple to go back to and finish again because there is very little challenge and their storys are just about some evil bad guy you need to defeat to save your world from falling into some black hole without getting me to love and care about the characters and give them emotions or attitude which FFXIII and these older classics did better imho. PS2/FF4/Lunar/FF6 gave me so much more gameplay and challenge and story back in the 90's. But that's just my opinion you don't have to accept it at all, I also hate responding to someone who likes to just label others without asking me a simple question like.  Did I play it in 1995. Oh well now you know, yep... I surely did.

Sometimes when I hear that complaint and after playing Ni Nu Kuni which has a 3 character battle party just like Chrono Trigger and FFXIII that I wonder if the complaint you make would be eliminated with a L1/R1 option like Ni Nu Kuni to switch in battle between all 3 characters or if this is just a red herring argument.

No of course not! I love wiki's! A fantastic well of information surely we're not the only 2 in the world using them! ;) Isn't it funny that a game like Oblivion/Skyrim will have 10x more data entries and people never complain about it. They've also won of goty awards in the past and NO ONE EVER COMPLAINED they had to read diarys/books/spell books etc? Same with RE 1 and 2 I never can remember anyone hating on that fact. Ni No Kuni had me writing down spells to craft special items and reading up on certain topics. Well I find it ironic because they're both in the vein of RPG's (Oblivion/SkyrimNi No Kuni), but something makes FFXIII special to this kind of scruitiny when looking up information that relates to the storyline. I think what seperates the two is that in Skyrim your out to slay dragons, and Oblivion your out to close gates and control the Amulet of Kings. And Ni No Kuni has been out just 1 year. Seems that Dragons and shiny objects are what is need to sell a story for the masses / IGN readers etc. Not a deeper and more complicated storyline. Just start killing dragons and locating artifacts or shiny magically powered objects that need destroyed. Keep killing dragons and riding them that is what makes a great RPG. Don't get me wrong I have all these games and enjoy them all. I firmly believe the story in FFXIII is to advanced or possibly to removed from the genre's TROPES like dragons that for many players to allow themselves to imagine a world without dragons and sticks confuses them. The paradigm battle system is also too unfamiliar/advanced/complicated for many traditional JRPG fans in some regard (attack, spell, attack doesn't win every fight in this game sometimes you need sentinel), and that is truely a shame to give up on the story or battle system and fail to completely understand it's amazingly new take but faitful to classics design. I should just learn to expect it because it is unfamiliar, and a huge chunk of gamers cannot take the time to understand it so they gave up out of frustration.

I think you have hit on something there. In the early chapters there is a steeper learning curve imho when you get into some of Lake Bresha and the Vile Peaks it seems to be challenging because there are tactics that are not explained well enough. Great point. I don't get why they drop weapon upgrade components at these early stages but don't allow them to unlock at the stores. That was probly so they could concetrate of the battles and less on the equipment, but as all fans know some people like to get lvl 99 stats asap and breeze through the game. It takes out a lot of the strategy but I think a lot of people enjoy doing that. In FFXIII you have to get a good chunk through to upgrade items, and end game Ultimate Weapons you really have to get to Adamantoise to aquire the catalysts unless you want to grind 10x as much to buy those catalysts.

In closing I think we all just learned that some or most/all the people who had a difficult time understanding the story of FFXIII just admitted here that they chose not to even read up on the datalog entries or find a wiki online when they got confused by terms in the game and simply gave up! Looks exactly so, and I remember in RE1 & 2 reading all the diary's I foundsame in Oblivion/Skyrim etc. reading all kinds of side items same in Ni No Kuni. I'm very surprised someone can complain about a story and obviously not read up on said story when it is available if you didn't get the gist of it in the games AMAZING cutscenes! This is another topic I wanted to get at and prove along with the FFXIII fans! Yippee! +1 for us!

I want to thank everyone who spent time posting in this thread. I really have gotten a lot of useful information from everyone's insights that have takin a small amount of time and thought about their responses! I respect you all!

XIII's combat was only half there. Basically to hide the fact that paradigmed combat was not incorporated usefully into enemy designs, S-E gave enemies about two zeroes too much health. And then to make combat go quickly enough, it had to go about a third too fast for the player to meaningfully input commands.

Auto-battling resulted.

IF XIII had used smart enemies--enemies who have comparable HP and skills to your party and fight back intelligently rather than with brute force--if combat had been slow enough you could meaningfully do something besides "paradigm, do your thing" and if enemies had role-playing-like weaknesses you could exploit to gain the advantage, like mechanical monsters would freely sacrifice their allies whereas pack monsters would protect their wounded, then XIII's combat would have been the best RPG combat system of all time.

As is it was mediocre and tedious.

As good as Chrono Trigger is, I don't think it's the best Squaresoft did. That would be Parasite Eve, where you had an active time bar which had to fill before you could attack or use an item. While the AT bar is charging, you are free to dodge and move around the battlefield, but because you have to stand still to take a shot you might actually hold off on attacking right at the beginning of your turn. Besides the annoying invisible walls, which were needed because of hardware limitations, the only fault was that they made Aya run too slow because they had to pad the game out.

I think the difference is that in those other games, you can understand the story to a satisfying degree without having to read those extra bits. They enrich the storyling by giving background, but they aren't necessary. Only a small percentage of players look through the datalog/wiki in any given game and that's usually because the story outside of those encylopedia's enthralls them enough to want to find out more.

It's interesting that you mention Oblivion and Skyrim because the overall story of those game's isn't the normally the big draw for people but the fact you can forge your own personal character story in a world filled with depth and lore. The exploration as well as the countless books, scrolls and side-stories in those games is the main draw and key to immersing yourself deeper.

With Final Fantasy XIII, the story in the cut scenes and told throughout the game barely scratched the surface of a world with incredible depth and potential. If you wanted to understand the story and lore of the game to a degree normally expected of a jRPG, you had to read the datalog. This leads to an issue for people as they don't take enough enjoyment from the story during the cut scenes, but this also means many aren't interested in reading the datalog as they haven't had enough immersion in the lore to care.

I know not everyone's like this and other will read and try to understand what's happening, but for other's, if they're not enjoying the core game and story, they're not going to dig deeper. Basically, I think for many, SE got the balance wrong and should spent more time covering the story, history and lore (preferably in a diverse range of side quests) rather than keeping it stored up in the datalog.

I really can't figure out which significant parts of the world and lore you are referring to though, excluding Etro.

Considering the size of the log there's a lot in there that is only touched on in dialogue or is easy to miss. The background of the fal'cie comes to mind, and due to the lack of side quests or other methods of exploration, much of the background information on the society and culture remained a mystery without going through the datalog. You get some interesting locales and the characters may mention the odd thing about them, but it was passively expressed and easy to miss. 

Like I said, the actual game content barely scratched the surface, the datalog was necessary if you wanted to understand and immerse yourself in the world in to the same level I would normally get from a JRPG. 

Spoilers for Chapter 10:

I'm pretty sure Cid explained the background of the Fal'cie pretty well.

Like I said, in itself, the cut scene only explains so much and not in the depth I expect from a JRPG.

The depth of the story in previous Final Fantasy games for instance, was normally told via seperate side quests and small exploratory bits. If I want to experience that in FFXIII, I have to read the datalog.