Look, I liked FF XIII, but you can't expect people not to be deceived when in all FF's lifespawn, you've always able to walk around, talk to NPCs and do things; sleep at inns, mash X while walking around to see what banal thing your character picks up, and minigames such as card-games and things like that.

Then comes FF XIII and you can't do any of those things. It's not a matter of people assuming the wrong genre, but it is a case on which the game departed from the original formula, and brought a solid combat system which is the thing that carries the game right until Pulse.

Minigames sucked in 7 the snowboarding mini game made me want to put in Coolboarders. The racing section made me want to play Jet Moto. Card games, well rather get out a bicycle card deck and play anygame I want. I thought they were terrible! Just like the mini games on Mystical Ninja SNES, just cheapo non fun games to waste time with. NPC's usually tell you nothing in FF games too. Let me get you some real NPC quotes or bad dialog.

-"Restore the Crystals to grace."

-"Monsters are going to get you."

-Aeris - "This guy are sick." <- fail translation lolz

Ehhh actually no not going into that, the reason you don't really need NPC's in FFXIII is it's cinematic by nature, it's a technologically advanced society too. They dont sell axes because this game doesn't take place in the middle freaking ages if you failed to notice. It's also to fast paced of a story to be slowed down by FF NPC troping, and it also trys to keep tension constant imho along with the battle system. Your whole party is branded L-Cie, you are under constant survelience and trying to hide from the Santum and Fal Cie and move forward without being seen, and not be detected even the townsfolk will sell you out because they're so brainwashed by Fal Cie they truely think you're the enemy. So why the f*** would you go to a town and talk to EVERY NPC WRIGHT? When the CHARACTERS ARE BRANDED? The story only sucks because people like yourself FAIL to understand basic concepts in the games story!

Vanilles Brand=

The story revolves around the characters specifically, not NPCs in towns. There's no generic stuff like "Oh hey!" "my daddy was a miner and now they're alot of monsters in the mines, it's really bad you need to be careful going into said mine/cave/dungeon! Take an Axe! You know what I mean? Well you probably don't...ugh.

How many times do we have to read those boring NPC comments? It doesn't make a game fanatastic when they're really an overused FF trope, that becomes specifically annoying. Or another common one. Your party bumps into a soldier(s) and they talk down to your party like you're a bunch d-bag kids? Or there's some really amazing spell caster in some town and you need an item to give to them to make x item. I'm under and over that in my FF games. You can all complain about it, but i doubt these current developers are going to de-evolve and do throwbacks because of you complainers. Especially when it goes in complete opposite flow to the plot/storyline.  Which you and plenty of others fail to even understand it in its most basic form. :)

Lol, no.
FF XIII is the worst travesty to happen to FF.

Wii Sports.

"you have to choose actions very carefully". Your choice is in like HOTD, shoot or reload (press X, or press whatever button was there to paradigm shift). The existence of two sequels to that piece of trash and the fact that I even got the European LE pisses me off even more.

Good for you, you're awesome! FFXIII series deserves plenty more sales, but the game is to complex for casuals and oldschool PS1 hardcores.

Good for you, you're awesome! So much wrong in just one reply.

Good day to you, sir. It's pointless to talk to anyone who puts FF XIII above Wii Sports.

I'm saying they're two different games, but 1 has no story and gameplay a 4 year old can grasp. The other requires its audience to enjoy and contemplate a fantasy-sci-fi story, with strategic battle elements and a more complex gameplay. Good day to you too!

Let me see if I understand this.

Bodhum was NPC troping, badly done. But SE did NPC troping anyway. There's unnecesary troping in other situations (one I'll quote just in the next point), so it is dumb to not put actual meaningful conversations or banal trivia. It didn't hurt them to do so.

Not only that, but they also watched the show and screw around with the chocobos. Which also comes to my first point; they could have implemented some kind of minigame here. A chocobo race or something. Duh, no, let's chase a small chocobo just to be rewarded with a stupid ring. Thanks SE.

They did went to a city knowing the full implications of it. Oh! Let me bring that image of yours again!

Did anyone noticed in Nautilus? No. So moot point.

I never said the story suck. :)  But you see, because the story wants the characters to "hurry" doesn't mean they can't have time to spare. This is not a flaw in the story; it's a videogame design. There was no hurry when people were on Pulse, were they? Or why would they go back to Pulse after reaching Eden's heart instead of going and fighting Barthandaleus at the moment? Well, let me tell you: the story wants the characters to hurry, but the gameplay don't. This is no Zelda: Majora's Mask on which you have the constat looming of the moon. No, there's no excuse for not puting a proper city or village NPC. And if you're going to go back to the "hurry story" thing, check this:

There's over sixty things of these ^. Let me ask you a question, why would the party try and do over sixty Cie'th missions if, according to you, the basic concept of the in-game story forces these guys to keep moving on?

SO WHY THE FUCK WOULD THEY GO THROUGH THE ENTIRE PULSE AND MAKE EVERY MISSION? When the CHARACTERS ARE BRANDED? Don't use the story to justify the unjustifiable; you FAIL to grasp the basic concepts of videogame design shielding behind a complex storyline.

EDIT: In any case, I'm glad XIII series sold over 10 million games, but I already said that.

You just blew my mind. I'm totally blown and I can't think righ now. I need breakfast ttyl guys.

where are FF13 info for how much it cost? Less say it was cheaper to make. Pretty sure that it didnt make them as much money as FF7 at least, especially considering that people are STILL buying that game.

FF7 = 368 Million with (2013) inflation considered

FF13 =77 Million (2013)

Going by those numbers , and if FFXIII-2 was half the budget of the first maybe the whole series of FFXIII should be in the 150-200Million range. So if 175 Million overall that would be half of FF7's budget, and the FFXIII series should easily match overall sales between these 2 series and like you claim FF7 is still selling. Likewise I'm sure FFXIII series is still sellling in small numbers.

Which is better? As always that's for "you" to decide. Not me. :) But FFXIII is better than 7 ;)