Those cut scenes neither explain why the fal'Cie wish to call a deity, or why they think killing a shit-load of people will make one turn up. In fact all it is, is Bart blathering on about how we need to "save" the world by killing it. It's the same bullshit so many villians have said. I mean for fuck sake it's the exact same bullshit Seymour was babbling in FFX. It's a sad trope at this point, but here it's even worse because it's based on faulty logic. How the hell does killing Orphan and causing Cocoon to crash into the planet, killing everyone, result in people being "saved"... and "saved" from what exactly? What's the threat? There is no threat except this utterly pathetic plan to "save" them. It's stupidity of the highest order.

If you have to do that, it's a bad game... also, even if you do that, the game still won't make sense because there's contradictions in logic and premise in the main story. More information will never explain why the fal'Cie want to die in order to save the world by killing it, so force people into slavery to do elaborate tasks that result in the fal'Cies death, yet the fal'Cie resist their own plan and actively sabotage themselves. It's completely stupid backwards plots like this that make no sense and no amount of clarifications will ever make it make sense. It's just plain senseless.

I enjoyed the game because I'm able to overcome most games' shortcomings, as long as I can still have fun. In fact, I've enjoyed (in a minor or bigger way) almost every single game I've played.

There's no true objectiveness. A game is not "bad", nor "good", but rather, the opinion you get from the game is what defines how that game is for you. Some people consider The Last of Us to be the greatest game ever made. I think that's a big overstatement. There's far better games out there than that one, yet they can argue why they do consider it to be, and that's okay.

People can say Vampire Rain is a bad game, but I can argue why it is not. Like in Ancient Greek, the power was granted for those who could defend their point beyond any argument, nor whether they were wright or wrong. Think of that Greek guy who said that it was the Earth - not the Sun - the one that moved in orbit. People effectively argued against that point, so he couldn't defend it anymore. Was he wrong? He wasn't.

I'm familiar enough with RPGs...I've played my share of them. Regarding XIII, the same tactic does NOT work for everyone. The Guard Mistress may have low HP, but try COM COM COM despite your characters being overpowered and you might eat dust. You can't stagger all enemies. You can't stagger Vercingetorix, for example, which makes it for a long, intense battle. Healing sometimes isn't the answer; it wasn't certainly with Long Gui. Heal a lot and it just castle Doom on you, so you die.

There's a lot of status to be worried about; especially on those enemies who are inmune to everything yet they can dispel yours. TP played a critical role sometimes (yet the Summons were painfully horrible, so let's obviate that), but not in all cases. There's items to be thrown. There's paradigms to be changed. There's useless formations in one combat that may grace with the victory on another one. And the story and characters may not be the greatest, but I liked Sazh and ultimately was interested in seeing how his character developed throughout the game. So the motivation for me to keep playing was there, in the form of Sazh and Dahj (and Snow and Serah too). I also wanted to see if Barthandeus could trump and defeat the characters, given that I started playing and XIII-2 had already released (dunno how that game fits into the story, though). It wouldn't be the first time an evil guy effectively surpasses the main cast. FF VI.

So this objectively isn't a bad game. It is a game, a game people can or can't like. I did like it. I enjoyed it.

You can't see me but I am clapping in front of my computer. You got every point that I've ever complained about FFXIII and also addressed a major excuse for FFXIII that their fans use, FFX was linear too. FFX was linear but it was done way better and made sense in the plot. In FFXIII, linearity makes no sense since you're on the run. You would expect more freedom to traverse the world and hide from being caught (for that portion of the plot). Granted, that's only one of the many issues with the game that you addressed.

Good job OP. It's good to see people who actually play Final Fantasy and love the series but don't make excuses for the bad games they've been making recently. Don't even get me started on XIII-2 and Lightning Returns aka further digging the inconsistent and badly written plot and characters into the ground.

Why?

Lightning didn't want to hide, neither Hope did.

Snow was captured.

Vanille and Sazh effectively hide in Nautilus City, but are found thanks to Sazh's son.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Lightning Returns are better games...

Do criminals on the run, run away in a straight line? Do they hide on a predetermined path to a City where a major conflict is preplanned into their life? Not really.

Additionally, if you played multiple other Final Fantasy games, like FFIV for example. Cecil and friends were considered traitors at a point in the story and you still had to run but you were allowed open access into the world. Or even FFIX where you are also allowed free access into the world despite being on the run with Garnet. There's no excuse to not have open world access in FFXIII's plot. It was just lazy on Square Enix's part and made the story worse because it doesn't make sense for traitors to be on a linear path unless there is a specific goal at task (ala FFX, finishing the pilgrimage regardless of being traitors).

Final Fantasy has always been one of my favorite franchises, but X-2 was terrible and FFXIII was somehow a lot worse. The music, the characters, the linearity, the ridiculous autoplay, the flat storyline, I agree 100% with the OP.
I actually enjoyed FFXII though, it was very well made and Balthier alone makes the character roster better than all of XIII's put together, some disagreed with the real-time mechanics of FFXII and said it was "too automated" once you unlocked enough AI instruction sets, but it was always fluid and offered a lot more direct control regardless through pausing and deeper (and better) menu's and the licensing system shits on the Crystarium, in my opinion.
I don't even understand why XIII bothers going into turn-based combat when you're left with being only a spectator most of the time anyway.

Again, the same issue rears it's head. People are unwilling to accept objective quality. I'm sorry, but there IS objective quality in video games. We all know that Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing is bad, and we also all know that The Last Of Us is good... is it the best game ever? Well, that's a distinction that is hard to measure especially as games aren't all judged on the same criteria. You cannot judge Super Mario 3D World on it's story and you can't judge Minecraft on it's level design... The fact is though, we can judge works of art, in fact it's a recognised field of study. Auteur Theory, (though admittedly this is more recognised when discussing film, though it's still relevent).

Gamers like to think they know their games better than anyone, but just like how you can study film at multiple levels, you can study game design in much the same way. There are mechanical issues, ie. does the physics engine work as intended, do the graphics pop-in or tear, are there glitches etc. as well as design issues. Do the characters convey the meaning they're intended to convey, do they express themselves properly? Does the atmosphere achieve the intended reaction? Does the story succeed in transcribing it's narrative? Is it understood and comprehended, felt and considered in the manner intended? These are important questions to ask, and they have right and wrong answers.

Objective quality exists. It's why I know that Bioshock is a good game despite personally not enjoying it, I'm bias against it but still able to admit it's quality. It's why I know that TV shows like Primeval are rather mediocre but I enjoy them because it plays to my biases so I'm willing to overlook it's flaws. This is something people seem to have trouble doing, seperating their biases from objective quality. Objectively FFXIII is a bad game; functional and playable sure, but bland and unachieving to a fault with no true artistic value. Personally however, I consider it one of the worst game ever made and would put it along side Ride To Hell, Superman 64, and Big Rigs as games that are utterly worthless.

@Bolded

Bad example. You have access to an open access world, but still, that only serves as to grind. You effectively have to run to a certain city after that point in the game. There's no other way. XIII merely replicated it but instead of grinding, they gave you cutscenes.

This pet peeve of yours feels more like you wanted to play the game differently to how it actually plays. But I respect your opinion on the matter.

Never played IX though...I've heard is one of the very best FF out there.