Nothing gets as much hate as FFVII, which is by far the most overhyped and overrated game ever. Even if it is a 9.5 the fans make it out to be some fucking 12/10 game =P

Thats arguable but we will leave that for another time

And that LR may have an improved battlesystem out of the 3 but the story and just Lightning as a character is just awful

I agree that Final Fantasy VII is a very overrated game, but we have to remember that it was the first FF ( heck the first JRPG) most gamers played back in the day!

Yes but it has Lumina who was an awesome character, best in the 13 trilogy imo

Count me in for one who quietly really liked FF XIII.  Not being a hard core JRPG fan, FF XIII  solved a lot of problems I had with the other games in the FF series.  For once, I liked the battle modes where there were real time action elements to it.  I really liked that you could avoid the stupid randomized battles that plagued the older FF games.  I even liked the simplicity of the linear game play that allowed the rather complicated but discernable story to develop.  

In all, the story, characters, graphics, and especially the music were enough to keep me moving forward and excited about the adventure.  Actually FF XIII is the first JRPG that I could stomach.  I'm sure I'll get hammered for saying this, but I Ihought the game was not only good, but great.  I hope Square will eventually release the triology on PC as they have hinted about this...

it's not just linear, it's a corridor "rpg" - I thought the game was decent (enough to platinum it), but walking in a straight line for ~15h before finally comming to a more open area (after which the game btw goes back to strict linearity) was pretty dull

Lol

The Gambit system was amazing. It allowed real time combat and movement without having to rely on shitty AI, its something 13 needed for the rest of your party and something 15 should use as its obvious you will only really be controlling 1 member of the party at a time. And Balthier is the leading man, he even states it multiple times throughout the game =P

This makes no sense, your trying to tell me you played FF12 with just 1 character in your party, or 3 but 2 who just stood there??

As for 15 not having a Gambit like system, then you will bitch about 15 for only really controlling 1 character anyway. At least with a gambit type system you can tell the AI what to do rather than being stuck with retarted and shit AI. Its obvious in a game like 15 your not going to have full control over your party like you did in 10 (best turn based battle system ever), surely some control is better than no control.

Well I guess nobody's perfect.. :)

I doubt it. The game just isn't very good. If it weren't called Final Fantasy the game would have gotten the low scored reviews and minimal sales it deserved. Lost Odyssey was 10 times the game that FFXIII was. I had no expectations for FFXIII and I still found it underwhelming. The game was incredibly linear even by JRPG standards, the cast was poor, the dialogue was awful, the story wasn't very good despite the incredible lore in the datalogs. Hope and Vanille were two of the worst characters I've ever had the misfortune of experiencing in a JRPG. To put that in perspective, I've complete Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World. Those two are in the same class as Emil Castagnier, who in my opinion, is the worst lead in JRPG history.