Please do, cause it is one of the greatest games ever created!

FF games in general are rated this way in Japan. I am suprised Japanese gamers would complain about long cutscenes and linearity. Especially when FFX, arguably the most linear game in the series, is considered the best FF game there. Japanese are suppose to like lengthy cutscenes and linearity. Why is it that stuff like Uncharted 2, various FPS, etc. get away with linearity yet when FF does it, it gets slammed for it?

That's wester RPG's you talking about mate, JRPG are always linear because they have a controlled story, there may be an odd game or two which try to be open world or give the impression but unlike wester RPG, JRPG are fairly linear.

I have to say though, that I smell allot of Ninetnedo trolls here, pitty the mods won't do anything about it cuz their to busy with their hands down the pants fapping off to there fellow fanboys.

"Criticism of blockbuster RPG Final Fantasy XIII has rapidly mounted, with the initial observation that the game is almost comically linear giving way to a litany of further dissatisfactions, many quite unavoidable even for the game's many staunch defenders.

A digest of criticism from 2ch:

The whole game is completely linear until halfway through [approximately 20 hours].

There are hardly any towns.

The party is always fixed. The whole game just repeats the movie-battle sequence over and over [In fact the progression is closer to movie-run-battle-run-movie-boss-movie-run-battle…].

There are rather a lot of movies.

Moving around is like a long marathon.

The whole game system is just a clone of FF10.

You can't flee battles [You can't avoid most battles either as there is no sneaking past enemies, including weak ones].

Your party is completely healed after each battle.

If the main character in your party dies it is game over [There are only ever 3 characters in battle, often less, and often fixed].

The best tactic is almost always endlessly attacking. There is next to no strategy or skill involved.

The summons' transformation scenes are a joke [i.e. Odin turning into a horse].

The story is rubbish… [Spoilers omitted, but complaints centre on Snow's constant and cringe inducing insistence that he is a hero and will "protect" whatever it is the antagonists are menacing this time]

Shopping is only done at "online" shops on save points, with no proper shops to be found.

However, this doesn't matter as you hardly ever get any money [and you can never buy anything more powerful than what you already looted].

There have been next to no changes from the demo.

The status screen displays no real information.

There are only 8 items usable in combat [For that matter, there are hardly any weapons or accessories, and the "crafting" system mostly consists of spending drops to upgrade their 2 stats].

There are no levels.

With all their advertising money, just how was it they failed even to get Famitsu to give full points?

Some of these criticisms are exaggerated or require further qualification, but on the whole they are fair, and any review which does not dwell long and hard on some of these design choices is certainly suspect.

It already seems clear the game is far from the dramatic step forward it was supposed to be, though whether these issues make the whole game "bad" is certainly open to question. However, it does seem something went very wrong with the game's development all the same…"

It should be mentioned that this is taken from a somewhat questionable source:  http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=27133358&tag=topics;title

On the other hand there's two reader reviews up at GamFAQs. Both praise the game: http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/ps3/review/928790.html

The game is tracking above Dragon Quest IX on Japan's Amazon ratings.

http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%82%B9%E3%82%AF%E3%82%A6%E3%82%A7%E3%82%A2%E3%83%BB%E3%82%A8%E3%83%8B%E3%83%83%E3%82%AF%E3%82%B9-13306241-%E3%83%89%E3%83%A9%E3%82%B4%E3%83%B3%E3%82%AF%E3%82%A8%E3%82%B9%E3%83%88IX-%E6%98%9F%E7%A9%BA%E3%81%AE%E5%AE%88%E3%82%8A%E4%BA%BA/dp/B000LXD7HO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1261265912&sr=8-1-fkmr0

http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%82%B9%E3%82%AF%E3%82%A6%E3%82%A7%E3%82%A2%E3%83%BB%E3%82%A8%E3%83%8B%E3%83%83%E3%82%AF%E3%82%B9-15783001-%E3%83%95%E3%82%A1%E3%82%A4%E3%83%8A%E3%83%AB%E3%83%95%E3%82%A1%E3%83%B3%E3%82%BF%E3%82%B8%E3%83%BCXIII/dp/B000FNQXEO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1261265994&sr=1-1

It's also beating FFXII and FFX2.

This alone makes FFXIII awesome.

Boutros: It's also slightly insane, considering twenty seconds of gameplay movies were enough to make it clear to me the combat is quite different from FFX.

That is disappointing though considering FFX had the best combat system in any JRPGs (imo).

I've played them, and their linear, with some open aspect to them once you complete enough of the game like in pokemon when you get the TM FLY, but it is nothing like Wester RPG where they really give you the freedom to explore and take quests, it's still some what linear as well since it has an over arching story it's trying to tell, but when compared to JRPG western RPG's are more way more open world, having said this it doesn't stop the game from being fun.


I mean I've played nearly all pokemon games since the gold version, all of them are identical, it may be a new region but it's the same thing of going from town to town, get 8 gym badges and then poke league, their may be new baddies but they don't affect what you have to do in regards to gyms and stuff, but it's still fun.

lol, dude if you looked at my account then you'd know I've been around for 2 years, I know a fanboy when I smell one, and the only reason I singled them out is because as soon as FF13 came out, the negativity started and now it's degenerated down into linearity which has always been their with JRPGs but now for some reason it's new and we must all bash FF13 for it, if this isn't Nintendo fanboys at work then I have no idea what world you live in.