Hoping to make your life's design a bit more dynamic!

I recently played through all of the game and even got all trophies, so it really is a fun game, but there are lots of drawbacks in my opinion (some spoilers regarding the gameplay might be present):

First of all, I think it's more of a glorified action-game with RPG-elements. That isn't a bad thing, but it's _Final Fantasy_, so I expected an RPG, maybe with action-elements. This point really is very controversial. For the record, I loved FFXII's gameplay, so somebody who hated it might be more into XIII's than me. But why do I think it is more of an action-game? Well, as has been said before, there are no towns and almost no interacting with NPCs. No character levels (though I like the crystarium, but the sphere board was better in my opinion), set limits how strong you can get each chapter (and for that matter, the enemies are set up in such a way that they become increasingly harder as you go on: the first enemy in a chapter might be two soldiers, the next one are three soldiers, the next one one tough soldier and two normal soldiers, and so on... really like an action-game).

This goes hand-in-hand with the gameplay - especially the battles - being very fast-paced. This can be good, and bad. The bad part is that if you don't react on time or make just a little mistake (switching to ATT-ATT-ATT instead of DEF-DEF-DEF...) you might be instantly dead, especially with the harder battles.

Furthermore, you only control the leader of the party, the two other members are controlled by the AI. And I hate the AI. In XII, you could at least give some outlines what they should do in the form of gambits - in XIII, you don't have any influence. I just fucking hate it if my enhancer casts Haste last (after casting some spells I don't even need). Or if you have more than one attacker in the group and you want everybody to attack the same enemy but they just won't.
What I also hate are the AoE-spells of enemies. It's just pure luck whether your characters are all bunched up or whether they are more spaced out so the attack won't hit everybody.

By the way, story-wise, it really IS that linear. You just have to follow the path all the time. It even conveniently displays where you have to go with a star. As has been said, almost every RPG is linear in some fashion - but FFXIII is just in another dimension of linearity. I had to laugh when I read the description of one of the areas "it's easy to get lost in this forest". It's not easy, it's fucking IMPOSSIBLE to get lost. Well, if you don't get confused because you never know which direction is north and which is south on the map.

There are no sub-quests worth mentioning in the game. You can do the missions, but they're just the same enemies over and over again. No really unique ones (just stronger versions of enemies you've already met), and the so-called "story" to this missions is almost non-existent. Just a plain piece of text you can read each mission.

Nevertheless, it's a really good game worth playing. It just didn't meet my expectations.

Thanks for sharing your impressions LostTemplar. I'm getting the impression that my feelings in the end will be similar to yours. I made it past the part where I was underpowered and now I've overcompensated a little and seem to be overpowered but I'd rather be the latter than the former. I'm just a little way through chapter 12 and it has returned to being the game I enjoyed in chapters 1-10. I don't know that I would call it an action game really, RPG elements or no. I'd call it more RPG-lite. I also feel like the big action set-pieces almost seen out of place since there has been about 2 of them in the past 47hrs or so. It's almost too-few, too far between. It makes them feel out of place even though they are fairly awesome to watch. I'm reserving final judgments or criticisms until the end. For now I'm back to really enjoying the game.

Finally finished this game! Like LostTemplar I'd like to go back and get more if not all of the trophies. I don't want to put too much of a stopper in my impressions of the game quite yet. I'll be finishing off my article over at Playongo here in the next few days so you can read more there. Overall I really enjoyed the game. I had some issues with the pacing interrupt that happened at chapter 11. In fact I think my biggest gripe is along the same lines. There are some really cool elements to the game, really dynamic CG sequences, really "lonely" sort of desolate exploration pieces, character stories, leveling and customization mechanics, challenging battle system, etc. and while all were good, they did not integrate into a single whole as well as they could have. It seems like the game's reach sort of exceeded it's grasp. That being said, the individual elements on their own are top notch. The overall experience that is something of a disjointed collection of quality pieces all of which make an excellent but inconsistent experience. I certainly hope no one chooses to skip the game because of that alone. I'm looking forward to getting the rest of the trophies and maybe trying some of the optional battles that I skipped the first time. This may be one of the first FFs where I actually do some of the hard optional stuff that I've never bothered with in the other games. I fought like 3 of the coliseum monsters in FFX before they got ridiculously hard. FF has always struggled with having these really off-the-wall, impossible things you have to do to get "ultimate weapons" or what not. It's the kind of stuff I could never do without following a FAQ. I can't say for sure on this one since I don't know, but I have a feeling that those types of elements may be a bit more accessible this time around.

EDIT: FYI, it took me 60 hours just to finish the main part of this game! It was really long! I only did like 4 of the missions.

Thanks for doing these play-throughs for us

I'm not expecting that much from the game anymore after hearing so many negatives, but I'm still going to be getting it. Heck... Maybe my expectations have been lowered so much that I'll be pleasantly surprised. heh

Draken: Did you ever end up trying out 13? (I extend this question to anyone else as well)

I did! I didn't approach as an FF title, though. I had a lot of fun playing it, but I can totally understand where all the hate comes from. It was quite a linear game... There were times when I was really missing towns. I love having some freedom when playing RPGS, but FFXIII doesn't give all the much. It did a TON better though when I was able to explore the massive field and do lots of quests. All in all, I really liked it, but it didn't feel like a real FF to me.

My problem with 13 was that it was about ten hours too long. I really liked it up until about halfway through chapter 11-ish, and then it started to get old. With a few exceptions the battles don't get tougher, they just get longer and you have to react a little faster, and that got boring for me pretty fast. And the plot resolution made me go "wuh?" The shine that the battles seemed to have lost at the end, combined with the wtf ending and the absurd encounter rate over the last few areas, gave me absolutely no inclination to do any of the post-game stuff. I've since totally forgotten how to play, and the one time I picked it up I got trashed in my first random battle.

All in all it was okay. I'm glad I played it, and miiiiiiight play it again someday, but not before I've cleared out a sizeable portion of my backlog.

Draken: Nice to hear your impressions and I'm glad you liked it. I've blabbed on about my impressions of it enough, so I won't go into that. Interesting to hear that you liked the "open" area. A lot of people did. There is a theory that Japanese gamers and Western gamers value "freedom" to different degrees in gaming. It goes that Japanese gamers are much more willing to accept a linear or limited experience in service to the vision of the game designers, while the western audience places much more value on personal freedom. This can be manifested in the "save anywhere" style of western RPGs vs. the "save spot" design of many Japanese RPGs. Further with things like "rolling" your own party vs. collecting pre-made party members as part of the story. It's ironic a lot of these more limited or linear versions of game elements are staples of FF games, but yet the linearity of exploration in FFXIII is called un-Final Fantasy by a great many fans. I think this element of sacrifice of personal freedom was perhaps too much for western fans of FF, even in the face of many other limitations of freedom imposed by previous titles (linear story, linear character aquisition, save points etc...) It will be interesting to see how SE responds to this in future FF titles. A current trend seems to be having western developers more involved in the development of titles, even high profile ones, from Japanese developers (Dead Rising, the use of Hollywood in Resident Evil 5) Nier even had a separate version for each territory.

EDIT: GZ Sounds like you would have been just as happy, or perhaps a lot happier, with a shorter game. I agree with you about chapter 11. It was disruptive at a point when I just wanted to get on with the story, which was pretty weird. You can say that about the story for pretty much any FF game though. I guess that's par for the course.

Well, I bought a copy of the game for PS3, even knowing that I hated FF12. but I got the darn thing for $15 in mint condition complete. I just couldn't pass it up at that price. We'll see if I ever get around to playing all the way through it. I will say one thing after playing through chapter 1. The battle system isn't half as annoying as 12 was. I'm not sure why but it definitely is improved. When will I get to chapter 2? Who knows, The story wasn't terribly interesting in chapter 1 so I'm not sure. Not to mention I don't actually own the PS3 so I can only play it when its free hehe. I'll let you know when I have an impression from further in. Whenever that is.

Combat in chapter 1 and 2 is almost totally different from combat in chapters 3 and on, just so you know.