A long awaited RPG that... let me down.
So when I saw that FF13 was shortly due to be released, I decided to borrow my buddy's stormtrooper costume and go out for the midnight release. He opted to go as Voldemort. Much fun was had, and I returned excited to play.
Upon popping that disc in and loading up the intro movie, I experienced what I consider the major positive of this game: the graphics. Let me just state that plainly: from a technical stand-point, the graphics are gorgeous. The characters are modeled with exceptional detail. It really is a pleasure just to watch them. On the other hand, I found the stylistic side of the graphics to be something of a let-down. There's a lot of recycled corridors and monster models. Nothing ever really popped out at me; I never encountered any memorable sort of artistic moments.
So going from the intro screen, I had high hopes. And then I played the game.
The gameplay is both exceptionally linear and exceptionally easy, especially in the first parts of the game. Basically you can control only one person and even then your options are limited. Essentially the entire strategy of the game comes from switching roles. Sadly there are very few fights that require even that. During some of the early dungeons I literally held up on the joystick and pressed A over and over and beat them, while I was outside grilling salmon (wireless controllers ftw?) An entire dungeon, without looking, except for the boss. Which is unfortunate because I was also randomly using items and libra and other such things, but I still managed to win the day!
Let me elaborate further upon my claims of this being the most linear game ever: the game's dungeons are essentially corridors running in one direction, there are never any towns to explore, there are no extra townspeople to talk to, and your character development is more or less entirely linear. There are no choices to make because you can choose them all.
Simply put, the gameplay is boring. It's a game made for over-achieving zombies.
Now then let me move on to the story. A big letdown, for several reasons. For one, the dialogue is abysmal. The voice-acting is great, that's not my complaint: the script is terrible. Perhaps I was spoiled, coming from Dragon Age, but I found most of the conversations painfully formulaic. I understand that this game is made to be understood even by little kids, yet Pixar movies somehow manage to be entertaining and approachable for all ages so why couldn't FF13?
Starting from a poor script, the story can really only go down hill. The villains (like in FF12) are somewhat vague and/or absent. It's not really very clear until later, and even then only just so, why exactly I'm running through corridors, killing everything that moves.
As we say in the creative writing biz, the game never managed to "draw me in"; it never captured me and consequentially I couldn't careless about the fates of anyone involved.
The characters are, like everything else in the game, one dimensional. Snow is the cardboard cutout of a "hero" oblivious to reality; Lightning is the cardboard cutout of the gritty tough soldier, even though as a Guardian soldier, she's the equivalent of a national guard soldier in a completely peaceful country; Hope is the cardboard cutout of a weak unguided boy who has "great potential" or some other BS; etc, etc, etc. I actually found Vanille, which Gamespot's reviewer thought was annoying, to be the only character with any real depth. Unfortunately, the game feels the need to constantly blungeon you over the head with this: I HAVE A SECRET, I HAVE A SECRET. Yet, if you are at all cognizant of how Square localizes their FF games, her Australian accent (as opposed to the accents of everyone else) is a dead give-away what her secret is.
In short, this game has wonderful graphics and decent voice-acting and not much else. It'd be like if you gathered a bunch of beautiful actors, gave them a crappy studio with no props or tools or anything else, handed them a Danielle Steele novel to serve as a script, and told them: "Go at it." Then you'd have FF13.