Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Don't believe the hype"

I have very mixed feelings about this game. There's simply not much here. What is here is really good, but the lack of gameplay really keeps me from giving this game the score I wish I could give it.
Keep in mind I haven't finished the game yet. I'm only on disc 2 in fact. I normally try to refrain from reviewing a game until I'm at least 3/4 through, but the aggravating amount of things they've done to a beloved series is somewhat forcing my hand. I'm about 10-12 hours into the game so far and I'm not really sure I'm going to last the duration. In truth, unless this game gets better or does something more entertaining with the formula, this could be the first Final Fantasy ever that I sell back to Gamestop.
Let's get to the good. This game has a very unique, often fun battle system that keeps battles fresh and fun. It controls similarly to Persona 3 in the fact that you only control your party leader. THis however plays out in ATB similar to past FF titles. The thing setting this apart from the games it shares influence with is the Paradigm system. This enables you to change your party's roles in battle on the fly. Add to this the fact that your teammate AI are actually decent at handling their roles and all in all this is a fun system.
The characters in this FF are also easily the best since FFX. The cast for the most part is very well done and deep, featuring intriguing back stories told through a very cinematic style. Cut scenes this time around are among the best in the series. Rivaling even the great Advent CHildren in action and excitement. Not to mention overall graphics and framerate.
So why don't I score this game higher? What's holding this back from being a 9 or 10? Content. The battles and cutscenes are fantastic, but that's literally all there is to this game. There's some things that in my eyes define a role playing experience. FFXIII lacks almost all of them. There are no towns to explore, no npcs to interact with, no side missions to accomplish and no real context for the battles you are in. There's only the cutscenes and the battles. Other than that you're walking in a straight path moving forward so you can activate the next cut scene, only veering slightly off the main path to find the obvious chest where the path veers. I love story in my games, but unlike titles like Indigo Prophecy and Heavy Rain, this game doesn't make you a part of the cutscenes. Even the Xenosaga series, notorious for it's upwards of 30 minute cutscenes, still gave you more to do than just fight between scenes. If a PS2 series can get it right, why can't the FF series? These guys have been doing this for decades! My other big gripe is the staggering amount of times you will die in battles trying to figure out what the catch is to win this fight. While this would offer incentive to battle more, when all you do is battle it just starts to annoy you. Frequently. However when you do figure out what to do, the sense of accomplishment is quite rewarding.
As heavily as I just downed this game, I don't want anyone to feel this isn't an enjoyable game. I truly am enjoying my time with this game and if it were a brand new IP I probably wouldn't be holding it to such harsh criticism, but this is a franchise that has served me well since the first installment. FIrst we have the rather bland story and characters in 12, but with a robust combat system, towns and plethora of side quests. Now we have a thread-bare rpg with great characters (minus Vannile, the over cheery dip with the annoyingly sunny disposition) and story. I love having freedom to explore and choose in my rpgs. I understand not every experience is going to be as freeform as Morrowind, but it's downright insulting when a game won't even let you choose your own party, let alone party leader. After the previously mediocre game that is 12, I'm really starting to lose faith in Square-Enix. It's been a mighty long time since they've wowed me with an rpg. Nevertheless, this is still a title worth checking out, just try not to hold it up to the standard that once existed from this series and this company.

-Just a quick update. I am now nearly 30 hours into the game and my opinion of it has improved a bit. Not enough to improve my overall score, but enough to comment on. After about 15 hours of gameplay the story really starts to open up. You finally edge closer to grasping what's truly going on and why you're fighting. After 20+ hours the game makes an unprecidented leap forward by *gasp* letting you choose your party members. Of course this amounts to very little by this point because shortly after you can have any member take on any role with enough Crystal Points and a bit of patience. My current goal is to get everybody fitted with as many abilities as I can for the inevitable point where they take away my freedom of party members again (every rpg does it at some point). The point of this end note is not to give strategy however, it's simply to say that the game does improve enough to make it worth sticking with. It just takes the full length of your average non-rpg to open into a truly enjoyable experience. Thus while I find the current gameplay worthy of an 8, maybe even 8.5, due to the less than great beginning 3rd of the game, I still stand by a 7.5 overall. It shouldn't take 15+ hours for a game to be good. After an hour or so to get through tutorials, you should be able to have just as much fun as the end of the game.-
-Also I feel it's necessary to warn everyone about the Eidolon battles. Without spoilers I can still tell you these are generally the hardest battles of the game. Certain conditions must be met within a time limit while the Eidolon hammers away at you. THis makes the balancing between healing and meeting the conditions nearly impossible. The utter amounts of frustration I've felt during these horrid fights have made me walk away from the game quite a few times. Sure it's sweet once you obtain them, but getting to that point is an awful experience.-
-On a final note I had to lower the scor of this game and pretty much take back much of the good things I said about it. Everything said still stands true, but the ridiculous frustration and toil of going through the Eidolon battles has forced me to lower my score drastically. I didn't start playing this game only to be frustrated beyond all beleif halfway through. I wanted to enjoy a thrilling RPG adventure. This game makes this simple expectation unachievable unless you are willing and patient enough to deal with the unrealistic expectations placed before you simply to advance the game. I am indeed going to be selling this game used to Gamestop (an already unbelievable concept for a FF game), but sadder still, I am selling it while only being roughly halfway through the game. I'm sorry, the frustration from the retarded Eidolon battles not only breaks up the flow of the gameplay, but kills any and all desire I have to finish this atrocicity of a Final Fantasy game. If the rest of the game offered more fun and diverse gameplay this could be forgivable, but the bland repitition of the game as a whole makes this complaint the last straw. I can only deal with so many small complaints before I am forced to accept that the few things I like about the game cannot compete with the laundry list of irritating elements. What started as a fun but flawed game slowly became an excercise in patience with no reward. In otherwords an excercise in futility. I dearly hope that FF15 contains a lot more fun than this crap on a cracker. If it doesn't I'm swearing off a franchise I once held dear for good. Even my girlfriend, who bought me this game as a birthday present, was disappointed by this mediocre game. She was initially pissed about me selling it, but neither of us can bear to stick with it for another 30 hours. There are plenty of better rpgs on the market. Tales of Vespiria, Dragon Age, heck even Star Ocean 4 offers a better experience than FF 13. For those with a PS2 still, get Persona 3 and 4 if you want 80+ hour games that actually keep you interested. Sadly I've even enjoyed Two Worlds more than this polished turd. You have failed big time Sqeenix.

One last thing, I recently dusted off my old NES (yes nearly 24 years later mine still works) and started playing the original FF (after replacing the battery for memory). It is still way more fun than XIII. With nearly no personality or side missions i still enjoyed romping through dungeons and level grinding my 8-bit pixled nameless 4some more than dealing with Hope and Vannille. God does XIII suck.