Also, to comment, I think you're not actually realizing there is real depth to the characters. Each character essentially represents a stage of grief and loss. Snow represents denial, Hope represents anger, Lightning represents bargaining (not the groveling kinda bargaining, but more of an angry determined bargaining, believing if they fulfill their focus with the "gods" of the world something might happen, she's a bit of a mix though, anger is definitely a part of it), Vanille represents depression (even though she seems bubbly and upbeat when around the others, if you didn't get she was terribly depressed from the start of the game, you're pretty dense). Fang represents acceptance (she's accepted all the loss and grief and pain already and has moved onto focusing on protecting her family/friends). As for Sazh? Well Sazh is the most interesting of them all, he goes through each and every single phase of it in the game essentially. He's also the best written, but ya. 

While I agree FFXIII didn't have the BEST characters in the series, it certainly didn't have the worst, no, FFXII had the worst, at least each character in FFXIII played SOME role in the story/growth of others even if sometimes the growth was poorly done. Seriously, tell me how Fran, Panelo, Vaan, and even Belthier mattered in terms of the story? Belthier basically was just their means to get around via airship, Fran was nothing but fan service, Panelo and Vaan were ENTIRELY pointless (and Vaan is, imo, by far the most annoying FF hero to date). That leaves Basch and Ashe as the only ones who mattered in the story. Basch's portion in the story only really mattered in the first half and very briefly later when confronting his brother for the final time. The ONLY person who mattered the entire story? Ashe. And she barely gets any focus tbh. That game was garbage all around. And it suffered from the same problem FFX-2 did, FFX-2 suffered because the mainstory got drowned out by mini-games and side quest (I call it the Elder Scrolls syndrome), FFXII was far more about monster hunting and that took up most of the time than the actual story. At least FFX-2 had fun gameplay (battle system was fast paced and had some strategic and tactical depth knowing when to cast things since they had timers to cast and knowing when to switch roles and such, was good, and anyone who claims the dress grid/system was bad are idiots that are too machismo and all "zomg girly dresses" and just not realizing it's nothing different than any other job system in any other FF as far as mechanics are concerned).

As for other points? Can't say I disagree. The linear bs was not fun as far as gameplay is concerned for an RPG, but it makes sense given the story since they're supposed to be on the run constantly and it only eases up on them until chapter 11 which makes sense why that is developed in a larger open area to run around in. It at least has some logical sense to it, even if it's not fun to be put on rails basically in one long corridor :\ 

I'd disagree about the battle system point. I think it was fun and nice to have to set up strategies before hand (the paradigms) a fight came about and know when it was proper to switch between them to live through a particularly devastating attack or so. It would have been nice to be able to switch characters individually and control them all the same as with FFX-2's system (which was similar in that regards), but oh well. And the auto-battle, while shit, is something a person CHOOSES to use, you never have to click auto-battle. Anyone whoever complains about it in the game is just... they're the ones to blame for it impacting them so much, not the fact it is there.

But I do agree, the Crystarium system was kinda pointless. At least with FFX's spheregrid everyone started differently on it and it allowed for far more freedom to move people on the grid and get things at different points. Sure by the end of getting the entire grid filled up everyone was essentially the same "class" (though still some specializations), but for the most part in the majority of the game during the story it's a great system that was a new take on character development at the time and I freaking loved it. Crystarium was just another corridor, but instead of running down for the story you progressed to make your character stronger :( no deviation or options or anything.

I'd argue FFX-2 was actually a good one in the series. While it did have shit music and way too many mini-games instead of any focus on the story itself, the core gameplay was one of the best in the series and learning about how Spira has handled the end of Sin forever is pretty compelling, just saying.

I have to agree with some points here. I even agree, as you have pointed out in some of your later rants, that I would rather Square Enix be making a FFVII remake than more sequels to the game (Seeing some of the videos for Lightning Returns, I get the impression that the head story writer has some sort of bat shit obsession with Lightning, which might explain something about Square Enix's mentality with the franchise.)

Still, I think the game has redeeming qualities that makes it great. I admit, I probably didn't have as high expectations as you. I only got into the Final Fantasy fandom in 2008 when I was old enough for my parents to let me play the games and bored enough to download and play a bootleg version of FFVII. But I thought it was decent enough. Yes, I wish it had been less linear. I wish there had been dialogue options and more mini games (besides Hope knocking over other robots with a robot or whatever.) At first I hated the characters too and the battle system absolutely baffled me.

But I disagree that the characters aren't deep. You don't know their past and their back story or whatever, but I don't think it was needed. I think the point is that they are relatively normal people living relatively normal lives that are dragged into the mess that is the story line. Why would you want to hear the back story of making waffles or going to school or whatever other mundane tasks they did before the story?

Second of all, I think the lack of different dialogue options allows a deeper and more in depth view of the characters. I mean, don't get me wrong. It would have been nice to have a few. But it allows a more focused development that I think makes them more engaging than previous characters. (Well, besides Snow. He still annoys the shit out of me.) They develop far more, going from the annoying and bitchy (and, believe me, I feel your pain when it comes to Hope. He WAS fucking annoying) to actually growing some balls (in Hopes case) or becoming more compassionate (in Lightning's case) and even learning from their mistakes (in...well...just about all their cases).

And while the battle system could have been done better, I think the action sequences were quite appealing. At first I was baffled and frustrated as to why it was the way it was, but after I got over that, I really liked it. It's particularly gratifying when you stagger and opponent and get to see Lightning or Fang launch that fucker into the air and beat the living shit out of it.

As for the story line, you're right. It was convoluted and I had a rather hard time keeping up. But Final Fantasy VII left quite a few loose ends in their story line too. The point I’m trying to make is that ALL the story lines in ALL the Final Fantasies I’ve played, at least, had their flaws. Give XIII a break.

The only thing I think I can agree with you on completely is the linearity. It did get boring and I do wish there had been open maps or a world or SOMETHING that would have made exploring awesome. Oh and the fact that Serah looks like she's fucking 14 or whatever disturbs me completely. (Apparently she's 18, but whatever Japan. Whatever.)

My point? Square Enix could have been done better. MUCH better. but you have to give the game some credit. It may not be FFVII, but it was an okay game.

Final Fantasy XIII is a disgrace to the series and to the RPG genre in general, and it's not just because it's linear, everything but the graphics in this game is just plain bad.

The story is so poorly written and the narrative is so bad that the game requires you to read the datalog to understand what the hell is going on, since the cutscenes are pointless and don't explain anything at all, the characters talk about l'Cie, Fal'Cie and all that shit as if they already know everything, leaving anyone who's going to play this game confused since they don't bother to explain. 

The characters are all uninteresting JRPG stereotypes with no interesting backstory behind them, Lightning would be the equivalent of Cloud, minus the interesting story behind, Snow is annoying as hell, Sazh is okay, but nothing special, Hope has the most retarded story I've ever seen in any game with his stupid mom dying because she wanted to fight for no apparent reason and then he blames Snow for that, and Vanille is only useful near the ending. The villains are also unremarkable and I hardly remember this game has a villain because the story is so bad at explaining itself.

And for the gameplay, yes, everyone knows it's linear, and this sucks ass, but there is more to hate about the gameplay than just the linearity: The battle system. First you have the Paradigm System that's not as deep as it was supposed to be, with paradigms only doing actions specific for that class, Commando only deals physical damage, Ravager only deals magic damage, Medic only heals, and this sort of stuff, and since the battles are pretty much "waste as much time as you can in the menu creating paradigms to use them in Auto-Battle", it feels forced to have to change paradigms because one of your characters is executing an action that's not necessary and he/she can't do anything other than that. Oh, and do I even have to say how stupid it is that the game doesn't allow you to change the party's leader? If Lightning or any character you're controlling dies, it's Game Over, and that's it, why did they do that? Final Fantasy XII allowed you to change the leader of the party, and that's a PS2 game for Africa's sake!

I also found the soundtrack to be the most forgettable in the entire series, but I think this is a matter of opinion, so whatever.

In the end, Final Fantasy XIII is awful and deserves all the hate it gets from the fanbase, I can even say it's overrated because it got higher scores than it really deserved from critics, this should have been panned by every single one of them so the game's sales would bomb and Square would learn their lesson, but I guess they did learn despite the game having sold somewhat well, however nobody liked it, and this hurt Final Fantasy XIII-2's sales, it sold much worse because nobody cared about FFXIII anymore, that's how bad this game is, it's so bad it made a sequel that's much better look worse.

I heard Fang and Vanille sounded Australian because the dubbers deemed it appropriate that they sound different from the other four because while Lightning, Snow, Sazh and Hope were born in Cocoon, Vanille and Fang were born on Pulse, the world Cocoon floats over, thus "Land Downunder."

 As for the awful, nonsensical story, I think that is because everybody in the dev team had a different vision of what they wanted this game to be, and they often bickered about the story and themes. Some even wanted Vanille to be the main character over Lightning, but they were too far in the development process to make the change. One thing they all seemed to agree upon was the prominence of crystals. The characters gain abilities by crystals. The fal'Cie are powered by crystals in their cores. Cie'th are pretty much crystalline zombies, and so on.

I have to say, I’m somewhat shocked by this review. I mean, I knew that the linearity of this game had caused lots of negative reviews. But this review talks about so much more than the linearity. I guess it’s like the other commenter said, this is my first FF game so I didn’t come in with all the same expectations the author had. I certainly appreciate the disappointment of expectations not having been met – the current example is Game of Thrones.

But I’m going to post my rebuttal here, at least to some of the points. It may be my first FF but it’s certainly not my first RPG. So I won’t rebut the linearity thing – I don’t like that either.

13.Awful Story

Well, I’m right where you are, having finished Chapter 9. I don’t understand your problem with the “Cie” nouns. It really doesn’t seem that complicated to me (I guess I must be some kind of supreme genius??). As far as the characters not knowing exactly what they’re supposed to do, I like that. Why does everything always have to be exactly laid out right in the beginning? It’s more realistic that life doesn’t come with an instruction manual.

12.Linear Gameplay

No disagreement here. But to me, this doesn’t make it a bad game, it just takes it out of the RPG genre.

11.Combat System

On this one, you’re just wrong. That, or you’re just disappointed because you were pining for the old system. But the paradigm system is great. Why have to take the time to tell each character what to do when you can let the AI do it for you?

YES, what you do is have paradigms with small differences so that you can change one player and keep the others doing the same. Why is that really horrible? You only have six so that there’s strategy involved. If you could have as many as you wanted, there would be no strategy. No strategy makes for a boring game.

Indeed, it really seems you contradict yourself – first you assert that the combat is boring, then you assert that changing paradigms in the heat of quick moving battles is too difficult. Well, which one is it?

And this idea about having to shift paradigms being a waste of everybody else’s time. ***Actually, it’s the opposite!*** It’s a waste of time to NOT shift paradigms. Know why? Because the ATB BAR RESETS WHEN YOU SHIFT PARADIGMS. In other words, instead of having to wait all that time for your bar to re-fill (there’s your waste of time right there), you just shift paradigms and can immediately take actions again!

And again, you complain that some bosses require use of defensive paradigms like those including sentinel. Why is this a bad thing? Is it better to be able to button-mash offensive moves non-stop through a game and never have to worry about defense? About strategy? (answer: no.)

To sum up, your complaints about the combat system simply reveal that you haven’t quite learned how to use it.

10.Moms are tough

Yeah, it was a stupid line. I chalk it up to wanting to appease the mom’s who might look over their kids shoulders for the first little while to see what they got for the $60 they shelled out for their kid.

9.Characters

I disagree that they’re uninteresting. I guess this is just a matter of personal preference. I don’t know why you’d say that Lightning is unlikeable. It makes me suspect that you just started skipping through the cutscenes. She definitely realizes her bitchiness and apologizes for it. That’s pretty likeable in my book. I definitely don’t predict you taking the same action ;)

I think it makes sense for Fang and Vanille to have a different accent, after all they are from a different planet. Why it was Australian, that I can’t help you with. Would you have preferred Swahili?

And your complaints about Hope and Snow….yes it’s clear you just stopped watching the cutscenes. What you have failed to appreciate about this game is that the characters CHANGE. Not just their stats and skills, but their feelings and emotions and interactions with eachother. It’s a great thing and one of the things I really enjoy about the game. Like the other commenter said, character development, bro. Google the term.

8.Enemy Designs

I guess you are all about appearances. Maybe the enemies are similar in appearances, but they have different abilities and different weaknesses. It’s that strategy thing again. Substance over form.

7.The Equipment System

I’ll agree with you on this one to the extent that, it’s not the greatest. That having been said, there is plenty of free internet advice and explanation to guide you through the equipment process and make it much less painful. So this is less of a problem now than it may have been when you wrote this article and that internet guidance may not have been available.

6.The Summons

Again, you just need to be smarter. It just makes you lose credibility when you say you have no clue whatsoever how to defeat the Summon. It’s really easy to find out, you just cast “Libra” on the Summons and it tells you exactly what to do. And the game even tells you to do exactly that. You got no excuses on this one.

5.The Crystarium

Like number 12 above, I agree that the Crystarium is very linear. However, though each path is linear, you do have choice in which paths you go down, and how far. That is, you have to use strategy to determine where you will spend your exp points. So, it does allow for some customization in that regard. But, overall, an unpleasant leveling system to be sure.

4.The Storytelling

I think this is similar to number 13 above? But in any event, it appears that your complaint is the pace of the story. I guess that’s just a personal opinion, and you’re certainly entitled to it. I myself like that there’s some mystery, not everything is explained. And I didn’t find the cutscenes all boring like you did, but again that’s just a personal opinion.

3, 2 and 1. The effects of your dislike of the game

Your last three points all rely on the fact that you didn’t like the game. (3 – didn’t like it for 25 hours, 2 – will have to wait 13 years for one you like, 1 – you like FF but don’t like this). As such, I have no rebuttal, none of this is applicable to me since I like the game.

Have you ever heard of a "Challenge?" To beat the summon it takes strategy and it's a challenge. Do you expect the answer to be right there on the screen telling you how to beat it? Most of your points are INVALID on this game. It's called 'character-devolopment' considering the circumstances at the beginning of course Lightning is a bitch. How would you react if your sister might be dead...and you got some guy ranting on about being a hero?  Also! When your cursed by the Fal'Cie and if you don't fulfill your focus you turn into a Cie'th! And Snow. He also devolops... he rants on about being a hero in the beginning but he soon gets better further in the game. And Vanille..she's HIDING HER EMOTIONS....letting it build up inside her so she doesn't break down...so she just smiles and laughs about stuff. (Sazh is fine.) And Hope. He is a very dislikeable character but he just lost his mother...losing almost everything meaningful in his life...dude come on...think about your reasons before posting a stupid article about invalid reasons.

Hope calls Snow out on being obnoxious and rash. Hell, it's the reason why Lightning punches him in the face twice in the beginning and it's part of his character development. You're supposed to cringe every time he babbles on about being a hero. It's why he does it far less later on in the game.

And Lightning is a bitch considering the circumstances with her sister being made into an enemy of the government, being convinced by Snow that everything will turn out alright when he doesn't have a plan, and then turning into a crystal seemingly for all eternity.