I'm updating to remind everyone that this review is just my opinion. My opinion of the game is not an attack against the people who enjoy it. There is no need to defend yourself against me. If you have a differing opinion of the game, I encourage you to write a review of your own. I do NOT encourage you to leave nasty comments and/or personal attacks on this review (nor does the Steam SA). You're welcome to disagree with my opinion, but please be civil and decent.

I wrote this review immediately after having finished FFXIII, and before reading anything about the sequel, or what anyone else thought of the game. Yes, this review is colorful and dramatic, but it's because it represents my gut reaction: utter dissatisfaction. I have re-read the review and don't see that it throws any unjustified punches or says anything inaccurate. Therefore, I am leaving it as is. Please, stop whining. It won't change my opinion.

I have played every entry in the Final Fantasy series, and I can tell you right now - this game is not very good. I thought my mild disappointment with XII was the most I'd ever dislike a FF game, but boy was I wrong. XII is a masterpiece compared to XIII.

That said, it's not a complete disaster. The battle system has some redeeming qualities. The game looks and sound amazing. Leveling up your characters in the Crystarium has that old MMO "treadmill" effect that gets you into this state where you just can't seem to put down the controller, no matter how awful the game is, or how frustrating it becomes. I'm not talking about "man, this is a hard and I can't beat it, and it's frustrating". I'm talking about frustration from just really, really poor design choices...

First off, FFXIII is, hands down, the most linear RPG I have ever played. You will spend the first 30 hours of the game literally traveling in a straight line from one corridor to the next, with no ability to explore, or hit the world map (there isn't even a world map, btw - only game in the series without an explorable world map, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ incredible)."

Ok, so what will I be doing with my time as I travel in a straight line, you might ask? Well, you'll be fighting, of course, with Square's so-so Combat Synergy Battle System. And that's all you'll be doing. The same monsters, over and over. Over half the monsters in the game are just re-skinned versions of ones you fought 20 hours ago. Going into a fight, there's absolutely nothing to distinguish how hard it will be - not appearance, not context, nothing. There's a 1 in 3 chance that what you're fighting will be:

A) some trash mobs that you won't even have to switch paradigms for, and will obliterate in less than 30 seconds.
B) a boss fight (this can often be predicted by context) or mini-boss fight (these often can't be predicted at all) that may or may not require you to switch paradigms, apply buffs or debuffs, or one of the basically 4 or 5 possible functional combinations (combat is not very deep).
C) some trash mobs that, for some inexplicable reason, are harder than any creature or boss you've ever faced before and will wipe your party out because you didn't have that one particular paradigm slotted that allows you to win. Either you figure out/Google what the rotation is to beat the trash mob, or you go back and beat up on some less overpowered opponents until you have the CP to increase your stats so that the fight is now reasonable for the significance of the encounter.

That's it. That's the whole game. At least 60 hours of that. There are no mini-games. There's no sense of exploration. Everything is either dropped by mobs or found in chests laid out nice and neat right in your path as you trudge forward through corridor after corridor. If it's equipment you find, you then sell or use other drops to upgrade those. There are no side quests to speak of. No puzzles, no mysteries. The most work you have to do to find a "secret" chest, is to turn right or left instead of following your waypoint. Walk into a little area just off the beaten path. Maybe fight a monster or two. That's your "exploration". There are side quests of sorts, in the form of C'ieth Stones, which give you "marks" that you must kill. They're not much fun, though. Their gameplay consists of running from one side of the map to the other, fighting trash monsters, until you get to your mark (just a trash mob reskin with different stats) and fight it. The only real value or drive in doing these is to get CP/items/5 stars for your achievement. That's the whole game. One big, meaningless grind.

You can't quest for ultimate weapons... but you can grind for them. Yeah! Just keep farming mobs so you can acquire enough items to turn in/sell for upgrades. You then turn in the items you bought (in a menu you access from any save point) to buy other items that you use to increase your weapons stats until it levels up to the next form. You can do this twice, and you will have an ultimate weapon for your character (Upgrading is also performed in the aforementioned save point menu, btw). Now, repeat 5 more times and you have ultimate weapons for all your characters. Woohoo! Did that feel significant? No, it didn't.

I know this sounds really bad. If you made it this far, you're probably thinking there has to be some redeeming quality. The story has to be good because it's Final Fantasy, right? Nope. It doesn't even have to make sense, or involve likable characters. Your party consists of the most one-dimensional, paper thin, saltine cast to grace a video game. How do we know it's bad? Not only will you not know what the characters want, or why they want it - neither will they! The characters motives seem to change every 5 minutes, and for no other reason than to move the story along. A character that was woefully depressed two cutscenes ago (which isn't very long, since cutscenes happen every 10 minutes or so), will suddenly be perfectly fine, and for no apparent reason other than, "well, I've just decided it's all ok." Couple this with the traditionally cheesy writing of JRPGs, and the absurd and bizarre reactions to story events of some characters (I'm looking at you, Hope and Snow) and you've got a recipe for, "I don't give a damn about these pixelated golems"-itis. The game culminates in a "magic" ending. Why anything happens the way it does is never explained. We never learn anything concrete about the world, or why it is the way it is. Why characters do the things they do at the climax of the storyline remains a mystery...and every character in the story itself seems to be fine with that.

I'd say that this is the worst game in the mainstay FF series, if it weren't for the mess that was the initial version of FFXIV. At least, before that game was launched, scrapped, and rebuilt into an actually damn good MMO. This is certainly the worst entry in Square's iconic single-player RPG series... but I'm saying that having never played FFXIII-2 (after this, I have no intention of doing that). FFXIII makes me feel as if every time the designers were faced with a gameplay-shaping decision, they actively avoided asking themselves what would make the game more fun or engaging. If they did indeed ever ask themselves that question, the answer, 9 times out of 10, appears to have been "screw it, throw in another cutscene or make Hope or Vanille cry or something".

I finished FFXIII out of a sense of duty. I was holding out hope that something interesting would happen; the story would take a dramatic turn, or the game would open up and let me explore...but it never happened. It wasn't a completely miserable experience...but when I saw the ending, I really wished I had spent my time doing something else. Is this game worth $15? That's not even the question you should be asking. You should ask yourself, "does this look like something I want to invest 60 hours of my life into"... and I would advise you that the answer should be a resounding, "no".