Final Fantasy XIII for Xbox 360 Reviews by Gamers

I guarantee that if this game had any other name besides FF slapped on it, the critics and reviews would tear this game apart. Just because it has FF on it everyone is liberal with 9 and 10 reviews which is baffling since this is one of the worst FF games ever. I bet if you stick the FF name on PONG everyone would give it 10. So if you see a 9 or 10 review ignore it and save your money.

WHAT I LIKED:
The graphics. As with many FF games the graphics are crisp, clean, very detailed, and vibrant. The storyline is great too. You're branded by these entities and have to perform a task called Focus otherwise you turn into a monster or fall into a crystal slumber.

WHAT I DISLIKED:
Almost everything else. This game is horribly linear. There is NO exploration whatsoever you move from point A to B. No mini missions, no side missions, no quests of any kind just the main story quest that's it. No overhead map of the land, no revisiting of prior locations and your party is split in half for 9 chapters. You work with only two at a time. You get only one weapon slot and one accessory slot, another later on but that's it. Abilities aren't universal, you can't heal if you're a soldier and can't fight if you're a medic. You have to constantly switch during battle to use certain abilities. This game is NOTHING like prior FF games. You also hardly ever visit any locations like towns. You briefly go to a park but it's pointless. Shopping is done through kiosks now. The game is terribly stingy with money which you no longer get from enemies. You have to find a chest (rarely) or sell items which you need to upgrade weapons.

THE GOOD
Graphics
Storyline

THE BAD
Bland battle system.
Constant changing character roles.

THE UGLY
Way too linear.
No revisiting locations.
No quests or side missions.
Shopping and upgrades at kiosks.
Does not hold true to the FF name.

Before writing this I must make a basic concession, I was not able to get past more than 10 hours of this game. Because of this, I can not comment on the game as a whole, but will instead comment on my experience with it. This experience can be summed up very simply: never once did I feel like I was truly involved in the game itself, but was instead a passenger being given the "privileged invite" of going along for the ride and spectating Square's story. The story itself seemed weak and unoriginal, for as much of it as I was able to stomach, and the characters were little more than thinly veiled, over-worked, RPG conceits. The battle system never allows for much control, even when it introduces the Paradigm Shift, and I couldn't help but feel I spent close to 10 hours watching deleted clips from ""The Spirits Within" while being invited to participate in a bland twitchy flash game in between. I've been told that in time the game opens up further and allows for the player to become fully immersed, but I see no merits in something that requires 20 hours of mundane commitment to reach such point. The graphics and music were fantastic, and were what kept me going beyond hour 2, but not even they could save this game from its generic and trivial gameplay and story, and eventually I could play it no longer and was forced to send it back to GameFly. I have played every preceding Final Fantasy, with exception to the MMO, and enjoyed 6,7,8 and Tactics the most, in large part because of their emotionally involving and engrossing storylines and complex, intellectual, gameplay and battle systems. FFXIII lacked all of these things, for me.