As I compare this to White Knight Chronicle I at least like moving my character around the battle map during my battle. Which I can't do right now and not sure if it will let me down the road either.

Nice defense

You bring up some valid points, but I tend to agree with many of the reviews that I've read.  I do tend to agree that the levels are linear.  They are pretty much hallways.  At least before when you had different levels with paths and such you at least had the option to go left or right.  Backtracking after a cut scene may be the same thing in theory, but it just feels really boring.  I also have a problem with the combat system.  I appreciate that they made it easier for new folks to get the hang of, but I would have at least liked the option to control my other characters directly.  Not that it matters since there isn't a pause button (that I know of).  The lack of a pause feature means most of the fights I end up staring at the menus at the bottom of the screen for most of the battle furiously switching paradigms and picking attacks.  I know they were going for something different, but after *that* much development time I think we were all expecting a game changer.  I honestly believe if this didn't have Final Fantasy stamped on the front of it you could knock another 10 points off of the Metacritic aggregate.

The combat system isn't that different from previous Final Fantasy games. In all of them you press a button and the characters take over from there. Either you attack, use magic, or an item. And despite the Active Time Battle bordering on turn-based, the action is still fast-paced. I do miss the victory song, though.

As far as linearity is concerned, I found XIII no less linear than X. The difference being X had wider paths. It does frustrate me no end to hear people complaining about it though. Bioshock, Gears of War, MW2, Arkham Asylum–all of these games have had unnecessarilly favourable reviews, yet they're all just as linear as the latest Final Fantasy.



I agree, too, about the battle system. Yes, I mostly press 'A', but if you don't switch your paradigms in 99% of battles, you will either get served very quickly, or take twenty minutes to beat a two-minute fight. People are hugely underestimating the importance of these dress-spheres. You have to question how much of the game these reviewers have played, too. Certain encounters require so much paradigm shifting—and good timing, to boot—that they just can't have faught them.



And what's so wrong with controlling just one character? You do it in Star Ocean, Tales of Vesperia, Infinite Undiscovery, Magna Carta 2 and Phantasy Star Universe, and I don't remember them getting blasted so much.



The stagger system is top. It really rewards you when you take risks. Yes, you're running on red, but in two more hits you'll be dealing so much damage the opposition wont get a blow in.



It may be because I was previously playing Enchanted Arms and The Last Remnant, but I've never had any qualms about replenishing health. It doesn't make the fights any easier, and it severely cuts down on the time you're walking around waiting for your MP to regenerate, as in XII.



On the Crystarium, I think it's a great system. It gives you small choices on the development of your character, and never overwhelms you. I'd go so far as saying it's one of the best development systems you can get, on par with Lost Odyssey's and FFXII's.



I disagree about the story though. I think it's absolutely superb. I never once got lost, and I think the pacing is up there with the best. I haven't even looked at the Datalog yet.



@Gabriel: Not sure what you mean, but you can pause battles by pressing start. You can cancel commands by pressing B (circle), and start strings early by pressing Y (triangle).



By the same token, I genuinely believe that if this wasn't Final Fantasy, it would've received higher scores. People expect every single game to both change the future of RPGs and keep everything they loved about the genre.

"As far as linearity is concerned, I found XIII no less linear than X. The difference being X had wider paths. It does frustrate me no end to hear people complaining about it though. Bioshock, Gears of War, MW2, Arkham Asylum–all of these games have had unnecessarilly favourable reviews, yet they're all just as linear as the latest Final Fantasy."

Nothing's wrong with linearity if the game's fun and the story's interesting. FF stories are linear in the first place -- as you say, it's the width of the path that people are focusing on. 

"The stagger system is top. It really rewards you when you take risks. Yes, you're running on red, but in two more hits you'll be dealing so much damage the opposition wont get a blow in."

I'm really enjoying the stagger system as well. It certainly rewards you for taking risks, but it's also key to understanding your paradigms and your characters' abilities and your foes' weaknesses. Libra has never been as powerful in a FF game before.

"I disagree about the story though. I think it's absolutely superb. I never once got lost, and I think the pacing is up there with the best. I haven't even looked at the Datalog yet."

I'm digging the story. My wife won't let me play anything with Snow in it without letting her watch (I'm in Chapter 4, and she's taken with the Snow/Serah love story). The world feels just as immense and creative as many other FF worlds -- and more so than others.

Finally, someone that shares my thoughts and articulated it better than I probably would have. I'm finding a lot of things in this game that resemble 10, which is a good thing. Why some people are complaining about most of the things in 13 is beyond me. Honestly, what little faith I had left in the series that was tarnished by 12 has been completely restored by 13.

I haven't played a whole lot of Final Fantasy games. I played 3/4 through FFX and almost as much of FFXII. I appreciate the franchise, and I still plan on going back to finish those.

From the perspective of someone outside the "Final Fantasy Fan Club", I think that the new model was a great move by Square Enix. It's  more compelling to finish the story, with less grinding that many players find boring. Essentially they opened up their franchise to a much broader audience while retaining the things that define a Final Fantasy game. I appreciate knowing that I don't have to grind for two hours in order to defeat a boss and progress through the story. I think that a lot of other people will, and do, appreciate it as well.

The core Final Fantasy fans might miss some of the old concepts, but as a game that will bring the company forward it's perfect

I am a fan of this post.

I think the "linearity" argument is ridiculous.  JRPGs have never been known for having open worlds.  Like many have said, the inclusion of towns and a world map just provided an illusion of freedom.  You were always going from point A to point B.  Yeah, you very often had an option between left and right, but only one was ever the correct route.  

Surely, I'm not the only one who goes through the routine in typical JRPGs of going left, running far enough without a dead-end that I realize this is the correct path, then backtracking and taking the right path because I obviously missed a chest that probably has an item I'll be able to buy soon enough anyway.  This is what people miss?  I say, good riddance.

I've found the combat to be incredibly deep.  Never have I had to think so fast in a JRPG.  I'm constantly switching paradigms, timing my area attacks (very important), and puzzling out the most efficient way to stagger an enemy.  The moment I fall into a routine, they find a way to switch things up on me.  The pacing is poifection.

I'm not totally enamored with the Crystarium.  I like it, but I preferred a system like 12's License Board; It allowed me to specialize my characters how I wanted without allowing me to make them each a jack-of-all-trades (well, not without a lot of grinding, anyway).  The Crystarium allows me to specialize a bit, as new things unlock, but a little past halfway through a dungeon I usually am able to make my characters good at every role.  I hope it will become more complex as the game progresses.

Story-wise, I completely echo the point Jeremy Parish makes in hid 1UP review about the character development making it what it is.  I feel like I'm just repeating him, but it's true: this is the first time where I feel like the characters come together organically.  They're each pursuing their own goals and lives, not content to simply all look at each other after the prologue and say, "Well let's go save the world, new friends!"  I actually fell like their individual paths naturally intertwine.

All in all, I'm enjoying FF13 immensely.  The JRPG genre became stagnant so quickly and for so long, basically not changing since the days of the SNES, and FF13 is just the kind of refreshing shot it needed.  I'm not saying ALL JRPGs need to be just like FF13 now, but I do hope other developers will respond with their own new ideas.  The genre is changing (finally) and that excites me.

I enjoyed Losy Odyssey for the nostalgia.  I "enjoyed" Vesperia because it appealed to my OCD tendencies (which I can't honestly say is "enjoyable" by any common definition).  FF13 is the first JRPG that I've really truly enjoyed for what it is formally, narratively and conceptually, in quite some time.

EDIT: Oh yes, and I forgot to mentioned that I hate 10.  It's probably my least-favorite in the series, by far.  But I really feel like 13 is a refinement; they took what worked in 10 and what worked in 12, and cut out what didn't .

But I gotta say, lack of FF victory theme = sacrilege of the highest order.

I agree with the article, the only thing I thought I missed wass being able to control the characters directly. But you know what, how it's setup now, makes a lot of sense as the battles are more fast paced. I do find myself constantly staring at the commands than taking in the actual battle but then again my experience with the other games in the series were the same. I think FF13 is getting treated harshly, maybe these critics have become too accustomed to western RPGs and compare the two unfairly. I am a die hard FF fanboy and I don't think all RPGs need to be like a Mass Effect or Fallout, I love both games but I also like my quirky JRPG.

I agree with everything, and might've written something like this myself if you hadn't. The most interesting view I saw was Andrew Fitch's review on Team Xbox. He gave the game I think the lowest score it's gotten, and, while I disagree, he makes a very good argument I think. But I also think his perspective is mostly irrelevant to most of the people who are going to play the game.

My biggest problem with the linearity argument is that I doubt that most of those people would stray from the path if they could. Sure, they say they like the illusion, but it seems like they'd recognise it was an illusion anyway, so I ulitmately don't see what they're trying to say. Either way, I'm 10 hours in and I'm loving it so far. Well worth the wait.

I've gone back and forth on how much I care about playing FFXIII. I'll play it when Gamefly finally sends it to me, but I don't feel any urgency about it. I'm not sure how much the reports of its extreme linearity have to do with my apathy, though. My favorite part in previous FFs has always been that moment when the world map totally opens up (usually when you get an airship) and you can suddenly go anywhere you want. I don't care if it's just an illusion of freedom, it's the moment when the game world starts to feel real to me. If FFXIII doesn't have that kind of moment, then I'd say the game is worse for it, but if what you're given to do in the "point A to point B" sections is good, then it will still be worth playing.

That said, I'm very skeptical about the battle system. When I play RPGs, I like being able to micromanage my characters' actions on the fly, and it doesn't look like you can do that with the Paradigm Shift system. From the videos I've watched, it just looks like each job class has a single action that it performs repeatedly until you shift to a different job. That sounds dreadfully boring to me. But again, I haven't played it, so maybe when I finally do I'll find that it's incredibly engaging.

I'm about 20 hours into FFXIII, and I'm a huge fan so far. I can understand where some people are coming from the whole linear argument, but when the battle system is as good as it is (which is really the bread and butter of any RPG), I really don't care. Also, as far Final Fantasy stories go, this tale has been surprisingly engrossing so far, and the cast of characters have really endeared themselves to me.

It seems a little bizarre to me that some are giving the game scores in the 60-50s. I think that speaks more to the general backlash JRPGs have been experiencing in the popular games medium than the quality of the game itself.

@Mike "It seems a little bizarre to me that some are giving the game scores in the 60-50s. I think that speaks more to the general backlash JRPGs have been experiencing in the popular games medium than the quality of the game itself."

I think this has more to do with some reviewers imposing RPG dogma and not accepting it for what it is. I think more reviewers need to go into their reviews with open minds instead of deciding that a game must meet a checklist.

@Mike: I agree with Jason.  The most common "criticisms" I see of the game are just complaints against the lack of established tropes that have nothing or very little to do with the actual design of the game or the quality of the product.

@Mike/Jason/Christian: That's the problem with 99% of reviewers (including rpg 'specialists'). If it's similar to other jrpg's, it's derivative and boring, and the genre has stood still for twenty years, and if it changes anything, it's 'too linear', 'not really an rpg' etc etc.

FFXIII has a higher production value than most of these MW2-esque blockbusters. The reason it gets rained on so much is because people have the insane expectation that RPG's will completely redefine the genre, but still be the same as their favourite 'old school' RPG.

I totally agree with you on everything. Most reviewers are comparing the game to FFXII and their expectations of the game instead of reviewing what they have. FFXII and FFXIII are two completely different games, everyone knows this, and there definitely should be no comparing the two. Maybe for the first couple of hours before you get to use the paradigm system you just press "X" during battles, but once you get to use paradigms, the whole game changes. They create a whole new type of strategy for the game and it's very refreshing. I just wish they could've given us control of all of the characters at the same time a little sooner than they did, but I don't mind it too much.

As I'm playing more tonight, I am beginning to understand some criticisms with the combat system, Specifically the inability to control all of your characters.  For the most part it works great, but there are definitely times, even after using Libra, when my AI guys do something and I think, "wow, I would have done something completely different there."

For example, how they're unable to time their area attacks like I am.  Or, for better example, my Synergist casting fire resistance.  I get it -- the enemy I'm fighting uses fire attacks -- but at that moment, I really just needed a couple of protection spells so I could get my synergist back to a ravager so I could stagger this guy and finish him off.

It ends up not being a big deal, since battles almost never last more than a minute or two anyway.  But I can see how that might get annoying as I go on.

I'm really enjoying the game. I suspect there would be screams of rage if I said this on any other site, but what it reminds me of most is Vagrant Story.  If you are willing to go along with what the game is trying to do, it's quite good. I loved Final Fantasy XII, so this is a huge departure, but since I can see what's happening it's okay.

The story isn't as angsty as it could be, and I really like how the combat has become so fast, and strategic rather than tactical.

On the other hand, I can see how many people just won't get it. Unless you pay close attention (or just keep pressing auto-battle, as I suspect most reviewers are doing after reading their reviews) you are going to miss how to optimize your staggering and swap out paradigms correctly. This will lead to horribly tedious battles where you just hang on by the skin of your teeth. On the other hand, if you pay attention you will end up with five star results every time. I can see why all the handholding in the first section, because if you don't get this you are doomed, but I still can't help but think that even with all the handholding there is a critical failure here since most users just don't seem to get it. Whose fault is that? The players, or the game?

The linearity doesn't bother me at all, since most 'non-linearity' in JRPGs is just a sad shallow illusion. Two of my favorites, Vagrant Story and Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter, were linear as hell but focused to exquisite points because of it.

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Sorry for the double post. The 'Add comment' said it wasn't posted the first time.

Very well written, Michael.  FF XIII is a fine game.

Good article.

I do find it odd that so many people have complaints about weak combat.  It is in many ways a new take on the combat in many of the Shin Megami Tensei games.  (the biggest difference being that you're given the tools instead of needing to search and/or grind for them)  I understand the sentiment of feeling like you need to micromanage because it's an RPG, but I don't personally think that being able to control the entire party would  improve anything.

I swear some reviewers have short term memories. I was telling a lot of people how similar FF XIII was to FF X, both in terms of linear paths and chapters, and in terms of the Junction system vs. the Crystarium. FF X I remember got rave reviews. The poor reception (I should say poorer reception here) seems to be that a lot of people miss the old Final Fantasy model from the NES and PS era (a turn based battle system, wide open world to explore), however, I remember at that time too people were crying for a revival of the series with new mechanics and story telling. The first 25 hours of FF XIII is a story telling device, meaning you get to spend a great deal of time with the main characters; who they are, why are they there, and how they feel about their situation. Games nowadays lack good character development (which is why I LOVE Mass Effect 2), and FF XIII I think brings it on in a great way. Get to know the characters first, and THEN go explore and do side missions. 

And battles are boring!? Does anyone remember the gambit system in FF XII, where in a sense all you have to do is approach an enemy, and the AI does ALL THE WORK FOR YOU?? I'm not saying that was a bad thing, but saying the FF XIII battle system is boring is like saying you think the voice acting in Deadly Premonition is stellar.

Too often people don't review the game, they review what they WANT in the game, and that's hard with a series like Final Fantasy...for every one lover, are three haters. 

I bought Mega Man 10 after playing 3 hours of FF13. I needed a game that wanted me to play it.