Final Fantasy XIII
 

So far I'm about 18 hours in and the game is really solid. The story is exceptional so far, not epic like Mass Effect or Dragon Age, but it's still solid.

The combat system in this game is awesome, can be pretty challenging at times. It takes a lot more effort than standard RPG's since it is active (not turn based).

There seems to be tons for completionists to do too like all FF's. However, I'm not that interested in RPG's to put hundreds of hours in.

Anyone else playing through?

It sounds like the controls are pretty complex?

You get used to the Paradigm shifts and ATB gauge really quickly. Most of the time you can just laze through normal battles and spam attack if you want to, same as most all RPGs.

It took me probably 10 hours before I got really fluent in the system, but now I like it.

Yeah I like the fighting system too. I just wish they would make one damn FF without a character you want to take outside and shoot in the head with a shotgun.

I'm about 30 something hours into the game (disc 3) and I have to say I'm a little dissapointed. I've played FFVII (my favorite), FFVIII (ok), FFX (good), and FFXII(good, but story was to straight foward and didn't like how everything was linked to your magic bar) (I've also played a FF for the DS, but can't think of what it is right now) and to me as an RPG it's fine, but as a FF it's not up to par.


Good:
I do like the combat system. I little more fast pace.

Great Visuals

Characters/voice overs are ok (Vanille, Sazh and Fang are probably my favorite)

I like the idea of having the characters spread out and playing them in different locations.


bad:

The story isn't all that complex with little plot twist or depth. It's pretty straight forward. There isn't much background history on the characters.

There is no exploring of anykind. Simple, follow the yellow brick road.

I'm up to disc three and have yet to see a side quest or minigame.

I don't like the fact that you can use up all these items to upgrade one weapon and then later find out there was something better and not have enough items to upgrade it.

As I said it's fine as an RPG, but I expect more from a FF game.

Don't like that you have to hit 20+ hrs before the game finally opens up and there are side quests.

Hate RPGs that require you to beat the game before everything is completely opened up (dungeons, items, "ultimate" weapons, here: the complete Chrystarium, etc.).

I'm disappointed that the fact I've only played 8 or 9 hours over 2+ weeks isn't disappointing to me, if that makes sense.

I'll beat it eventually, but this one is not doing it for me so far.

I assume your implying that the game should have been so good you shouldn't have left the house for 2 weeks.

I stop playing for a little while, but plan on picking it back up and finishing the game.

That would be it

It's a completionist sort of game. Casually, you just play through the story and enjoy it, the real challenges they saved for people wanted to get their butts kicked by Adamantites if they wanted to :)

I've actually put in around 100 hours of game play by now. I also expected that the game would open up earlier, but then again so many RPGs are open world games, so the linearity didn't bother me much. It's actually a nice touch that you don't have to grind if you don't want to. I really like the battle system.