I've been a fan on Final Fantasy ever since Final Fantasy IV, and this one is no different. The story didn' t grip me at first and i found it a little Tedious, but when it gets to it's free roam run around (which is quite far in to the game) it gets back to the old school final fantasy feel. All I can say is “give it time and it will suprise you”

The graphics in many environments are quite shoddy and lackluster in design.

The game is much more linear than previous versions, for the most part you will feel like you're running down an extremely long and boring hallway.

The camera is far too close to your character and is a near constant source of frustration as it will never face the direction you need it to.

The levelling system is overly simplistic, you wont find much in the way of career customisation – One of the staples of an RPG.

The game forever sends you to the menu to read about various aspects of the plot, killing any flow of gameplay.

The female characters seem to be about 12 years old making any romance scenes somewhat akin to child pornography.

Overall I would rate it above FFX-2 but a definate step backwards for the series.

So maybe you've read reviews and looked at the metacritic score for this game and it looks far worse than its predecessors. If you are wondering if its a good game the answer is yes, definitely. I got the game today and I have played 14 hours, it's now 3:30am and I'm still wake from playing it. A game that keeps me awake is a good game. Basically it is linear, there are no towns as such, in a typical Final Fantasy sense, but you do enter cities but on a much grander scale and combat occurs within the city. And once you understand the story it make sense that there are no towns for you to go shopping at. At the start of the game you are a fugitive, so if you popped into a store you're likely to get caught. Therefore your characters avoid the towns, and if they go, they run through. The game being linear can be tedious at points but in terms of storytelling, its great. When you think about it, Final Fantasy X wasn't that much more forgiving either. What I am not sure about at this point is re-playability, but I'm sure it will be good to replay.

The new battle system kicks arse. That's all that needs to be said. You start off with a simple system but it becomes the best battle system to use because it is fun, battles are not a chore, they are exciting. Leveling up is similar to FFX and it employs a job system and you use experience to level up nodes on a job. In a battle your characters would typically use two jobs. They are all handy and work well.

Music is good, it's not the memorable orchestrated music like in FFVII and VIII but it suits the setting of FFXIII. All in all, it is a great game, just have a little patience and once the story gets going and the battle system comes together you'll love it.