You should skip FFXIII and play Crisis Core instead.
User Rating: 10 | Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII PSP
Japanese role-playing games are sometimes stereotyped for having overly long and dramatic cuts scenes, overly emotional characters, and overly complicated combat systems. Crisis Core is what may be described as an action role-playing game. More specifically, the game combines real-time combat and control of the protagonist (Zack) with a medium-level menu-based combat system. This makes for a more rapidly paced combat experience then turn-based games (i.e. Eternal Sonata) and even other menu-driven games that let time progress throughout the battle while the player is selecting commands from menus (e.g. FFXIII). I think that the PSP is an ideal platform for Crisis Core. The game benefits from and takes full advantage of the platform's beautiful graphics and sound capabilities. Although the game may be relatively short compared to other RPGs, I personally think that many games in this genre are too long, and would rather play a variety of several shorter games rather then having to spend a prolonged duration on a single game. The game pushes the player to learn how to play the game; if you do not equip the correct accessories and purchase the right supplies, and complete side missions to level-up your character, you will not make it very far in this game. 
