Never in the history of gaming have I been this disappointed. It's just not fun at all.
My biggest gripe is the gameplay or lack thereof. You only control one party member and everything is mostly automated for convenience. The other two members are AI controlled. Your team is healed automatically after a round, and there are no towns. Combat is very boring. You spend a lot of time waiting for your teammates to respond instead of feeding them commands. The "overworld" screen feels like you're traveling down a corridor with fights at regular intervals, trying to get to the end of the hallway to see the next cutscene. It's actually eerily similar to Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest, the dumbed down substitute we got stateside instead of FFV.
For comparison sake, I went back to FFIV, another extremely linear entry in the series, to see if maybe I had become numb to the RPG genre in general. Just as I expected, I still love that game. The story is solid and the gameplay still holds up after all these years. After every save, I kept saying to myself, "Okay, just a little further. Just a little more time to play." It's the kind of balanced gameplay and difficulty that they just don't make anymore- at least not in a Final Fantasy game.
As I was playing FFIV, selecting my targets, spells, and items manually and using no less than FIVE characters in my party, I wondered if all of these actions were merely being streamlined for the players' benefit in FFXIII. Maybe the game creators figured, "Ah, who wants to waste all that time targeting monsters and selecting spells with a whopping three characters in their party? It's such a chore!" Well, geniuses, if it was such a chore, then I wouldn't pick up an RPG to play in the first place. That's what an RPG is. You have to manage and sometimes even hyper-micromanage all your faculties in a fast-paced do or die battle. Duuh! I am the Final Fantasy characters- all of them. I play their role. I am role-playiiiiinng.
So there I was, over 6 hours invested, and finally it hit me as I played as Lightning and whiny emo boy Hope against some Eidolon, Summon, Esper, Guardian Force or whatever the hell they call them now. This is not fun. I wanted to have the party the way I wanted it. The game teased me with an awesome melee fighter unfortunately named Snow, (You mean like Snowe from Suikoden 4? A little late to the party huh, Square?) but he was in some separate story arc and inaccessible at the time. I heard that around the 15 hour mark, you actually get to do what you want with the party. Well too bad I've lost interest by then! It's the game's responsibility to engage me from minute number 1, not number 901. Not one time in FFIV was there a break in (tutorial) period. It tosses you to the wolves and expects you to survive, and it's easy to pick up and play despite controlling five characters in a party.
I can't tell you how many RPG's I've played where at the 6 hour mark you've got a full arsenal of good guys at your disposal and you're kicking ass, taking names and having a great time. Perhaps FFIV isn't a good example, because you switch party members constantly throughout the course of the game until the very end. But then again, that game is balanced and has more than a measly 6 member cast. It never feels over or underwhelming. Everything feels right. The dynamic is always there. It's always an interesting battle and you're rarely ever stuck with just two party members.
Final Fantasy XIII tries to forge all of the series highlights into one gameplay experience. It has the linear nature of IV, a job-like paradigm system reminiscent of V, a three member party like most of the contemporary games, a sphere grid like X, the automation of XII, as well as series hallmarks Chocobos, Eidolons, and Airships. It's the cliché jack of all trades and a master of NONE. It's a total mess.
I guess the bottom line is, while I enjoyed the automatic nature of FFXII, you can still make the game as intensive or as care-free as you want. The choice is up to the player. FFXIII is weighed down by a lack of choice and too much automation. It's like "Final Fantasy for Dummies". I don't need a nanny state hanging over my head, and I don't need this game. In the annals of my video gaming lore, this entry shall forever remain purposely unfinished at 6 hours and 51 minutes. Time I wish I could have put into some other more entertaining pursuit.
I gave it a 4.0 mainly because the graphics are exceptional and the music is great. If this is the road that future entries in the series will take, I might consider this one my Final Fantasy.