7.3 overall an alright game (very beautiful), but a discrace to the final fantasy name... read to see why
i'm going to hit it home right off the bat here and tell you that if you're reading this to get an opinion on whether to get the game or not, I'd only suggest the game if you like JRPG's, or are really bored.
the game is all around exceptional, except for one, major, upset. the game is very linear. the base of final fantasy games was the fact that it was very open and opportunistic allowing you to shape the game into what you want it to be. there is always just one, ever so obvious path. there is no open world where you get to explore whatsoever, which is a big downer for any final fantasy fan - rather, anyone who's ever played a final fantasy game - seeing as the open world map was in EVERY SINGLE OTHER FINAL FANTASY GAME. that completely ripped out that sense of adventure and freedom that made the series so popular. other than that, the game suffers very minor flaws. battles are repetitive, and feel more like a job to get done then a fight for survival. battles are looooooooooooong, and you get very little out of them, making it very annoying. another thing is you will ALWAYS be out of cash, which is just all around annoying.
now, the good things about the game. character customization is very good, but again, suffers from being very linear. the ability gaining system is basically identical to final fantasy X's but if my memory serves me right in final fantasy X's system had parting paths. in xiii it does not. however there are what i guess you could call classes, and each character has a couple of different classes, and each has there own ability path. but by the time you can advance in them you would have completely filled up all of the paths so it doesn't really matter. they use a weapon/accessory customization system, which is the very reason you will ALWAYS be out of money. to upgrade your weapons you either use things that enemy's dropped (such as a bone or something) or you can buy parts from a shop at each save station called "lenora's garage" which has an abundance of different parts. these parts each give the weapon a certain amount of "xp" and each weapon can get up to lvl 10 where they can be formed into a new weapon. the tricky part is that depending on which kind of part you use to upgrade your weapon, it will give it different stats (generally and usually either strength or magic, and the ocasional ability like chance to stun enemy), and the reason it's tricky is because it doesn't tell you whether it raises magic or strength, so it becomes a trial and error.
the story is that of a jrpg, (which I'm not a big fan of) so there's lots of embarassing moments that question whether you should keep playing or be a man and put in red dead or call of duty or something, and not to mention the tons of awkward hand motions the characters make. other than that the story isn't bad, having that of action, sorrow, and the ocassional "wtf is going on!?" sort of thing.
the final countdown:
gameplay - 5.0 (needs work)
graphics - 10 (best i've EVER seen)
sounds - 7.0 (god dam jazz song!)
story - 7.5 (average, but very shallow)
inovation - 5.0 (what was unique about this game wasn't really good)
length - 9.5 (very time consuming and long)
OVERALL - 7.3