I'm not the biggest FF nerd out there by a long shot, but I've enjoyed the older games (admittedly years later on iOS), I adored VII (and yes I know for some reason it's no longer 'trendy' to worship at the Altar of FFVII for some reason but I don't care it was still a fantastic game with far more charm and character crammed into those little stocky flat shaded mute characters than ANY character in any FF game since)
FF VIII was enjoyabale but not as good imo, FF IX I I've never actually played but have heard it's praises sung by some and it loathed by others. FFX is another one that's a bit of a marmite game, some love it some hate it, I personally really enjoyed it, ok some of the characters were a bit annoying and the plot got a bit mental later on (but that's not exactly new to FF)
Never played XI (which was an MMO) or XII or X-2 for that matter.
FFXIII..... is not only the worst Final Fantasy, it's one of the worst GAMES (and I use the term 'game' very loosely...) I've ever played. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's actually the worst game ever made but it may in fact be the worst game I've ever actually BOUGHT (I can usually spot the really bad ones a mile off and steer clear but FF13 had the FF reputation behind it and the fact that traditionally the stories and characters in them are a bit quirky and tend to divide their audience such that reviews and recommendations are not necessarily a good yardstick for them so I gave it a go....)
Oh GOD it was bad. The cast is a mixture of characters some of which are just generic steryotypes and uninteresting in some cases and irritating to the point you want to strangle the voice actress (anyone who's played it knows who I'm talking about here....), the combat was dull and virtually autopilot and even if you turn that option off and choose all your attacks manually it's still boring, unexciting and time consuming button mashing that does nothing but pad the game out. The actual NON combat parts of the game are completely linear losing any sense of exploring an interesting and unique world. Hell the first 6 hours of the game feels like running along a linear corridoor stopping every 5 feet to fight for 10 minutes (by pressing 'attack' on a menu repeatedly)then when the game FINALLY opens up a bit it turns into a horrendous grindfest needed to progress the main story (and yes I know you've always needed to do a bit of griding in FF games but generally not much and it was interspersed with INTERESTING CONTENT that broke up the monotony and you generally only needed to do ALOT of grinding to do option objectives (such as the Weapon fights in FF7). You didnt need to grind for a good 4 or 5 hours just to get to the next bit of story once you finally got out of a 6 hours linear coridoor.....
Furthermore the plot isnt just wierd and wacky, that's normal for FF. It's also uninteresting, extremely slow and told with alot of prerendered flashback cutscenes. And the voice acting (and script for that matter) are terrible too.
Oh and lest I forget, the other thing FF games have general had is a superb original musical score. Again FF7 takes the cake for me but the others were all pretty great too. FF13 contiually rams that godawful Leona Lewis song down your ears at every oppurtunity. I guess it's supposed to be romantic and uplifting as they contiually use to try and show characters romantic backstories but the song is just the worst kind of pop drivel and the romance... well you know this actually might be the only example in the known universe that is in fact a WORSE love story than fecking Twilight
I gave it a damn good try, I really did. I wanted to like it. I wanted to think that it would get better, that square surely couldn't have lost it this completely but in the end I gave up, screamed something along the lines of 'fornicate this pile of excrement' threw my controller down in dusgust, camply put the disc back in the box and marched down to my local game to trade it in for ANYTHING else...
Now... XIII-2 I've not actually tried and frankly Square Enix have ALOT of convincing to do for me to actually buy another FF game ever again after XIII let alone a direct sequel to it, however I DID try the demo version of XIII 2 (I'm a forgiving sort and if something's free I'll generally at least give it a chance....) and it DID seem to be a BIG improvement on XIII, it was alot less linear , combat whilst still not a patch on the older games ATB systems was actually at least SLIGHTLY engaging and a definitely step back in the right direction. The characters I encountered in the demo also acutally seemed slightly less murderous rage inducing (even the ones that were IN XIII seemed improved slightly). Was it enough for me to go out and buy it though?
Nope. It's a direct sequel to a game I despised and could never finnish. It's the next chapter in the story of a bunch of characters I detested. That's a bloody hard point to start a sale from, unless your game is AMAZING I'm not going to be convinced and whilst the demo was actually not bad it didn't blow me away and make me thinkg 'wow, all is forgiven I've got to play this!'
TLDR: FFXIII is a rancid platter of monkey vomit that is medically proven to be detrimental to your health. FFXIII-2 seemed actually OK from the demo but nowhere NEAR good enough to make up for the sheer awfulness of it's predecessor. Unless FFXIII-3 actually cures at least 3 forms of cancer and performs oral sex on command I would steer well clear. And honestly even if it DID I'd still not be entirely sure it was worth the risk.....
