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FF13 COMPLETE and man do i have thoughts this game feels like the synthesis of FFX and FFX-2 in so many ways, but is ultimately worse than either. i liked it, but mainly due to its party characters (best in the series???) and not its mechanics.

- the beginning is very Settings Cool, and very Mechanics Terrible. this is barely a video game until you unlock paradigms, which takes too long. - one of the most Mash X games i've ever played and i'm a pokemon speedrunner. i wish you could just lock auto-battle on and focus on paradigm shifting.

- combats are fun when you're constantly shifting, but the ones that really make you think are too infrequent. and even then, every combat in this game lasts too long. granted, i'm pretty sure i'm really bad at this game.

- playing ff12 before this hurts. you have so much control in ff12 and you lose it all in ff13. hope i NEED you to cast protect and shell we are DYING out here. - some of the nicest checkpointing i've ever seen, which i do appreciate but it does contribute to the turn-off-your-brain-ness of it all.

- as mentioned before, this feels like the writing of FFX mashed up with an attempt to fix some of the issues with FFX-2's combat. but i love job systems so i found X-2's combat more fun. that said the crystarium is so much better than the sphere grid simply cuz its faster. i hate the sphere grid.

- i like tidus as a narrator better than vanille, but i think that's like 75% due to the 'i had... forgotten. about bisexuality' video and that probably shouldn't count. - sazh and lightning best final fantasy characters of all time really really really good

- really bad pacing issues (again, like ffx!!!). early on, plot elements are set up and resolved too quickly. and then later on, the zones just drag on forever. too much of the game is parties of 2, which are just less fun than parties of 3.

- its actually kinda incredible how fluid the dynamic positioning is in this game. i only saw it screw up twice. - surprisingly few fuckass minigames... i thought this was a final fantasy game... - the best 2009 gaming trend was the in-game codex. bring this back i love a list of things to read.

- skipped basically all the missions except the ones to unlock r&d because backtracking in this game is miserable. how is there no comprehensive fast travel system for a game that basically has ff12 hunts i do not understand.

all in all, this game got done dirty by the gaming environment of 2009. it is pretty good, and just as linear as ffx was. if you like ffx for its story you'll probably like ff13. if you like ffx for its mechanics, uhh. harder to say. up next: 13-2. i hear this one is an even worse pc port somehow.