Insert opinionated one-liner here.

" It sucks in general. "

I love how people always refer to "the first 20 hours of this game". It's twenty fucking hours. TWENTY. HOURS. That's not a prologue or even an act 1, I don't give a shit how good the finale is or how long the game is. That's not worth it. I'd tolerate maybe an hour or two of a game being shit if I really, really think it can get better. But 20 hours? come on. I'm convinced that everyone saying it gets decent after that is just lying to themselves so they feel like their time wasn't wasted. That or get so used to the badness that it stops bothering them after 20 hours.

I keep thinking about borrowing my friend's copy as I'd love to see what the combat system is all about (the one aspect I've heard non-stop good things about) but man, I just can't bring myself to start a game that's still presenting tutorial material and gameplay feature introductions 15-20 hours in.

God, there is nothing more aggravating than watching your party leader be cut down by an insta-kill. I definitely would've liked to be able to switch party leaders if my current leader died. Bosses in that game, after a certain point, stopped being fun. But I really enjoyed normal battles, so it's kind of opposite of most other RPGs for me. I think these are all things Square can address in a sequel, maybe.

20 hours is too much of a wait. I barely made it to 10.

" Insert opinionated one-liner here. "

Here's how I describe this game from now on:
 
"God these first 20 hours suck, but it gets better when I get to that open area right?"
~gets to whatever that place is called~
"...well...this is better I guess, but I realize I hate this game now."
 
@Pinworm45 said:

" I love how people always refer to "the first 20 hours of this game". It's twenty fucking hours. TWENTY. HOURS. That's not a prologue or even an act 1, I don't give a shit how good the finale is or how long the game is. That's not worth it. I'd tolerate maybe an hour or two of a game being shit if I really, really think it can get better. But 20 hours? come on. I'm convinced that everyone saying it gets decent after that is just lying to themselves so they feel like their time wasn't wasted. That or get so used to the badness that it stops bothering them after 20 hours. "

I'm still gonna try it at some point

For a game that you have already played 20 hours of this will sound stupid, but you should give it more time if you saw things that you like.
 
The game is a paradox but I feel it gets a much rouger time than it deserves, it's weighed down by expectation of the franchise, but I guess that it partly it's own fault.
 
I can understand if you are finished with it now though, it's a commitment more so than most other games especially if you are unsure about it.
 
I really enjoyed but I didn't like it as much as XII and that was a game that split opinion to begin with.

You know what sucks? Being stuck with Kain in your group at the end of FFIV. Rosa should have taken out a restraining order on that treacherous bastard. Bring back Tellah! He woulda gone up to Zeromus and been all like, "To hell with you, you spoony bard!" and then cast Meteo and died... again. Or hell, Yang's wife shoulda come along. She hits things like a truck with her frying pan!

One of the reasons why I haven't bothered to even give it a chance yet is the characters all look so fucking annoying to me, and with all the blogs/reviews/ect I've read from all directions isn't proving me wrong all that much. I mean any character in a game called 'Hope' makes me gag. Is that some another stylised JRPG character name or does it is literally supposed act as a sign for hope? 

Actually when I got to the open area I lost interest. 
The story is not hard to follow at all. I don't know why so many people keep saying this. To put it simply. A "god" from pulse grabs the main characters and marks them, giving them a mission that is believed to be detrimental to Cacoon. If they do not complete this mission they will be turned into monsters. If they do they will be turned into crystal and supposedly gain eternal life. 
Lightning is an awesome main character. She not just another obnoxious young boy. 
Vanille is cute and her voice works perfectly. The crazed hatred for her always seems strange to me. 
If you're having trouble with Barthandelus that means you're not using the right paradigms and you're not switching them when you should. 
All of this to say that I just started replaying this game and I completely disagree with you. :)

Everyone saying that the game gets better 20 hours in - how?  I beat Barthandelus, made my way through the shitty forced grinding tower of repetitive enemies, and the world opened up... into a barren, lifeless wasteland with nothing waiting for me but more random battles and some new annoying as hell and overpowered bosses?  Speaking as an actual masochist, that game does not become 'fun' when you hit pulse, it just shows you how much the towns, NPCs, and the trimming between the combat in the old games added.  Their absence is palpable.

Edit: And still, I say that the game is good, because the world they build would be fantastic if you got to see more of it.  Cocoon sounds like a genuinely interesting place, but all you do there is fight enemies- hell, it's all you do anywhere.  I sincerely hope that XIII-2 lets you visit the places that XIII forced you to read about to enjoy.

" One of the reasons why I haven't bothered to even give it a chance yet is the characters all look so fucking annoying to me, and with all the blogs/reviews/ect I've read from all directions isn't proving me wrong all that much. I mean any character in a game called 'Hope' makes me gag. Is that some another stylised JRPG character name or does it is literally supposed act as a sign for hope?  "

The game is a paradox but I feel it gets a much rouger time than it deserves, it's weighed down by expectation of the franchise, but I guess that it partly it's own fault.

"Vanille is cute and her voice works perfectly. The crazed hatred for her always seems strange to me."

Yup,Sazh was the only reason I kept playing.

" Yup,Sazh was the only reason I kept playing. "

" @Ace829: I also thought the story wasn't very gripping, but at the risk of spoiling the ending, it's basically a "hey, we're in a whole new world!" situation. So the sequel could springboard into literally anything, bringing in as much-or as little-baggage from the prequel as the writers see fit. I don't know if that's a point in its favor, though. We'll see. "

" I'm still gonna try it at some point "

I didn't have any problem with the first twenty hours.  The story was moving along at a good pace.  Things were happening.  New abilities were becoming available as I progressed.  It's hardly the bland tutorial people claim it is.

Welcome to 7 months ago. I didn't make it past 4 hours. 

I just started playing it yesterday. I like it more than I thought I would, actually, I like everything about it... Except the characters. I haven't played a jrpg in a long-ass time, so I'm playing it for what it is, not what my nostalgic opinion of what a JRPG should be, I really don't give a shit if there aren't conventional towns. Of course, I'm only 5 hours deep, so we'll se how that changes.

" @McGhee_the_Insomniac said:

"Vanille is cute and her voice works perfectly. The crazed hatred for her always seems strange to me."

Vanille is the chief reason why I can't bring myself to go back and play more. Her voice, her behavior ... it's like she was designed for Japanese pedophiles to drool over. I can't imagine why anyone would like her character. When I hit hour fifteen, it was her cutscenes that were the first I just absolutely had to skip. "

I am at the 23 hour mark, this game feels like a endurance test, it just gets harder and harder. But eventually it surely has to become the greatest game ever made right? 
 
...
 
...Right?

" I am at the 23 hour mark, this game feels like a endurance test, it just gets harder and harder. But eventually it surely has to become the greatest game ever made right?   ...  ...Right? "

  @Ace829: With regards to not caring about the universe, I thought FFXIII was less concerned with a strong narrative thread than the main party's emotional reaction to the fairly basic "l'Cie" dilemma. It's a story really about the interpersonal dynamic within your group-not unlike Mass Effect 2, now that I think about it. I guess that's the benefit of being a sequel: the lore is already established. ME also has a lot of expository dialogue behind that "Investigate" tab, so there's more opportunity to learn if you're curious.
 
Anyway, yeah, I can definitely sympathize with your not caring about Cocoon. It's not the most impressive bit of world building I've ever seen, and while it's clear to me their goals were elsewhere, they still could have done more. I want to blame it on the lack of a supporting cast, but maybe it's the game's relentless forward momentum that makes the world so forgettable. Hopefully, Pulse will be more of a presence in the sequel.

" @haggis:  Pedophilia is being attracted to pre-pubescent children. Vanille does not look like a little child. She acts more cutesy at the beginning of the game more than later in the game. Besides, even though her voice is cute it is also not that of a child. So everything you've said makes no sense. "

Stopped playing when it got all free roamy. I'll probably finish it one day, game is just so flawed.

" @McGhee_the_Insomniac said:

" @haggis:  Pedophilia is being attracted to pre-pubescent children. Vanille does not look like a little child. She acts more cutesy at the beginning of the game more than later in the game. Besides, even though her voice is cute it is also not that of a child. So everything you've said makes no sense. "

Okay, then, a Japanese ephebophile, then. But I find semantic arguments over this to be thin gruel. My point is that she's an adult acting like the popular Japanese stereotype of childish behavior, so that older men can lust after her without feeling like pervs.
 
Her voice certainly is that of a child. And so is her behavior. And everything I said makes perfectly good sense. Like the character if you want, but it's hard to deny that she was created with a certain cultural stereotype in mind. And I find it off-putting. "

" @McGhee_the_Insomniac said:

" @haggis:  Pedophilia is being attracted to pre-pubescent children. Vanille does not look like a little child. She acts more cutesy at the beginning of the game more than later in the game. Besides, even though her voice is cute it is also not that of a child. So everything you've said makes no sense. "

Okay, then, a Japanese ephebophile, then. But I find semantic arguments over this to be thin gruel. My point is that she's an adult acting like the popular Japanese stereotype of childish behavior, so that older men can lust after her without feeling like pervs.
 
Her voice certainly is that of a child. And so is her behavior. And everything I said makes perfectly good sense. Like the character if you want, but it's hard to deny that she was created with a certain cultural stereotype in mind. And I find it off-putting. "

Once I saw a self-proclaimed JRPG lover who wanted the old style JRPGs back berate FF13 because it took 60 hours to finish. There's one in every village. I'm happy they made a 60 hour long game that lacked filler corridors, never once did I feel like something was put in there to delay me and increase the playtime, but then again, Japanese designed game.
 
Vanille has a honest to god tolerable Japanese voice, which was completely unexpected, there's less moaning and grunting moving around in it too. Wtf localized version?
 
As for the pedo/ebo talk, ever look at Snow and Serah together? Yeeeesch that looks wrong

" Sounds like he's mad you called out his love of Japanese children! "

" @Hailinel:  "You're projecting an idea onto others through some rather wide leaps in logic:  Pretty Teenage Girl + Cute Voice + "Skip to My Lou" Run Animation = Obviously Designed For Sexual Predators "

Um ... that's your logic, not mine. Who's projecting again? Vanille's characteristics are in line with a typical subset of Japanese hentai. Since the developers are Japanese, I'd find it difficult to imagine they didn't know that when they were creating the character. I'm "singling out" Japanese because the game is made by Japanese developers and the character is based on a stereotype found in some subsets of Japanese porn. So, what's the problem here?
 
@blueduck said:

" Sounds like he's mad you called out his love of Japanese children! "

Perhaps. Most likely he just doesn't know what he's talking about. "

" I didn't have any problem with the first twenty hours.  The story was moving along at a good pace.  Things were happening.  New abilities were becoming available as I progressed.  It's hardly the bland tutorial people claim it is. "

" @Hailinel: No, just aware of it, as I'm sure most people who are fans of JRPGs are. As for the typical subset, think lolicon. "

Quite honestly I'm surprised your still chugging along the game if you really didn't like a lot of the battle mechanics or the story :/  I enjoyed the game because of the really fast and lean nature of the battles.  But then again, I've heard weird things like people beating FF13 because they really like the game's story.   
 
Aside from some cinematic boss battles, don't expect the game to get too much better unfortunately.

" @haggis said:

" @Hailinel: No, just aware of it, as I'm sure most people who are fans of JRPGs are. As for the typical subset, think lolicon. "

Whatever you say, chief.  You're projecting sexual deviance onto a character that does not engage in any sexual activity at all over the course of the game. "

 Can I just say for the record that when Brad said (and I might not be quoting this to 100% accuracy) "it sucks that it takes 20 hours for this game to get fun," I'm surprised by the lack of reaction from anyone else on the Bombcast. Like you said Pin, after T-W-E-N-T-Y fucking hours, I don't think you can say the game suddenly gets good. At that point you're suffering from Stockholm's syndrome. "

I actually found that the bigger problem in XIII was that in the first two chapters you have no access to paradigms or the crystarium. I get that they wanted to introduce the battle system one step at a time, but they waited too long. I was getting bored with it by the middle of chapter 2, but once I got to chapter 3 my enjoyment with the game rose exponentially, and had fun with the game the rest of the way.

I hate how everyone who defends this game always spurt out the same shit about it being cool to hate the game and that people that hate it are idiots and blah blah blah, but they never actually provide valid arguments, whereas people who didn't like the game provide very valid arguments. 

" I hate how everyone who defends this game always spurt out the same shit about it being cool to hate the game and that people that hate it are idiots and blah blah blah, but they never actually provide valid arguments, whereas people who didn't like the game provide very valid arguments.  "

" @haggis:  You've said even less of substance and went out of your way to deride people you know nothing about.
 
@AlexW00d said:

" I hate how everyone who defends this game always spurt out the same shit about it being cool to hate the game and that people that hate it are idiots and blah blah blah, but they never actually provide valid arguments, whereas people who didn't like the game provide very valid arguments.  "

That's not what everyone that liked the game says in its defense.  Some of us actually do make points.  Others just choose not to pay those points any attention at all. "