I bought Final Fantasy 13 the same day I bought God of War 3 (the day GOW3 was released). I was so excited about both of these games. I got home and put in FF13 and played it for about 30 minutes. I thought the mashing of the X button was different and boring, but I figured I was just in the basics of the game.

I equate it to an MMORPG style beginning. The story was good, but the action not-so-much. Sometimes, especially with MMORPGs, take a bit of playtime to take off. If I did the same thing with let's say EQ, WoW, or DAoC, I would have never stuck with the genre. Let's face it, the first few levels of spamming 1-2 buttons are seriously boring in some games. Anywho, I took the time to stop for a while and put in GOW3, which I knew from the demo I loved. (I hadn't played GOW 1 or 2 because I hadn't owned any console apart from my Wii since I sold my PSOne in 2001 right before I bought my new PC for DAoC.)

I was thrilled with the gameplay, it was a blast and the story was great. (I didn't know anything about it at the time. I am just about to start GOW 2 as I just finished GOW 1 a couple of days ago. Since playing through GOW 1 and 3, I can guess at the general gist of GOW 2.) After finishing GOW 3 I went back to FF13. I played through for a couple more hours, getting through the tutorial of the Paradigms, and the story. I found the story great, but the actual gameplay boring. It's linear, not very FF like, but I don't mind that as much except for the fact that the combat has been boring me to tears. I pretty much just Auto-Battle and Paradigm shift when I need to heal, or just flat out use a pot because I want to finish faster.

I got to the first boss and beat him pretty easily, all I did was auto-battle and paradigm shift some more when I needed to heal. It wasn't hard. I googled some info on the combat system. Apparently the loot drops depend on the speed of the kill which is determined by how fast you can DPS it (obviously), but that has me feeling more like I am playing in a WoW raid against Rotgut rather than a strategic RPG.I do like the star system in concept though, I love a driving force behind doing better than just auto-attack. It peaks my competitive teet.

I somewhat miss the old style of FF combat, but from what I have read it does get harder, shifting gets more strategic, and the battles become fun. I am all for this and hope they are right. Possibly I am just not giving it its fair chance, and while the combat has changed dramatically, it is just as strategic and difficult(at times) as it has been in the past.

One can only hope this to be the case. Otherwise, quite honestly. I'll be disappointed.