Wow. This thread has been resurrected.

About the weapon upgrading system in FFXIII:

Yes, a scavenger hunt was required for X's weapon upgrading system. But Final Fantasy XIII is about money, that is, it isn't easy to attain a lot of it in the game, and screwing up the upgrading process can end up in a huge waste of gil.

You just have to be careful and guess correctly on how many mechanical parts you need to spend in order to get to the desired level or it is back to adding organic components to get back up to 3x again.

Also, to get the most of our your components it is important to sell them, and then use the money to buy more efficient components or risk wasting a lot of resources.

This is all made simple with a guide, but I still was impressed with the system. It was different and not the obvious scavenger hunt already employed in most games and required you to make some in-game economic decisions.

Of course, this is all a matter of opinion and everyone has different opinions on what they like.

As far as every boss having a "trick" to make them infinitey more easier... I would be lying to myself if I thought that this wasn't the case in other FF games as well.

In retrospect, I now understand why XIII got the reaction that it did. It is true that Final Fantasy X was more of a complete package. Final Fantasy XIII' is essentially good in what fundamentally makes an FF game... at least, what appears on the surface to make an FF game: which is story, characters, and battle system. But the world lacked the detail that mini-games, side quests, and NPCs brought to the games before it.

I understand that people would have a hard time feeling immersed into the world of FFXIII. That being said, I still appreciate FFXIII for what it is and what it does well.