I loved it, but it came after XII (which I hated) so a big part of it was relief - to see that they can do interesting characters still.

So yeah, +1 to the consensus early in the thread... the characters. They were interesting, believable and had good character development.

I include Hope in that for sure - I know a lot of people hate him for being "whiny" and coming close to murdering Snow etc. I'm sorry but he's a kid who is already at a very emotionally driven age, just saw his mother die and got whisked off and given a ticking time bomb tattoo without a moment to breathe or grieve. What do you expect? Eventually, hey, he broke down and let his emotions out, got over his grudge and became a nice lad. Seems a nice story to me.

I agree it would've been compelling if, during that really dark low point of the game, Sazh really had killed himself. I honestly thought he had, at first, and it was like "whoa...", biggest shock since FF7, bigger with it being self inflicted and with him having a child. I guess they decided that was just too grim, and can't blame them. Plus let's be honest, we would've lost the coolest character.

The graphics and landscapes - breathtaking.

Some of the music (Blinded by Light and the boss music), great.

Enjoyed the story, even though the "hey let's kill Orphan anyway and rely on hope/destiny" ending made no sense at all. I don't know if -2 resolved that as I haven't finished it yet.

Yes it's extremely linear - on the positive side of that though you always know where you're going.