I really liked FF13 because of the art style, music and combat. The story was dumb and I still don't understand it to this day. FF13-2 was even better than FF13 in Graphics, Music and Combat, but again the story lets them down. I've yet to play Lightning returns, I have a feeling my comments wont change. The issue with this is that while these games to me are good, they do not have the lasting appeal that some of the older games have as you cannot relate to the struggles of the characters.

Vivi Struggling with his own mortality, Yuna going on her pilgrimage despite knowing the end result of her journey, etc. I think what was missing in FFXIII was that the sense of mortality was not merged in with futility. The Characters in FFXIII just seemed to be travelling for the sake of meeting the big bad and killing him, rather than really developing at all. It's pretty much where people considered the series to start going downhill.

Also, Jim missed a trick in not saying that FF13 did not have focus for a game designed around fulfilling your focus.