I am not going to mince words. I really don't like this game. I guess I'm waiting for i to click for me, but so far it's just been a pain in the ass due to it's design.

The firs major issue hurting it for me is that I really just don't care about the characters or the problems. If this game had been an original concept, I could probably dig into the mysteries better, but after two whole games of dealing with Lightning and Hope, I'm just bored. I kind of wish we had pulled a XIII-2 and moved towards different protagonists, because to paraphrase Shulk, "I'm not feeling it" The only way this could be worse is if Vanille somehow managed to become the third active member, and I have seen her wandering around.

The combat is also just not fun. The game is trying too hard to marry turn-based RPG battle mechanics with Action-RPG mechanics and I say this all the time, you're never going to find a happy medium because they both require different criteria o feel good. So it's just aggravating and reminding me of Crisis Core's nonsense, and even then, I dare say VII:CC did it better despite the bulltrout in that game. I honestly hate it more than XIII's battle system at the moment.

The gameplay structure would sound neat if I felt like I was making progress, but I don't. I'm not sure if it's the timer aspect, the fact the main missions are surprisingly difficult towards the end, or the fact that I really really really didn't want to screw around for 20+ hours doing silly fetch quests with every personality hire in XIII's universe. Okay, it is definitely the third aspect that is screwing me over the most. I'm just tired of this setting and wish to move on, and his game is going to make me wallow in it until I either give up or suck it up and do what it wants me to.

For now, I'm going to keep trying, but this might be the one entry I give up on.