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The combat always felt hands off, the locations were static and lifeless because you were always stuck on invisible rails, the cast are shallow carbon copies of better characters and XIII basically stole most of its ideas from Persona 3 and then left it in the hand of a 7-year -old who thinks Michael Bay is the greatest director ever to make it into an FF. I don't mind stealing ideas from other games but for gods sakes, at least give it a good spin, and don't get me started on the pacing and lack of anything else...LOL, unfortunately, this just isn't the time or place (I'm also on my phone). All I'm saying is that while it wasn't life changing, I enjoyed XIII - it was pretty to look at, fun to play, and I thoroughly enjoyed the music and character chemistry. How can I call it anything but hyperbole when you start lecturing about internal Square politics, development hell, "push to 11" mandates and Vincent/Lucretia's abusive relationship? What does any of that have to do with XIII having fun combat and vibrant locations?
Iknow you're big into linear gameplay and cinematic set pieces since you play so man FPS games but it just doesn't work in RPG design and I would hope playing Oblivion would teach you that.
I just feel that you and BoB were so hard up for FF goodness you were completely unprepared and thus traumatized by the experience that is XIII and are simply suffering from Stockholm syndrome. Please Bolivar, BoB, let us help you.