Yeah, i agree that this game could have been salvageable if you had access to the entire crystarium from the beginning, so that you could grind if you wanted, and could customize the characters in any way you see fit, since even the completely unlocked crystaria don't give everyone the same skills, so the characters would have been different enought. That, and there really is no sense of choice whatsoever - it's al; nice and complex looking, but that complexity is only skin-deep because the crystarium itself is actually a line that's just been bent a lot to look nice.

I disagree about the story, however, but I do realize my standards for video game stories are kinda different from what most people expect I will say this, though - the lore was interesting. Too bad the execution was so poor.

I am playing FFXIII-2 on and off, actually, and I'm liking it considerably better, though, ironically enough since I'm a MegaTen fan, I'm not wild about the third party member being a monster. I think this might relate to the fact that I just considered their designs just very bland.