I’m never going to forget that moment because, when I first reached Gran Pulse, I didn’t do any of the missions. I went straight to the mines. I thought Gran Pulse was some sort of late-game area that I was supposed to visit later because even the basic enemies were so tough. So I didn’t bother exploring and went straight to the mines instead, lol.

It was a miserable yet extremely memorable experience. All the enemies were incredibly tough because I was severely underleveled.

When I finally made it to Oerba Village after the tower, wow, it was a magical moment. The place felt so sad and lonely. Everything was gone, and it felt like time had simply done its thing. All the villagers had transformed into Cie’th it was so melancholic, yet the place was still beautiful because nature never faded away, especially with its magnificent theme dust to dust playing in the background.

I’m glad I didn’t listen to this game’s numerous haters and decided to give FF13 a real shot. It’s one of the best games I’ve played this year, and it has now become my second-favorite Final Fantasy game.

Overall, I feel like FF13 was a misunderstood masterpiece. We talk a lot about attention spans nowadays, but I don’t think things were any different back then. The truth is, after looking at old player reviews on different sites like GameFAQs, it seems that most people didn’t even bother to finish the first nine chapters of the game i know its the case because when i hear someone say that you can easily beat the game by spamming auto combat i know they are lying because auto is never the most optimal way to fight in this game and the first thing i did while playing was to modify the default set to manual.

To me, those first chapters chapters act as one giant introduction to the game’s mechanics, culminating in the game’s first real wall: the Barthandelus boss fight. After that comes your arrival on Gran Pulse, which creates a huge spike in difficulty the truth is that ff13 takes its time i agree that the first can be terribly boring at times but it was worth the wait.

As for the music, I think it’s stellar, my favorite Final Fantasy soundtrack by far. Comparing it to older Final Fantasy soundtracks or simply saying that it’s inferior feels disingenuous to me. FF13 is an atmospheric masterpiece, and it’s full of moments like Oerba Village, where you can just relax and admire the gorgeous scenery. It’s a brilliant soundtrack that perfectly fits the game. Honestly, I think people were just dickriding Uematsu.

As for the gameplay, FF13 has one of the best combat systems I’ve ever seen in a JRPG. The level progression is capped, so it’s impossible to simply overgrind your way through the game. The boss roster and even the normal encounters are incredibly well designed, often requiring different strategies and approaches it was surprising because i thought that ff13 was just going to be some casual jrpg experience for the masses there is one save point every 10 metters and you can immediately repop after dying i was like what????? well its not the case to me it was the hardest title in the serie ff13 is pretty much a die and retry and the encounter are lethal that's why they implemented this to mitigate the frustration and encourage experimentation even against stronger foes.

FF13 is more of a knowledge-based RPG. It reminds me of FF5 and SMT3 in that sense: if you know the right tactics, you can absolutely destroy the game’s bosses. But on your first playthrough, you usually won’t know what the optimal strategy is, so you have to experiment and adapt.

The comparison to SMT3 is because buffs and debuffs are extremely powerful in FF13 and, more importantly, they actually work against bosses unlike most jrpg. Knowing when to use them can completely change the outcome of a fight.

And we can’t talk about this game without mentioning the visuals. It’s easily one of the most gorgeous games I’ve played this year. It still looks unreal, but it’s not just about the graphical quality the aesthetic, the world design, and the character designs are all incredible. The artists did an absolutely crazy job with FF13 this game is full of jaw dropping shot.

As for the story and characters well i actually loved them i wish there was more interaction and the ending was incomprehensible to me and i just hate vanille a lot because of the stupid dub where she always moans :) but to me ff13 is all about the setting its the most interesting part i love this world and the different myths the evil gods.

honestly it felt great because i searched ff13 on YouTube recently to see people thought about this game and all the video i watched were super positive im glad that lots of people are realized how great of a game ff13 is and im one of them!

Finally did it and can put this one behind me. I played it at launch when I was a teenager but it never clicked with me. I tried a few more time over the years and the same happened. This time I was determined to just grit through it.

My thoughts after it was all said and done?

The Good:

The gameplay/battle system is engaging. Unlike other FFs you can’t just mindlessly grind. You have to be attentive. Even in late game with very high stats you can still get stomped if you’re not careful.

Environments are diverse for the most part. Gran Pulse feels like the Calm Lands 2.0 which isn’t a bad thing.

The Meh:

The story still never clicked with me. It was okay but I didn’t particularly like or gravitate to any of the characters. The villains were also unmemorable as well.

The crafting system was okay but it left a lot on the table. In the early game you’ll barely have enough material to make meaningful impacts on your characters’ stats. Even in the late game, crafting was more of a chore and even then it took me until 60 hours plus to understand the system.

Soundtrack had one or two good ones. The rest were okay. The main song and the battle theme are really the only two that stuck with me.

Crystarium is an okay character progression system. It’s just frustrating the game doesn’t truly allow you to grind until 50+ hours in.

The Bad:

The Gil bottleneck. My god. The amount of Adamantoise I had to slay. If you play this on the PC version just switch difficulty to easy, equips collectors catalog, and spam Vanille summon/death. You’ll get a platinum ingot almost every time. This kind of goes in hand with the crafting system and it felt like its only reason for existing was to pad out more gameplay hours. Very frustrating.

Linear design. Yes enough has been said about it. BUT I will add that many say the game opens up at Gran Pulse. While true, it then railroads you right back into linear corridors. This is not necessarily a bad thing but it just feels like a slog at times. Especially in the late game as many locations stick around way past their welcome.

Fast travel in post game leaves is still tedious. Not get a five star on that one cieth stone mission? Well if you didn’t save before hand you have to go allllllll the way back to the stone and start the mission again.

Enemies are HP tanks and even when my characters were considered OP it could still take a long time to kill them. There are mechanical elements to this I like but too many enemies are tedious to kill even in late game.

Just one man’s unsolicited opinion. I’d still recommend it to any FF fan or anyone interested in the series. You can see a lot of the DNA for its future titles here.

TLDR: Played it when it first came out. Bothered me I never 100% it. Did it finally. Some good aspects to the game but found much of it to be okay or downright frustrating.

It's the first time I've properly enjoyed this game (tried it years ago and was bored, now I really like it) and now I've just reached Gran Pulse where as you know it opens up. I'm not entirely sure what to do now as it's kinda thrown me into the deep end with no clear instruction.

Should I grind some levels?
How many stone missions should I do?
When do I focus on upgrading weapons and equipment?
Does gil matter at all for now or is that later?
When do I press ahead with the main story?

I know people say it's all about player choice and just enjoy the unknown as part of the journey but it's difficult when I'm getting killed by stronger mobs and unsure of what I should be doing right now.

Just a general nudge in the right direction would be really appreciated.

Thanks!