Blogpost incoming.
I have over 2k hours of playing this game. Speedran it to death, severely burned out not from the gameplay itself (it's that good), but from the community and newer strats that take the few RNG elements the game has and crank them up to 11.
>Gameplay is the best ATB system the franchise has ever produced, full stop. Press X to win morons did not engage with the gameplay, ever, probably never even realized there is a Repeat command.
>Game never tells you anything. The tutorials are so barebones they should not even be there at all. This makes it so vital pieces of gameplay, especially the Upgrading mechanics, are like black magic to a normal player and will never be utilized to their true potential.
>Everyone who fights everything will complain game is too easy, and complain the game is too hard once they reach Pulse as they do not know how to play the game without being overleveled.
>Everyone who says XIII sucks while singing praises of X has never played XIII or either.
>All of the missions are easier than you think, including all the purple missions. With the proper setup, Long Gui are the easiest mob to farm in the game, and it's not an arduous setup to prepare at all.
>Sazh is the best character. Vanille can be sexy all she wants, but she is still the worst character as she never. fucking. learns. until the very final fight. And then her character development is regressed in XIII-3, but everyone got this treatment there, so that's not her fault.
>The linearity is intentional, but other anons have gone in depth about that so I won't. Still completely fair not enjoying it for what it is.
>The story thrives in character conflict, and promptly takes a nosedive once the characters become united against a single adversary (Barthandelus).
>Best story chapter is chapter 7.
>The ending is a bit of an asspull, but not one that feels offensive IMO. It's also much worse in retrospect after playing XIII-2.