FINAL FANTASY® XIII

Final Fantasy XIII is a game that dared to take risks, some of which paid off while others alienated longtime fans. Its combat system and visuals are exceptional, but its linear design and convoluted storytelling hold it back. If you’re looking for a more traditional RPG experience, this might not be for you. However, if you enjoy cinematic storytelling and fast-paced battles, Final Fantasy XIII is worth trying.

Score: 7/10

Great story, Great game. its a bit linear and the fighting might be a bit too easy but there is definently strategy involved especially near the endgame.

As for the achievements, if you want to 100% it my advice is to play on easy mode and keep an item checklist with you. Easy mode gives you higher item drop chances which will make the endgame grind much less tedious. I've completed this game with all achievements on normal mode and it took way longer than it should've.

Is this a game that I can recommend? No, definitely not. Am I disappointed by the game? No, because I knew the mixed reviews beforehand but played the game blind and therefore didn't know what to expect as gameplay.

From a technical point of view the game works well and as intended. The PC version only had a crash bug which I could fix by applying a community patch/mod. I also added HD textures, which make the game look nice, even today.

The problem I have with the game is that it is incredible boring - it is neither challenging nor exciting. I felt that the devs were being incredible lazy during development and no longer had any ideas left about how to make a game fun. There are two major issues:

1. The combat is always boring. It is an auto-battler turn based mix. And that was never fun to play with. Being an auto-battler means that as a player I could rarely interact with the game. Being turn based means that I have to wait after every interaction with the game. Both lead to a lot of idle time as a player, which is super boring. During the entire playthrough, I always felt under-stimulated. I was doing something else on a second monitor the entire time. It is possible to control one character of your party manually instead of choosing auto-combat but I did that only a handful of times. Manual control only meant to query next actions to execute but I could not react to anything that was happening in the game, except of switching between fighting, buffing and healing mode. Which in of itself meant that I could also not enjoy the game as a movie because two or three times a minute I have to interact to switch to the correct modes.

2. The story is underwhelming. The game does not build a connection between party and player and the party members also don't build a connection among each other. The game sometimes tries to create something like a connection when it lets you play through a flashback sequence but these last only for a few minutes and then it switches back to the main storyline. I never started to care about anything that is happening in the story and the game also doesn't allow me to change anything anyway.

I imagine the devs who came up with the concept for this game as super lazy or bored-of-life people. There is no creativity or excitement in this game. This game is a huge failure as a game and as a movie. This is not a JRPG (because it contains no RPG elements and no connection to the story and characters) but a spreadsheet filling simulator. The combat makes sense logically. I understood how to get better but I experienced this as similar stimuli input as filling up any spreadsheet with more data over time. Even watching the story on YouTube instead of playing the game I can't recommend because there is just nothing to experience here. I would give this game/simulation maybe a 5/10. It works technically but the only people I can imagine who can enjoy playing this game are maybe people who are easily overstimulated or overwhelmed with more than one thing happening at the same time.

I recommend to watch the first minutes of gameplay on YouTube and if you think it is boring you know that you won't enjoy it in the longer term because it doesn't get better. Some people say that it gets better after ~20 hours, which is not true. You only gain the ability to freely choose your party members and abilities after that time but it doesn't add any depth to the gameplay for more than half an hour. In chapter 11 (out of 13) there is also the issue that the game starts to get incredible time consuming or the progress slows down because you need to grind to progress. Otherwise you don't gain enough DPS to keep up with the HP increase of enemies, which changes rapidly from around 20k to 500k on normal enemies and to over 3M on bosses (!). I used a kill-on-single attack mod to be able to progress at all (steam achievements show that at this point the game lost half of its players that were still playing). I needed about ~35h to get to the ending. If you refuse to use kill mods after chapter 10 I estimate that you need 50-60h to get to the ending regularly because you need to grind upgrades to increase your DPS.

Great instalment in the FF series. Paradigm system is fun to play around with. Great story line and environments to explore.

always enjoyed this imo under rated game. understand the reasoning behind why people dislike, but all i'll say is just play for yourself.

FF系列最毁誉参半的游戏。虽然有一些缺点FF13还是一个好游戏。
一本道的缺点，其实是因为故事不太好懂，大家觉得有些枯燥。其实如果及时看菜单里的各种故事文本，还是能跟上故事的，特别后半段故事还是写得不错的。
地图不定朝北，不停转圈变向，特别第11章后很容易迷路，不过放弃记路直接看指路箭头还是能走完迷宫的，就是缺了点冒险感。不过FF本来就是讲故事游戏，没必要追求开放世界的冒险感。
后半段怪物堆HP有点肝，好多换皮怪，有为了延长游戏时间勉强加难度的感觉，任务感比较强有点枯燥。最终boss会使一招猝死技，我打了半个多小时最终boss突然猝死，然后直接放弃，看视频最后通关。
说了这些缺点，优点还是很多的，音乐绝对一流，我觉得除了FF10就属FF13的音乐好听，沉浸在音乐里才能打这么多换皮怪。战斗系统一流。过场动画一流。故事也很感人。FF13还是很值得一玩的，特别是打折的时候。

Great game and story for the franchise BUT....

-fullscreen will freeze the application, requires 3rd party fix from github.
-audio may have issues in stereo if you're windows 10 or newer. (may require a lengthy fix)

The fact that you buy it and have to do a lot of runaround to get it to play correctly alone is reason i cannot recommend purchase.

I was told this game was really bad, but actually its not "THAT" bad, buuut its still underwhelming...

Story its kinda meh, character development is poor, the first hours of the game have terrible pacing and gameplay.

The combat can be interesting when you finally get how it works, however overtime it gets very repetitive, having the stagger mechanic and preemptive fights mechanic which are many times impossible, also the star grading system after battle does not make sense, sometimes you do really bad and get highest score, sometimes you do everything you can and get bad score.
Combat can feel very "unstable"due to how it works.

I dont think linearity its a problem, linear games can be good, however its a shame you can't go back to many areas.

The game has a couple good songs, but nothing spectacular.

Graphics are very pretty, for a ps3 game its impressive. Performance was solid for me, except sometimes there are micro hiccups when the game tries to load some areas, but they are very few so its not bad.

Now the big problem with this game is that you need to patch it or you will get multitude or crashes and graphical glitches. Game does not even support borderless screen without a patch. Cutscenes only render at 720p 30 fps, although community found a way to have them at 60fps and higher resolution.

After all this I feel like FF13 was more of a showoff for Square Enix than a good FF game.

I personally didnt enjoy it as much, but I wouldn't consider it the worst game in the series.

Great game! in my opinion, but this game may not be liked by everyone, but still recommend you to try it out

Still one of my Favorite Final Fantasy games. Def not as bad as some people make it out to be.

I recommend installing the 4gb patch so it avoid random crashes, the game is programmed in a way that if it exceeds 2gb of ram usage, it crashes(clearly ported from ps3), this pc port is slightly broken, but it is playable, hopefully not as bad as XIII-2 from what i hear, i haven't started 2 yet.

And as of the time i write this, I've finished it again after years, playing in the normal difficulty sometimes may have unbalanced encounters, i only activated the easy mode about 3 times only in the entire game (there are 13 chapters, so it is a little long game), the last boss battle is truly a hassle, specially the second phase which left me pondering about using a hack, which i didn't, easy mode was the only way.

The battle rating system is HORRIBLE, i don't understand it, it may go super quick and easy, but i will get no starts, 2, 3, 4, not 5, there's an achievement for 5 star in every Gran Pulse mission (64 missions...) you gotta walk a lot for each, and having to redo a majority of them because the rating system is bad, makes me give up trying to 100%

Personally, i'm a fan of FFXIII, the characters are charismatic, the story is engaging, i'm not sure why is it hated, however, i understand a little of the hate, it doesn't completely follow the FF formula all the other numbers have, yet, it's still fun. I really love the designs, specially the creatures, really like all the biomechanical factors and weird designs, it's interesting.

Most maps are pretty linear but has a little exploration you can do, i'm aware many people don't like this, personally, it doesn't bother me. The map with the most exploration factor is Gran Pulse, with a whopping 64 missions to do (not obligatory to finish the game, unless you want to 100% the achievements....which is a hassle as i've typed why before)

And, Is nobody going to talk about how Y2K the game style is? The menus and some maps are COMPLETELY Y2K, which is interesting because it came out at a time Y2K wasn't around anymore, it was already leaving the frutiger aero era to the flat corp, i may be talking shit but that's how i remember things.
some parts weirdly use 98% of my GPU (rtx 3060) which felt weird

For now it's all i got to write, might edit later if i remember any points

game is good as it is a FF game. i am using a controller as well.

I am a fan of final fantasy series and played most of them all the way through. Final Fantasy XIII however was a chore. It took me three tries to get into it and even the third time was not a charm. I purposely pushed my self all the way to the end and beat it but I did not enjoy it.

First of all the story I think was interesting but felt sort of rushed somehow. Your entire journey through almost exclusivly just hallways and many fights in between, the non party characters you meet you see once or twice and then you get PLOT TWIST they betray you but honestly you barely met them so not really a shocked as the scene made it out to be. There is no build up, things just happen. At least that how it felt for me. So Meh to the story,

Combat feels so bad and I feel its hard to messup combat when you have a whole series of other final fantasy games to look back on. You get a party of two or three people but you only ever get to control the leader character. You can set up paradigms outside of battle which are basically assigned class roles and you can set up up to five of these. In battle you swap between the paradigms based on what you need from the situtation like healing or buffs but remember this switched EVERYONE so plan carefully. I hate this system cause if I set up a character with the medic role to heal, I better hope they heal the leader first if they low cause one hit and its instant game over. Thats right if your leading character dies there no chance for a revive, its just game over. You can however revive your other party members though. I just hate this system so much, it feels dumbed/water down making it feel simple and basic and yet frusterating cause you kind of just have to hope your party members have your back when you switch them. Its like your driving a car capable of doing it all, but if you needed to turn right you got to shift to a very specific gear to turn right and then switch gears again in order to go back straight meanwhile only in certain gears can your passengers turn on the AC or Heat as needed but you got to hope they will do it when the time is right. That is how the paradigm system feels like. Its like what i can do is restricted all the time.

Weapon upgrade system is a bit confusing but not terrible. I just don't care for it. Instead of requiring specific components to upgrade weapons and gear you can use really any of them. Instead you give weapons and gear EXP and depends on the components you use to level them up. Keep in mind the amounts vary based on the gear so you kind of have to trial and error look through all the items. Some items will give you exp multipliers too so you want to use them first then your big exp gain components next to make use of the multiplier. Personally just don't like this system.

Map design good god is terrible. The entire game you never get to just explore a town or a city, its all hallways. Very liniar hallways. Sure they may have nooks here and there with a item but otherwise, they are just one long hallway every chapter with enemies inbetween. No serieously, you dont get a more open map for actual exploring till chapter 11... theres only 13 chapters in the game. Thats 10 chapters of going down a hallway. It is such lazy map design. Theres no shops in the game except at save station. The save station is your shop. There is no sidequests to break up the gameplay ether till chapter 11 and they are a chore. There is 64 side quests but they all work the same, you can have only one quest picked up at a time, you have to abandon or finish the quest if you want to pick up another. They all have you (GO TO THIS LOCATION AND KILL THIS CREATURE) to complete. You will be exploring the same parts of this open map over, and over, and over, and over, and over again and again. Its tedious. Not interesting. Boring.

Music in this game is good though. Decent anyways. Nothing that really catches though. No memorable tracks for me.

Graphics are very pretty at least and its easy to see how this helped showcase PS3 graphics back in the day.

The port runs a little choppy as for performance. There is fan made mods you can use to help improve its performance and from my understanding a requirement to make the second game playable at all. I didn't notice anything to terrible without the mod, but the mod definitely improved things.

I am hoping the second game is funner as this one was not great. I have no intentions to coming back for a fourth time. If the second game is too boring i will move on to playing something else entirely I think.

I just cant recommend Final Fantasy XII. If the second game really as fun as ive heard, then I may just suggest watching the cutscenes on youtube of the first game and go to the second game. Personally Ill be finding out for my self if the next will be worth it or not.

Never understood why this entry got so much hate. Absolutely loved this game on ps3 and love it even more now that the frames aren"t locked. From the crystal clear cutscenes to the now non fuzzy battle sequences i highly recommend if your looking to replay this gem

-Gameplay Mechanics: A
This game has some of the best turn based fighting that I have ever played. You can tell this is an advancement from the battle system from Final Fantasy 12 however the Paradigm system really is a great dynamic. Really the only thing that lets it down is the fact that if the parties "leader" gets knocked out its a party wipe. What a stupid mechanic! i understand having a party leader for narrative and plot purposes, but that handicap is beyond awful.

-Story & Narrative: D-
While the overall story does have some memorable moments, overall the plot is terrible. Confusing & quite dull, it really is a low point for a Final Fantasy title. Easily the worst that I have experienced from any the mainline games that I have played thus far.

Character development is really not engrossing with some occasional exceptions sprinkled in. It probably does not help that with the exception of Sazh, each of the main characters seem to do nothing but be unlikable for the first half of the game. While these characters ultimately end up being somewhat memorable and have their own individual charms, they are all underdeveloped & hamstrung by a terrible & confusing plot & simply glacial character development. Also the main antagonist is extremely dull & forgettable. Has to be the worst one for a mainline FF game.

-Graphics & Visuals: S
For a game that came out in 2010, this game still holds up incredibly well today. I did end up installing mods to increase the main character assets & Topaz AI upscaled 4k FMVs & pre-rendered cinematics since the PC port has the issue of using heavily compressed versions of them, and there are a LOT of videos. Felt like half this game was watching videos. That being said, mods or not, for the time this came out its amazing.

-Sound & Music: S+
One of the best soundtracks for a video game. The only time it is not good is during the ending cinematic, with some god awful sappy English pop love song. Completely out of place for this game and a complete contrast from the music of the rest of the game. Terrible choice and I suspect only a problem for the North American release.

-Performance: A
I know upon release the console versions of this game really pushed the PS3 & Xbox 360 hard and to its limits. Granted I have a very overpowered system for what is needed to play this PC port (Ryzen 7 7700X/RX 7900XT/32 GB DDR5 6000/WD Black SN850X), I was able to play at native 4k 60 FPS without any issues. There is way to go higher than 60 FPS, but considering it was not locked at 30 like FFX I will not complain.

-Technical Stability: F
Really awful PC port. i know this is a 2010 game, but even today Square Enix struggles with releasing great PC ports into the wild. Really a shame. I played it with and without stability mods and it just hangs up & crashed quite frequently. Any time you alt tab or minimize the screen you will grit your teeth because there is roughly a 50% chance the game will crash when the window is reopened. Luckily the game has a good amount of frequent save points.

-Replayability: C-
There certainly is a good amount of optional side quests & end game content. That being said, with how linear this game for the first 75% of the story, & how overall lackluster this plot is, I would not be inclined to want to replay this title.

The game is extremely linear for a FF game, and the first half of the game is super restrictive & you are forced to have to play in 2 party squads which is annoying because it does not increase the difficulty & all it does is draw out the fights to near annoying time durations. It is not awful, but I doubt I personally will ever play this game again.

Overall, Final Fantasy XIII is a mixed bag. The visuals & audio are elite, with battle mechanics that are among the best for its genre. It's let down by its awful plot, linear world exploration, party leader dependency, & underdeveloped characters. While its worth a play through, I can't give it any high accolades beyond that.

game runs at 60fps unlike the original console version. one of my favorite entries in the series, with an endearing story that holds a special place in my heart. don't let the negative reviews ruin this experience <3

A very good, 8/10 game buried by one of the worst openings in gaming history. Everything that the game excels at is not present for the first 3-4 hours, leaving it with the infamous reputation of the soulless corridor simulator that plays itself, you can't even mention the game without people cringing at how bad it is, all of that is because of the opening. Characters are poorly introduced, combat is embarrassingly simple, key plot elements and events are explained in the most confusing way possible, the list goes on.

Beyond the terrible first 2 chapters, the game simply excels, offering some of the best gameplay the franchise has to offer alongside a really good story. Combat is incredibly complex, so complex that the developers did not trust in their players to understand the mechanics quickly, leading to almost half the game feeling like the tutorial to each character. This leads to fights being mostly easy until suddenly the training wheel come off and you'll feel like David fighting Goliath which can feel very frustrating.

I understand the hate, but it's one the best Final Fantasy games that I have played! Play it thoroughly before you judge it. That means the whole story, all the secrets, the combat, everything.

I actually enjoyed the paradigm shift; it was different from the usual spamming of spells in previous games, focusing more on strategically changing the roles while fighting the enemy. Enemies usually die by filling their stagger gauge though, so battles take a long time. This is probably the FF game where I die the most. Ideally, the battle should not end when your main character dies.

I found Lightning as a boring main character; she did not really make an impact on me. I like Sazh the most; his story with Vanille is great. Hope was insufferable at first, hated him so much but then kinda redeemed himself. The drama with his Eidolon feels forced though.

Despite the plot linearity, I actually enjoyed the story. The story was confusing at first (I don't read the datalog), especially during the first part of the game where there are references on what happened at Bodhum. The story gets easier to understand as you move on the story though. Because of its linear plot, I actually focused on the story more compared on my previous FF gameplays.

The battle theme is probably the best among all FF battle themes I have encountered. Sadly, only few music from this game left a deep impression me, which should have been a standard in any FF game.

Also, my game is Japanese-dub T_T.

Despite the flaws and criticisms from the fans, I thoroughly enjoyed the game.

absolutely masterpiece, story is breathtaking and gameplay is incredibly fun, been playing the 13 triology for so many years by now and its absolutely a game that went deep into my heart <3

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☑ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☑ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☐ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma

---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☑ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☑ Old Fashioned
☐ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☑ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☑ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☐ Lovely
☑ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☑ 10

If you're judging this game by its reputation, it has a bad rep it doesn't deserve. It's not perfect, but it's well worth giving a chance.

The game itself is alright, it's not for everyone. Others complain that auto-battle takes the fun out of battles, it does. Manually inputting your attacks and using the little optimisations during combat is where the fun is.
However, I can't run the game. I have no idea what is going on as I have uninstalled and reinstalled the game about 8 times now. I have tried the community mods, and I suspect that I am missing some depreciated dependency software (Microsoft did some updating apparently).
My hours show that the game was working 2 years ago, but not anymore.
I now have unplayable software and the good people at Steam don't think that it is a sufficient reason to get a refund.
Playstation 3 games are famously difficult to port due to the PS3 Architecture being otherworldly but it is a shame that they didn't port a working game.
note if anyone has an idea on how to fix please comment I would love to play this game.

This is the first time I played Final Fantasy XIII, and I really enjoyed it. I intend on buying the other 2 games when they're on sale. The story is pretty good, it can be messy sometimes but the character development is solid. The gameplay looks easy, but you will need to have strategies the further you get into the game. The camera made me dizzy at times since it's always moving around.

The port to PC is embarrassing, to have a good experience I had to play with the FF13fix + 4GB Patch, HD Project and a couple more mods. Though, the game looked much better by doing so. You can see the improvement in my screenshots.

Good game, took me some time to get all achievements but I've done it in 110 hours.

*Currently not completed 01/03/25*
Well going by its reputation this game and the wider XIII series is the DMC of Final Fantasy series, something that is both fair and unfair to both games. This was the first game played since playing 7 and 8 a very long time a go. The other long running Japanese series its a bit like is Yakuza, same stupid plot and flashiness with a mini games secret challanges, I guess the reason I like this game as much as I do is that this the nearest the series ever got to sprit within movie, which I did at the time enjoy far more than the games at the time. Combat resonably dynamic turn based following the JRPG typical process. One of the first from memory which brings dynamic actions and switching to the formula. Very flashy and again of its time.

Very pretty for a game that came out on PS3 in 2008. HD characters bring the character models up to reasonably modern standard. World textures are what you would expect for period and the port is half assed and FMV returns it to PS3/X360 standards unless you get the full HD pack which rather large. Has some strange slowdown and occasionally the frame rate tanks.

Running on a vintage computer 3570k, 1050ti win 10, overall good experiance, just enjoy the ride as a load of strangers find themselves and each other on the way to killing god. Don't think to much.

While I have my Issues with the linear story telling and the missing side quests, I still love this game and it definitely has the best story of all the FF13 Games.

At first I thought I wouldn't like a turn-based RPG like this one, preferring an action adventure game instead but after I played it, I wouldn’t want to have it any other way.

First, the setting - Final Fantasy XIII is a good example of “science fantasy” i. e. a genre that blends science fiction elements like advanced technology and fantasy elements like magic. It has an engaging story about a colorful cast of heroes fighting against destiny itself, there’s interesting worldbuilding, cool looking designs of characters and environments, and a memorable soundtrack. If you like the anime aesthetic, JRPG vibe and don’t have a problem with a bit of a melodramatic presentation, you should enjoy the experience.

When it comes to gameplay, it was very interesting to experiment with different paradigms. That’s the fun part of Final Fantasy XIII. Often you’ll control an entire team of characters and you can order them to change the combination of different squadmate combat roles mid-fight. This alters the behavior (paradigm) of the entire team and allows you to get creative with the way you combine different paradigms and different equipment when fighting.

During battles, you’ll always aim to fill a certain meter with attacks and eventually achieve a “stagger” - bring enemies to a state where the damage you do to them accumulates rapidly. It’s very satisfying. Overall, battles in Final Fantasy XIII are cinematic, complete with special attacks and summons that have unique animations.

When the game came out, it was criticized for being very linear. This is only partially the case. Most of the story is indeed told in a linear way but around 70% through the campaign the game opens up and you get to explore a huge map, fight NPCs in the wild and level up your characters. You can even explore the open-world zone after you finish the main campaign but to be honest it becomes a bit dull after a while and to max out all the characters is a repetitive grind, just like going for 100% completion. Even if the latter is not your goal, the game is still worth completing - if not for the story, then at the very least for the unique combat system.

I am happy that I got the opportunity to replay this excellent game! It is challenging, the story is engaging, and the soundtrack is full of absolute bangers. Also, the visuals art have aged well.

Luckily, my game only crashed twice. For me it was playable from beginning to end.

If Final Fantasy 13 has a million fans, then I am one of them.
If Final Fantasy 13 has ten fans, then I am one of them.
If Final Fantasy 13 has only one fan then that is me.
If Final Fantasy 13 has no fans, then that means I am no longer on earth.
If the world is against Final Fantasy 13, then I am against the world.

Shallow Fantasy XIII. From the world to the character designs and especially the story, almost every element of this game feels soulless and hollow. Style over substance seems to be their guiding principle and only after the game was nearly complete did they realize no one had a clue what was happening in the story.

So they added a primer FILLED with hundreds of pages for the player to read in order to understand wth was going on. On top of that, the game is filled with perhaps the worst naming conventions of any FF game...from the characters (Snow, Lightning, Hope, Fang) to the enemies (endless variants of l'cie), and even the locales.

Ultimately, everything that allows a story to become greater than the sum of its parts was abandoned for flash and style and meaningless dialogue used as filler. Then all of this was plopped onto a map of endless corridors that doesn't even try to hide it or give the illusion of exploration.

So why do I still recommend it? No idea. The soundtrack has some all time greats in it which goes a long way and I enjoy the combat system once it opens up after a dozen or so hours.

Ultimately, its a bottom of the barrel FF game but like an alcoholic downing mouthwash in a desperate attempt to feel that liberating *click* again, I'm still chasing that FF high I used to get when I was younger and haven't felt since X.

I'd say it's worth a play-through for the battle system and the soundtrack. Buy I didn't feel the Final Fantasy vibe from this game at all 6/10

I'm glad I discovered this game when internet was not as relevant as it is now. Don't let yourself be swept by others' opinions. Experience the game yourself, /then/ decide whether it is good or not.

A great single player story driven game! Would recommend!

This game is only good once you get to chapter 11. Which, is the last part of the game. Everything before it is just okay, but once you get to chapter 11 it turns into the best game you ever play.

Great visual even all these years later, combat is weird but still kinda fun and interesting. I hate a lot of the characters and their personalities though.

So this is one of the so-called “black sheep” of the Final Fantasy series—well, at least that’s what FF fans want you to believe. I don’t really have a horse in this race since this is only my third (or fourth, if you count FFVII and FFVII Remake as separate games) FF game I’ve played. But after deeply enjoying FFXVI and seeing its controversial reputation in the community, it’s interesting to see people try to define what a "true Final Fantasy” game is, because I feel like it's a franchise that has reinvented itself on multiple occasions. There are some common threads, of course, but the gameplay, plot style, and overall approach always seem to morph.

I've seen people criticize the game's linearity, but honestly, I was completely fine with it. Linearity doesn’t equal bad, just like nonlinearity doesn’t automatically mean good. I also really liked that the game focused more on the characters—on their relationships, their struggles, the way they were shaped by the world closing in around them. And that party dynamic? I loved it! A group of people thrown together by circumstance, slowly learning about each other and softening in unexpected ways. Lightning, especially—watching her shift from isolation to connection and slowly revealing layers of vulnerability along the way—was one of the most rewarding aspects of the game.

And speaking of Lightning, I could gush about her for hours. When the game was released, I remember how many girls instantly adored her. The cosplays, the admiration—she was the moment. A female lead in a JRPG—an adult woman, no less. Stoic, composed, strong, captivating, effortlessly cool, and neither oversexualized nor reduced to cheap waifu bait. That kind of female protagonist is rare in JRPGs, and it’s truly disappointing that they are.

Another aspect I deeply enjoyed was the music score, with one song in particular leaving a lasting impression. When I finally arrived in Oerba, the melody that played felt like a mournful whisper of Fang and Vanille’s sorrow, weaving their tragedy into every note. It honestly gave me chills. And these are the kinds of moments I cherish most in story-driven games, when music transcends words and breathes life into the emotions of the story.

But for all the things FFXIII did right, it’s hard not to wish it had come out a decade later. It would’ve benefited so much from the franchise’s continued evolution, especially when it comes to combat. I cannot believe how long this game makes you play before combat becomes anything more than pressing one button. And there's so much combat before it finally opens up. Hours upon hours of walking down narrow corridors, triggering automated battles, and watching cutscenes. It’s slow. Agonizingly slow. The pacing just drags, and it didn’t need to. The combat system itself feels awkward, like it was trying to evolve but wasn’t quite ready to let go of its turn-based roots. It ends up in this weird middle ground—stuck between old and new—where battles feel more repetitive than engaging. And that’s the real problem. The combat is utterly boring.

And oh my god, but why the hell does the game turn into such a grindfest once you reach Gran Pulse in Chapter 11? The sudden difficulty spikes are incredibly frustrating. Forcing me to grind through this slow, repetitive combat was completely unnecessary and only made me dislike the gameplay even more. It didn’t add challenge—it just padded the game with tedious busywork. If I hadn’t been so invested in Lightning and the unfolding story, I might’ve quit right then and there.

But overall, I'm glad I finally got in the mood to play FFXIII, and honestly, I’m happy that it was popular enough to become a full trilogy. For all its flaws, it clearly struck a chord with people. And despite my issues with the combat, I’m cautiously excited to play through the rest of the trilogy. But it’s disappointing that the combat held back what could have been an otherwise great experience. I really hope future entries build on FFXVI’s combat and push it even further.

Amazing world and lore, beautiful graphics and music, great characters, fun combat, and it's no more linear than FFX. Severely underrated in my opinion. Just make sure to read the lore entries in the codex between chapters.

This game is cinematically beautiful, everything about it is a work of art. the characters are insanely well written and the story line is bomb. id recommend this game to anyone However, there are three things i wished i knew prior to buying this game
1. this is a TURN BASED GAME. for some reason, i didnt research anything about it before buying it so me learning its a turn based game threw me for a loop. i hate turn based games but this game somehow made it non-repitive and fun as hell
2. to avoid awkward dialouge, the creators put most of the "terms" used in the story in the datalog. Now, you can read it all or you can infer as you go. if youre not willing to think about a story and want it all spelt out for you, this aint the game for you.
3. the port doesnt suck, but it does rubber band slightly pretty often. Im not sure if theres a mod to fix this or not and it really didnt bother me to the point i wanted to stop playing, but it was jus a small issue

besides that, buy it. it changed my outlook on life i swear on my mama

It's very similar to Bleach. Or you love it or you hate it. Me? Cmon dude, I LOVE Bleach.

It has an engaging story and is visually beautiful. The combat system isn't my favorite in a Final Fantasy game but it's not terrible. The leveling up system is easy to use. It's overall an enjoyable game.

I recommend Final Fantasy XIII because of its captivating blend of strategic depth and extensive customization option. It encourages thoughtful planning.

~ DIFFICULTY ~

🔲 An old person could play it
🔲 Easy
🔲 Normal
✅ Hard
🔲 Hardcore

~ GRAPHICS ~

🔲 MS Paint
🔲 Bad
🔲 Meh
🔲 Graphics don't matter in this game
✅ Good
🔲 Beautiful
🔲 Masterpiece

~ MUSIC ~

🔲 Bad
🔲 Not special
🔲 Good
✅ Beautiful

~ VOICE ACTING ~

🔲 No voice acting
🔲 Oblivionly bad
🔲 Acceptable
🔲 Good
✅ Pure talent

~ STORY ~

🔲 This game has no story
🔲 Like playing Temple Runners for the story
🔲 It's there for the people who want it
✅ Well written
🔲 Epic story

~ PRICE ~

🔲 Free
🔲 Underpriced
✅ Perfect Price
🔲 Could be cheaper
🔲 Overpriced
🔲 Complete waste of money

~ REQUIREMENTS ~

🔲 You can probably run it on a calculator
🔲 Average
✅ High end
🔲 NASA computer

~ LENGTH ~

🔲 (0 - 2 hours) Very Short
🔲 (2 - 15 hours) Short
🔲 (15-50 hours) Average
✅ (50-90 hours) Long
🔲 (90-110 hours) Extremely long
🔲 No ending

~ FUN ~

🔲 For the Achievements
🔲 I'd rather watch paint dry
🔲 Hard to enjoy
🔲 Repetitive
🔲 Actually pretty amusing
✅ The kind of fun you'll remember
🔲 Ride of your life

~ WORTH BUYING ~

🔲 No
✅ Wait for sale
🔲 Yes

I never expected to give a negative review on a FF game but here we are.
17 hours in I have been simply running on a straight path.
The environment is pretty boring.
I had no input whatsoever in defining character progress.
Weapon and item upgrade is substantially pointless.
The music in nothing special.
It is nothing more than move forward, auto battle, distribute points.
I played all FF titles up to XIII, and this is the only one I have no desire to finish.

great game no lie,there is a few bug but not really bother for me 8/10.

A childhood favorite, with older eyes it's still a captivating story with good old gameplay.

The gameplay is an evolution of old rpg style.
It's fun to play without waiting for the opponent to attack.

No bug, very nice cutscene.

Only the PC port is disapointing but some mods (FF XIII fix on github) fix the performance issue and 30 fps cap.

I played FF13 long ago when it first came out on PS3. I couldn't beat it back then, so I wanted to finish my childhood game this time.

Back then, I was bewitched by Lightning's beauty and never really paid attention to details. But as I play this game again in the 2020s, I am starting to see many flaws I didn't recognize back then.

This game has many annoying aspects that JRPGs had back then. You cannot save whenever you want, and the linear storyline can be very exhausting. The ATB system was interesting, but I eventually grew tired after hours of repeated battles. Also, fuck all those Cie'th Stone Missions.

PC optimization is one of the worst in the series. However, Square Enix was never known for smooth PC optimization, so I wasn't surprised.

Even with all that, I still clicked thumbs up because I appreciate how pretty Lightning was in this game.

2 years in the making, I finally finished this game. It took me so long, as I was savoring it like a fine meal during a warm night. I was right to, as rushing this game would have made me not enjoy it as much. The music, the cutscenes, the story and the visuals of this game are stellar even nowadays apart from a couple of sections. Masashi Hamauzu has made a soundtrack up to par with Uematsu's compositions, and each track suits this game like a fine silky black glove. Great entry point into the Final Fantasy franchise, more so than games like 10 or 7, and I would encourage you to play this if you have the 40 hours that you need to finish it (Grinding included).

It's been a while since the game launched, if you wanna play this then you know exactly what you're getting into. Bought it on sale and I live playing it. Getting the hang of the combat. I see why people complain about the linearity of the game and yes it is all true but if you accept that and want to experience a final fantasy very unique then go for it.

Lightning is a badass. This is my second time playing through the game since I first played in on it's original release on the XBOX 360 many years ago. It's not my favorite FF but it definitely has it's high points, a fine story, and great music. I give it around a 7.5/10 if I were to give it an all around score. The 13 series unfortunately gets progressively worse imho after this game. But still a good go for any Final Fantasy fan.

So this game definitely got a bad complaint especially from me when it first came out when i was in my 20s but i decided to play it again bc of the song and MAAAAAN i so do not regret giving it a second chance i love this game . i did not like the upgrades back then now i dont care lol. The graphics on the pc is so freaking amazing and the music oh the beautiful music **chefs kiss**. Definitely the story line is awesome so i will continue the trilogy bc i want to know what happens in the end. Just give it a try the story line is worth it and the music is just awesome. Then again i never dislike final fantasy music i am glad the composers put thier all into them.