So far after having control of my character for about 5 minutes, I've watched about 3 hours in cutscenes.

Speaking of cutscenes, the game asked me to save my progress just before a cutscene, and then asked me if I wanted to save again when it was finished only to lead into another cutscene, that's how many there are, what the fuck?

The camera gets in the way, is too slow and always moves around on you so you can't see what you're doing.

Why the fuck can't I control more than the main character in battle? The other characters are idiots most of the time. Every battle I've been in I've successfully been able to mash X and win due to the auto battle option. The game just plays for you.

I'm also able to bypass every enemy with very little effort, getting to every boss in no time. There were about 2 enemies I was forced to fight to achieve my objective and the rest were bosses. Cutscenes galore.

I love how you just appear in new areas, no exploration what so ever. I didn't like that in crisis core and I don't like it here.

I find myself using all the potions to heal my main character in battle because the enemies tend to focus on them and no matter how many other people are alive in your party, if your main character dies it's game over.

If you die and hit retry you are forced to rewatch the entire cutscene leading up to that enemy/boss. (*edit* I found a way to skip the cutscene after trying everything, you have to pause the game and then press select)

The game looks really good and it has tits that squish when the girls lay on the ground and that must be it's main selling point because so far there aren't any others.

yeah so far this game is all graphics and plot... they forgot to put a game in there somewhere

I agree with a lot of your points, Ryan. Many hours in, I have run into a lot of cut-scenes, and not very much gameplay.

The camera is slow and kinda clunky, and I just found out 30 minutes ago you can hit R3 to center it...not that it really helps, cuz it's kinda clunky too.

As for the difficulty, it's pretty easy. I've died at a couple places so far by making mistakes in my paradigm system, but nothing terribly difficult yet.

So far though, I am enjoying the battles, they always seem quite fun, and keep you very active and at the edge of your seat. I couldn't imaging having to control 3 characters at a time with this battle system...as for the team AI, no problems here. Try setting up some new paradigms.

As for my major gripe, it has to be how linear it is. Basically you always walk from point A to point B. No exploration, and so far, no side quests or friggen towns!

Though none of you have really played it (I don't think...) this game reminds me a LOT of Final Fantasy X-2. Could be the same game with the characters swapped.

Really missin' the Japanese voices...

We could toggle between the characters with R1 and L1, still only controllong one at a time but you could at least have control over all party members and that'd give me the possibility of queueing attacks across everyone.

You know how I died? I drifted off a few times while mashing X. I actually flat out fell asleep once.

"Final Fantasy XIII: The Movie.

Sometimes we let you control."

I agree Joey, I want a damn international version.

The voice acting is good to absolutely terrifying. So far, I believe the best voice actor is Hope (who does a damn good job, considering he's just a kid), next would probably be Sahz, then Snow, then the emotionless Lightning...

In dead last would be probably be Vanille, unless she's acting that way for a reason in the beginning...she always does seem like a chipper/happy girl (except for in a few scenes).

im 15 hours in and it is very point a to point b with a few short splits for items... I find the story a little 2 dramatic... and I swear for some reason I keep thinking the voice actor for snow is calculon from futurama... anyway it keeps me playing wondering whats gonna happen next... and I keep wondering if vannille is supposed to be from texas or new orleans the accent kepts slipping form one to the other... the battles are tough sometimes as gotta be switching roles and trying to stagger enemies and getting high ranks... to me this is some kinda miss mash of ffX, ffX2 and ff7 just because of the admitted female cloud in lighting... though I hate no lvling system and only having 3 states strenght magic and hp... though I keep playing hoping something comes along to surprise me.

There's only 3 stats? The more I hear about this the more I don't like it... They've really dumbed down everything about it aside from the cranked up cutscenes eh? Quite a departure from FFXII which probably had the deepest gameplay out of all the FF games, even with the semi-automatic battle element.

And from what I heard Vanille's accent sounded Australian...

vanille an aussy? could be.. fang is most defiantely an aussy but vanille cant hold an accent... yeah it seem like a real switch from ff12 which was all gameplay and not so good story... this one is all story no game play.