Haven't finished it yet, so my review may change, but for now, I'd rate Final Fantasy 13 a solid 8.5/10
I don't get why people hated it so much. They said it takes too long for the story to kick in. You get a solid picture of what's going on throughout the beginning, and as you go through, subplots jump in, and frankly, there is a LOT going on. I would say the battle system took a turn for the worse, but then again, I kind of like the way they did it. It's still encounter-based like the Final Fantasies of old. Running along, bump into enemy, and battle starts. Except, in this game, you can't run from fights. Win or die.
I did prefer the way FF12 did their open-battle and field mechanics thing, but the gambit system made it WAY too easy. The level-up system in 13 is kind of a load of bunk, but not entirely in a bad way. I'm definitely a level-grinder, so I don't have a problem with fighting endless enemies for experience points.Also, the weapon and accessory level-up system was a really good idea, considering enemy prize-drops have never really been that useful.
In my opinion, the characters were well done, and I really like the way you go back in time to the thirteen days to see what happened. Their stories are interesting enough to keep me hooked, and there is only one character that has managed to get on my nerves. Which, honestly, Square Enix probably did that on purpose.
My only problems with the game...
It DOES take quite a while to actual get to a part where you get to do what you want. The story is pretty linear, and there isn't any extra stuff do, and I'm quite a bit into the game. But then, in my humble opinion, the story has me hooked enough, so I don't know that I would WANT to do anything extra. So far, there is no open world exploration (unfortunately). The enemies are actually kind of difficult sometimes, though! The behemoths are fun, and the mechs can get annoying if you don't know what you're doing.
But anyway, that was probably much longer than I should have posted, as this thread just says rate... Yeah, I have that problem xD