I haven't finished the game yet, but I'm nearing the end of it.

This has been one of the best cast of the Final Fantasy Games, their chemistry and personalities, grey morality and intertwined stories works really well, their all likeable and develop as the story plays out. I put a lot of time in the series this year, playing them all, and this one surpirsed me. If you liked X, then XIII feels like an evolution of it - its very linear, but that works for the story since we're on a journey and can't look back.

Cons: This is not a traditional turn based RPG, there's no open world outside Chapter 11, I can only influence my party, not control them, and the cut scenes can move a little fast through events. Like most PS3 games, the developers forgot colors exist for much of the game.

Pros: Juggling is Fun. The Cast play off each other well, their designs and personalites shine, Gran Pulse is gorgeous, I want to see how this ends.

This has been a fun linear adventure, and I'm hopiong XIII-2 is almost as fun as this.

Excellent combat system, but the pacing of the story element is a drag. Its one long corridor of random fights, stopping to talk about their feelings, and repeat.

The good:
1. THE OST!! ALSO BEST FF BATTLE MUSIC!!! AHH I LOVE SABER‘S EDGE SO MUCH TO THE POINT WHERE I WAS HOPING FOR A BOSS FIGHT
2. EPIC CHARACTER DESIGN!!! LIGHTNING AHHH SHE SO PRETTY SHE MAKES ME GAY AND FANG AHHH
3. ART! The world is just too pretty!!
4. Battle system is fun and fast pace, my thumb really hurts while smashing that X button lol. The only downsides are I can't pick my leader and change paradigm's config while in battle
5. When you die from a battle or click retry you don't spawn from the save point :D
6. Hope's character development
7. The beautiful bitter sweet ending :')

The not so good:
1. C.A.M.E.R.A. WHO DESIGNED THIS? I really hate that stupid slight swinging (?) motion every time I attempt to move the camera angle a bit with my controller, it makes me so sick. And you can't control camera during battle.
2. TOO GRINDY! The worst part is not because "it has so much to do", simply because the drop rate for some items are too low and/or the game requires too much gil to buy things. I ended up resolving to mod/cheat (yes, I'm gonna just admit it, otherwise there's no way for me to get all trophies in 70+ hours), because damn, I spent half a day to kill 10+ turtles (also died a few times while experimenting on how to kill them) and they only dropped 1 Trapezohedron and 1 Platinum Ingot.
3. Vanille's walking animation lol.
4. Presentation of the story - hmm, where do I even start? I love the story and the mythology (from Type-0 btw), I strongly believe that the game has really great potential, but the way they present it by putting everything into the Datalogs is really... boring. I understand the game needs to be linear due to plot-related reasons, similar to FFX, but it's just too much hallway and as a result they failed to present Cocoon and Gran Pulse enough. They should really take the idea from FFX on how to present the story:
a. They should spent one or two chapters to put the 13 days events in the game to make us able to explore Cocoon. Make Lightning responsible for chasing the Pulse L'Cie or even make her Psicom. Introduce Fang earlier. Make us able to interact with Serah more or even use her for a bit so we actually care for her.
b. Introduce the mythology and concepts of L'Cie/Fal'Cie etc. properly in the game! Isn't Dajh just a little child? Make the adults in the game teach him so they can also teach us, similar to Tidus!!
c. Squeeze the whole part where they start escaping from the hanging edge to Gran Pulse. A few chapters can be merged into one, make smaller maps, make the characters speak more during one scene instead of cutting it into a few pieces - this will make the story pacing a lot faster.
d. Lame and forgettable final boss. Well I don't quite know how to fix Dysley, let's skip.
e. You need to collect all Analects to be able to understand the ending?? This is dumb... They should really explain it or hint it with the mouth of other Fal'Cies (or even Cid) that we met, that's the point of meeting these Fal'Cies and also having boss fights right? They need to let these Fal'Cies spit out some information, not just "Block your way -> Killed/Ignored -> Proceed".

Urgh I'll stop here, I don't feel like doing SE's job for them lol. The quality of their story writing has declined so much recently and I really hope they do better next time and give us a good FF story like back in the days.