FFXIII was one of those games I really had to force myself to finish. The world is often visually stunning and looks great still today. There are some repetitive locations where almost every scene looks the same like Gapra Whitewood but the game redeems itself with places like Nautilus, Hanging Edge and some places on Grand Pulse. Almost all of the bosses have great designs that make them look clockwork-like and mechanical. The music is awesome as well and I liked almost every character (maybe Hope was a bit tedious and crybaby-like in the beginning). But oh boy the gameplay in this so-called JRPG. No real interesting side-missions, the levels are straightforward for about 40 hours+ until you reach an "open world" and especially in the late game, there is a need for some grinding. It would be okay if the battle system would be fun but for maybe 70-80% of the game, all you do is spam the A-Button so that your group attack with their best spells and weapons. Occasionally you swap to another paradigm for some quick healing or status effects. It never gets really deep. In addition to this, there are some real damage sponges in this game that suck the fun out of it in no time. All you do is attack, heal, and keep status effects up. Rinse and repeat for sometimes several minutes. And then there are bosses that can kill a character in an instance. There are other attacks that wipe away 95% of your HP. The problem is that there aren't three characters on the battlefield. There is ONE LEAD and two others on the battlefield. When your lead dies: Game Over. Although the other two are still standing and could revive the fallen comrade. I don't understand that design decision. And now add all of this together. The fight is going on for several minutes, you constantly switch heal and attack because your party has only 5% HP. You swap back to attack, and the boss's live bar loses about 5 millimetres (0,2 inches), it goes on and on. At some point, you even make it to 50% of the boss's HP. And then an instakill. After maybe 5-10 minutes. With no chance of rezzing. That my dear friends is some bullshit and made me almost watch the rest of the game on Youtube. But I did it. I came out the winner. But for a mediocre, pretentious, convoluted and esoteric story.