Came with very high expectations as this is possibly the most glazed game of mainline and was pleasantly surprised when the game really delivered

A very fun gameplay loop in wich I never really felt burnt out by dungeon crawling like in other megaten games, the dungeons are fine and filled with a really varied amount of demons, haven't checked but i wouldn't be surprised if this is the game with the biggest catalogue of different demons, i had to give up on completing the compendium because it would take too long and cost too much money that was hard enough to get already. There's a healthy amount of subquests wich are fine and do a good job of keeping you entertained and spending a decent amount of time in each zone.
The game is very well balanced, I don't recall ever having to stop to grind for XP yet I never felt over or under leveled, every bossfight was pretty challenging and engaging, the only times i felt really overwhelmed and had to change my approach multiple times was for the last three dlc fights wich were just insanely difficult. I really appreciate the freedom you get to build Flynn from the stat spread to the amount of skills you can learn, it makes you feel like any build can work because it's true.
My only complaints are that the Mido fusion interface can be a bit awkward to navigate at first and that the money grind is extremely slow, but then again I was able to do just fine with what I could scrape and rewards from subquests for armor, so maybe it made sense in the setting of the game to make money so hard to get, by the endgame I even got the money farming DLC but even with that it was just too slow so I just gave up on getting the expensive sets on ginza :(.

Game has a stellar soundtrack, had read good things about it before too and it really delivered, i found myself standing still to better appreciate the background music many times.

I really liked the story, felt like both law and chaos were well represented up until the end were both reps became sort of brainless and cliche'd in my opinion but for the rest of the game were really well done. Really liked the setting and world and how they were presented, the highlight of my first run was definetely beating the minotaur and seeing what really lies below Mikado, i didn't expect the twist at all and from that point on got really engaged with the game

So far i've only done neutral runs (wich is a bit of a chore ending to get) but can definetely see myself coming back to get all endings, really loved this game

So, FFXIII, where to start
One of the franchise most infamous titles and not for bad reason. Bad story, bad characters, terrible world and bad gameplay with one BIG saving grace, the combat.
There really isn't much i can say about the negatives that hasn't already been said a milion times, i found the story to be just extremely boring to the point where i can't even remember it really well, most of the characters are either incredibly annoying or infuriatingly corny with the exception of like two and all in all anyone that wasn't a part of the main cast very forgettable too; At some point i started to wonder if this type of corny writing was maybe a product of it's time and i was being too harsh but then i remembered that XII(12) is older and everything from the worldbuilding, story and characters is like night and day compared to XIII so i really don't understand how this came to be this way.
The gameplay is a mixed bag, i've always had the opinion that closed world final fantasy is not good and that's the case here, more than half the levels are built like hallways (in a methaporical sense) where you just walk foward fighting enemies until you reach the end with no mixup whatsoever and having your party change every chapter can be really annoying, it doesn't help the game's case that both these things are fixed in the endgame when you are dropped in an open space with a fixed party and the game suddenly becomes way better, the open space can be a bit bothersome to travel in but if you already pushed yourself this far into the game i'ts whatever; the challenges introduced in this new zone are pretty entertaining and do a good work at making you experiment with the combat system.
One of the positives of the game is the combat, it's very engaging and possibly the only reason i pushed myself to 100% the game, early in the game it's actually not that much since all you have to do is turn the auto on and let the fight play itself but once the fights start to run longer and get more intricate, the class switches and stagger system really start to shine and make the battles actually playable and somewhat challenging.
Another positive point is that from a graphical standpoint this is a really pretty looking game.
It's really a shame that the only somewhat good and entertaining parts of this game happen right by the end of it, I can't really blame anyone for dropping it before getting there