I've been trying to point that out for ages, no one wants to listen. I think the upfront nature of the linearity can be pretty jarring though. While you can wander around the worlds in the other games and do random pointless things, that isn't really the case in XIII making the straightforward nature of things too apparent. Even in Final Fantasy X which had similarly designed areas you could at least sample the side activity of Blitz Ball (and a more precisely defined world as well). So I can certainly understand the complaints from that perspective. That said, if you are one who mostly follows the straight and narrow Final Fantasy path like I think many do, then the complaint comes off as a bit silly.

I appreciate that! I try to be open minded, even towards those that like games I particularly dislike. Of course I'll still try and get some fun jabs in. Of course if your opinion is that Kawazu makes bad game then we may just have to Karate fight.

I can understand that. That isn't my thing, but I can see the appeal to going after a bunch of achievements and and enjoying the challenge of getting all the hard ones. That said, we are united in a desire for Final Fantasy XII HD. That game would benefit greatly from a nice graphical update, reduced loading times, and presumably the additions from the Zodiac Job System version that we never saw in the west. Make it so Square Enix!

Thank you for writing in!

Yeah I can't really agree with much if any of this. Lots of auto attack? For starters, you can control the healer, or the one giving out the buffs, so pretty confused by that complaint. As far as auto attack goes that's largely accurate, but only because the battle system is designed to be controlled from more of a macro level, switching paradigms and using items and other abilities when needed. Most Final Fantasy games are pretty much on rails as far as the main narrative goes. Level caps will very much be a preference thing, I loved them. I want to be challenged, and this battle system did best when it was difficult. I can see why you don't like the game, but some of your complaints have easy in-game remedies.

Final Fantasy XII had the potential to be a brilliant narrative, but given the obvious drama of the director quitting and such we can only assume it got messed up during all that. The fact that the gameplay turned out well is really a credit to the development team,  and Kawazu stepping in as the new director to finish up development certainly didn't hurt. To your overall point, I think a game like Final Fantasy XIII that cuts out so much of that fat is destined to be a love it or hate it affair. If the gameplay doesn't grab you, it will be hard for anything to save the experience because it makes up so much of the product. There aren't a lot in the way of optional story conversations or extra world locations to explore to provide some sort of alternative. Does that mean a game should never be designed like this? I don't think so. Not that Final Fantasy XIII is without flaws of course. It has many.

I will put this out there:

If you think Final Fantasy XIII is bad, I have a list of bad games you should play that will make you realize otherwise.

Minish Cap is a fine game, and another addition to the quality line of portable Zelda games. You had it in a top five list though! Mind you I don't think it's bad in the slightest. Just not quite as good as some of the many other Zelda games that could have made the list. I don't know, I felt like the game was a bit lean on dungeons, and some of the puzzles and quests in-between the dungeons could be a bit lacking. Maybe I just need to give it a replay to refresh my memories? Perhaps I'm wrong.