Around 3 1/3 to 4 hours in. My thoughts, presented in the style of Mordan from Mass Effect 2.

Pretty. Visually stimulating. Hard to tell where CGI ends and game engine starts.

Music, indifferent. Surprised. Usually series has outstanding music. Too much of the drum and electric guitar stuff. No fantasy or magic in it, just modern blah. Much like setting. Nice bit of violin in the battle theme.

No victory fanfare? Unforgivable. Battle results screen should also be faster. Hammer X does not speed it up.

Audio mix levels, bad. Music drowns out voices. Much too loud. No volume control at all. Terrible. Had to turn TV down and enable subtitles. No subtitles for comments made while travelling. Consequentially miss quite a few lines.

Vanilla annoying. Squeaky voice, stupid dialogue, daft weapon. Drop her in an active volcano? Good plan, must try.

Hope. Has none. Boring. Swap for mother instead. Tough mums are good. Less moping and whining.

Lightning tolerable. Punching Snow is good. Don't like Snow. Idiot with bad hat. Lightning does not talk much: bonus.

Sazh. Eddie Murphy. Not an Eddie fan. Too much loud and shouty in bid to be what humans term 'wacky'.

Speculation: chocobo chick has more charisma than entire party? Evidence so far suggests true. Cute, perky, doesn't waste time with bad dialogue. Good. Must find way to make it the hero.

At least no androgynous characters in game. Everyone clearly boy or girl. Also no tiny children or animal-people. Relieved. Still have trauma from Star Ocean.

World map camera too close. Hard to see where going. Not good at going around corners. Manual control too twitchy, needs lowered sensitivity. No option. Hohum.

Why so hard to get to the map? Why not assign it to select? Why no way to instantly exit a menu? Mashing circle wastes time.

First 2 hours, boring. Very. Nearly fell asleep, found self describing game in Mordan style fragments instead. Nothing to do but run down corridors and hit X sometimes. Not as many cutscenes as expected.

Battles are fast. No loading or intro. Nice. Paradigm shift introduced at 2 hours 20 minutes, at last something to do other than autobattle. False hope, barely used it so far. Expected prognosis: battles will improve when abilities are unlocked and enemies stop being pushovers. Linked fear: difficulty will not increase. Reports say it does so cautiously hopeful.

Doom when controlled idiot dies? Puzzling. Why can't other idiots revive dead idiot? Or let dead idiot auto-revive after battle. Clumsy attempt to add stress. No choice of party leader? Also problematic. Low hit point feeble characters die sooner.

Stop shuffling party members arbitrarily! Changes many times in an area. Feels like meddling.

Save points everywhere. Pleasant surprise. No more hour long dungeon between points. Enemies visible on map, no random encounters, ability to avoid fights altogether is desired. Also good. Reportedly game auto-saves before each battle. Death means losing nothing. Good and bad. No frustration, no tension.

No gil after battle? Not sure about this. Good that I don't have more money than I can spend. Must see how this pans out across game before rendering judgement. Loot is boring. After battle and treasure chests, all junk. Customisation of weapons had better make these items exciting. Loot is important. Bad loot, why explore or battle?

No need to grind, pleasing. No chance to grind if wanting to, problematic. Restricted character growth per area, good and bad. Lack of customisation and freedom more restrictive than anticipated. Like being in a straightjacket.

Don't understand quest, don't care about it.

Evil AIs? Need hacking ability, should spread virus to disable all at once. Hitting with sword ineffective and crude.

Crystal level up system, rehash of sphere grid and licence grid. Not enthused with either of those, not enthused with new version either.

Not wandering lost in maze dungeon, theoretically good. Pleasant. Knowing where to go all the time, mostly good. Knowing where treasure is, also theoretically good. Somehow not enjoying it. Is like trip down water slide with enemy battles.

1 piece of equipment? Stingy. Very hard to customise anyone.

Need to read in-game encyclopaedia to understand what anyone's saying. Not great. Needs better exposition in dialogue.

Nice to have plot summary to remind you where you are up to when loading game.

Observation: amphibian tradition to buy Piggyback guide for all Final Fantasy games. Been so since FFVIII. Not for game help. Companion peace. Nice artwork, lots of bonus material. Pleasant reading. Useful lists. Enhanced experience of play. Fun to read about many secrets and tricks. FFXIII guide boring. Few secrets. No tricks. No best way to powerhouse. Walkthrough seems to struggle – what can it say? No off the track things to point out. Even plot summary section feels like it is shuffling feet; many pictures, few words. Not read yet of course. Also lacking character profiles like they do not know how to describe these people.

Summary: beginning awful! Wonder what Squeenix was thinking if goal was not to put players off. Game showing minor signs of improvement. Must keep going. Worst should be over. Not sure if 20 hours of this before freedom can be survived. Did want brainless pretty game to take mind of stress. Did not want this brainless.

Query: why does Mordan style suit game so well? Theorised that do not care enough to use more words. Want to get points made with minimum effort. Plus find it funny.