Quote Originally Posted by Xiahou View Post
You may want to check out Crystal Bearers. It has whimsy. I thought it was flawed in many ways, but from the sounds of it, it may have been better than XIII....
Everything I've heard about that offshoot of the series says that if you play it in singleplayer mode you will hurl your console out of the nearest window in short order, thanks to the ascine AI. Your party members are totally incapable of the very simplest things. They will suicide repeatedly on the same obstacle, they'll get in your way, they'll get stuck or lost when pathfinding, they're useless in combat - total liability. No thanks.

Whatever else can be said, the party AI in FFXIII is good. It's always managed to pick the options I myself would have chosen under the circumstances. It's good enough that I leave the only character I could control to the AI via the auto battle command. The game does have a fair bit going for it ... it's just unfortunate that the things it does not get right overshadow the rest. The slow beginning, the limitations, the painstaking rate at which they unlock features, the seriously serious characters and bland plot. I've played for around 8 hours now yet when someone at work asked me if the battle system is good I had to answer that I don't know because most of it is still locked off.