A little history, I'm a long term fan of the series who started on VII and became hooked. Since then I've played every single game in the main series, and a lot of the off shots. Ever since XIII was announced near the launch of the PS3 I was eager for it to arrive. In fact, it was the driving force behind me buying a PS3 in the first place. At the time, it was still marketed as an exclusive for the PS3 (like the previous games were exclusive to the PS2). It took a long, long time for it to come though, years, so was the wait worth it?

I'll try to keep this review somewhat short and to the point, so I'll list major category areas and give a few comments on each.

Story (spoiler free):
For me this is the most important aspect of a game. You can have the best game play in the world, but if the story sucks you won't see me playing it for 30+ hours. FFXIII in my opinion delivers on the story. There is a lot to it, hours of it in fact. If you do not like long cut scenes this isn't the game for you. There are literally hours of cut scenes in this game, and I love it. At first though the story is a bit convoluted and hard to follow. This is mainly due to the story jumping all over the place in time so it makes it a little hard to piece together the order of events. Thankfully the game has a 'datalog' that chronicles the events for easy review. Reading it is a must if you want to understand the story.

Characters:
These are always hit or miss for most people. Some will like one, while hating another. I'm no different. The only difference between people is who they like, and who they hate. My personal favorite in this game was Sazh, I feel they did a very good job with his character and as a father I could relate to his plight. On the bottom end of the spectrum I could not stand anything about Snow. For those wondering if the game has an overly emotional teen boy, the answer is yes and his name is Hope, but I have heard from people that he was their favorite. For those wondering if there is the cliche carefree idiot female, yep have that too in the form of Vanille. I didn't think she was too bad actually, my only problem with her is her accent didn't seem consistent throughout the game.

Gameplay:
This is my biggest trouble spot in the entire game, I didn't much care for it. Gone is the typical FF battle system, in its place is a much more 'action' oriented system, but still not fully ARPG. You can't move your characters, can't block/dodge, and can't attack with every press of a button. There is an ATB gauge broken into segments with which you can queue up attacks, typically one attack per segment, more for area of effect attacks (AOE). The problems come into that combat does not pause while you select your moves, so it is really in your best interest to just choose "Auto Battle" which will automatically select the best moves (it takes into account the enemies weaknesses). If you set the speed of combat to 'Slow' it gives you time to pick your moves, but comes at the cost of harder battles. It is more difficult because when you stagger an enemy, you can launch them into the air during which the enemy can not attack. Without the fast combat speed, you can't act fast enough to 'juggle' them in the air. The other twist to combat are paradigm shifts, this is a system that lets you change your characters roles from say healer to tank, or dps. Between this and auto-battle, that's all you need to beat every fight in the game. There isn't much strategy involved at all beyond picking the paradigms before the fight starts. If you die, you can repeat the battle without reloading. You can only control the party leader, the other two are 100% AI controlled, and you can not change who the leader is during combat. If the leader dies, it is game over even if the other two are at full health.

Graphics:
These are, of course, top notch and really represent what you expect from a Final Fantasy game. Frame rates were consistent throughout, and I didn't experience any problems or bugs.

Sound:
Again, this is very much what you would expect from a Final Fantasy game. Fans of the series will recognize common themes that have been used through many of the games.

Linearity:
I wanted to talk about this in its own section because so many people talk about it. To be honest, I don't know what people cry about on this one. Almost every 'modern' final fantasy has been linear, and by modern I mean FF7 onwards (the 3D era). In the older games you were always blocked from further travel by mountains, streams, oceans, etc. You were forced to go from A to B to C in order. Same thing here. The only real difference is at the end of the game, you can not go back to pre-chapter 10 areas, which you could do in the older games (via the airship). The linearity of FFXIII is about the same as FFX if you removed the airship at the end of the game.

Extras/Other:
There are not many. Eventually towards the end of the game you'll be able to ride chocobos (finally!) and while riding one you can dig for treasure. For side quests, pretty much all the exists is a series of monster hunts, there are no traditional side quests. Shops also do not exist, instead you do your shopping from save points. Towns exist, of course, but you do not get to do much in the way of interact with them. During a few scenes in the game you'll get to wander around a city area, but they are very brief.

So overall how would I answer the question of "Was the wait worth it?"
I would say... no. I felt the game was just pretty average overall (3 stars = average). They removed too many of the RPG elements, while not offering much in terms of game play. The story was good at least, and that's the biggest redeeming factor for the game. At the current price of twenty bucks I would say it is totally worth it, I wish I had waited instead of being a day one buyer.
A little history, I'm a long term fan of the series who started on VII and became hooked. Since then I've played every single game in the main series, and a lot of the off shots. Ever since XIII was announced near the launch of the PS3 I was eager for it to arrive. In fact, it was the driving force behind me buying a PS3 in the first place. At the time, it was still marketed as an exclusive for the PS3 (like the previous games were exclusive to the PS2). It took a long, long time for it to come though, years, so was the wait worth it? I'll try to keep this review somewhat short and to the point, so I'll list major category areas and give a few comments on each. Story (spoiler free):
For me this is the most important aspect of a game. You can have the best game play in the world, but if the story sucks you won't see me playing it for 30+ hours. FFXIII in my opinion delivers on the story. There is a lot to it, hours of it in fact. If you do not like long cut scenes this isn't the game for you. There are literally hours of cut scenes in this game, and I love it. At first though the story is a bit convoluted and hard to follow. This is mainly due to the story jumping all over the place in time so it makes it a little hard to piece together the order of events. Thankfully the game has a 'datalog' that chronicles the events for easy review. Reading it is a must if you want to understand the story. Characters:
These are always hit or miss for most people. Some will like one, while hating another. I'm no different. The only difference between people is who they like, and who they hate. My personal favorite in this game was Sazh, I feel they did a very good job with his character and as a father I could relate to his plight. On the bottom end of the spectrum I could not stand anything about Snow. For those wondering if the game has an overly emotional teen boy, the answer is yes and his name is Hope, but I have heard from people that he was their favorite. For those wondering if there is the cliche carefree idiot female, yep have that too in the form of Vanille. I didn't think she was too bad actually, my only problem with her is her accent didn't seem consistent throughout the game. Gameplay:
This is my biggest trouble spot in the entire game, I didn't much care for it. Gone is the typical FF battle system, in its place is a much more 'action' oriented system, but still not fully ARPG. You can't move your characters, can't block/dodge, and can't attack with every press of a button. There is an ATB gauge broken into segments with which you can queue up attacks, typically one attack per segment, more for area of effect attacks (AOE). The problems come into that combat does not pause while you select your moves, so it is really in your best interest to just choose "Auto Battle" which will automatically select the best moves (it takes into account the enemies weaknesses). If you set the speed of combat to 'Slow' it gives you time to pick your moves, but comes at the cost of harder battles. It is more difficult because when you stagger an enemy, you can launch them into the air during which the enemy can not attack. Without the fast combat speed, you can't act fast enough to 'juggle' them in the air. The other twist to combat are paradigm shifts, this is a system that lets you change your characters roles from say healer to tank, or dps. Between this and auto-battle, that's all you need to beat every fight in the game. There isn't much strategy involved at all beyond picking the paradigms before the fight starts. If you die, you can repeat the battle without reloading. You can only control the party leader, the other two are 100% AI controlled, and you can not change who the leader is during combat. If the leader dies, it is game over even if the other two are at full health. Graphics:
These are, of course, top notch and really represent what you expect from a Final Fantasy game. Frame rates were consistent throughout, and I didn't experience any problems or bugs. Sound:
Again, this is very much what you would expect from a Final Fantasy game. Fans of the series will recognize common themes that have been used through many of the games. Linearity:
I wanted to talk about this in its own section because so many people talk about it. To be honest, I don't know what people cry about on this one. Almost every 'modern' final fantasy has been linear, and by modern I mean FF7 onwards (the 3D era). In the older games you were always blocked from further travel by mountains, streams, oceans, etc. You were forced to go from A to B to C in order. Same thing here. The only real difference is at the end of the game, you can not go back to pre-chapter 10 areas, which you could do in the older games (via the airship). The linearity of FFXIII is about the same as FFX if you removed the airship at the end of the game. Extras/Other:
There are not many. Eventually towards the end of the game you'll be able to ride chocobos (finally! ) and while riding one you can dig for treasure. For side quests, pretty much all the exists is a series of monster hunts, there are no traditional side quests. Shops also do not exist, instead you do your shopping from save points. Towns exist, of course, but you do not get to do much in the way of interact with them. During a few scenes in the game you'll get to wander around a city area, but they are very brief. So overall how would I answer the question of "Was the wait worth it? "
I would say... no. I felt the game was just pretty average overall (3 stars = average). They removed too many of the RPG elements, while not offering much in terms of game play. The story was good at least, and that's the biggest redeeming factor for the game. At the current price of twenty bucks I would say it is totally worth it, I wish I had waited instead of being a day one buyer.