Sooo last night I FINALLY beat Final Fantasy 13, and surprising enough I didn't cry at the end, which is kinda a big deal for me since I almost always cry at the ends of video games and books... I even cried at the end of Pokemon Dungeon (the red one? It was the one for Gameboy) I stayed up until like 5 trying to beat it and I must say, for all of the pain in the butt bosses throughout this game, the final boss was probably the easiest boss battle EVER. All you had to do was stagger it, then it was totally done. I mean yeah, it kinda worried me at first because the battle has to be done within a time limit, but it was totally doable. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining at all, I mean I like that I didn't get all frustrated and then never beat the game because the boss was a total pain (that happens to me sometimes, especially when I was younger and had less of an attention span, you have no idea how many games I've beaten now that I'm older that I couldn't beat when I was younger because I had the attention span of a squirrel).
I know I said I stayed up until 5 in the morning trying to beat it, but that isn't completely true, I don't know what time exactly that I beat it I just know I finally went to bed around 5 because I also started playing Final Fantasy 13-2 (I mean who WOULDN'T start the next game in the series right after beating the prior one if they could?) and I played that for a little while before finally going to sleep.
Now I have a few comments for the 13-2. One, I don't really get why they needed to continue the story line, 13 ended with a nice happy ending and all was well. I get how they were able to continue it, but still. I feel like it was kinda one of those things where they ended it a certain way so they didn't HAVE to make another one, but they decided to any way. I still don't get it but I guess it's kinda like what happened in Pirates of the Caribbean 2 where they ended the movie with Jack being eaten by the Kraken, they didn't HAVE to continue if they didn't want to but they could still comfortably manage another sequel.
Anyway, enough about why or why not they continued the story line. On to my comments about the changes in game-play. Now I know at least friends of mine complained about the paradigm system, and I did have a few issues with it too because it limited what roles could be played at the same time, but really if you manage it right it wasn't that big of a deal, or at least it wasn't for me, and it kind of added a need for strategy, which I liked. Now the paradigm system, as far as I can tell is still the same, but I really don't like how they changed the crysterium set up. I also don't like how enemies just randomly appear. Especially when they do it EVERY FIVE SECONDS (or at least that's how it seems) it's like walking through a cave in Pokemon! It gives better chances of preemptive strikes, but that is the only plus I've found so far. It's really just annoying if you ask me.
Well that's all I have so far, I haven't gotten very far in Final Fantasy 13-2 so I really can't say much other than what I already have. Basically though, it makes no sense at this point and it kinda makes me angry, but I'm going to continue on, even if it takes every ounce of my self-control (:

P.S. And the point I was making in the title, it says Final Fantasy, but it's more like the Never Ending Story (:
I just thought that was funny... although it probably wasn't...