For me FFXIII wasn't that good, gave up half way through the game, it was so linear, not only in exploration, but also in characters stats growth, scenario was good, the music wasn't something special, combat system was ok. Now for FFXIII-2, the battle system was the same, the scenario was ok, music was far better than FFXIII and while Square-Enix was telling that it was not linear, still for me it felt linear, but still, it was more enjoyable than FFXIII, haven;t finish it yet, i'm before the final chapter, maybe when i feel like it, i'll catch it again.