I have increased my previous bid to around 11 and a half hours into Breath of Final Fantasy 13 and I have one major complaint which I really feel should be addressed. There hasn't been enough Timothy Dalton.

First off I should probably explain his role in the game. He is the Pope in the Sanctum, and the only human to converse with the fal'Cie. The particular fal'Cie that he talks to is Eden of the East, a popular anime series that I haven't seen, but Phil has and he said it was very good (also it's opening song is by Irish boyband The Oasis's, with frontman Sir Galahad and his brother Sir Galahad on guitar).
Anyway I digress. So far I have only seen Lord Dalton once, in a cutscene when he was addressing the citizens of Cocoon: The Return to assure them that there are in fact 60 arc minutes in a circle.



As short as this appearance was, it was very impressive as he almost managed to conceal his true identity by hiding his strong Welsh accent. I eventually realised it was him though when I saw he had a Licence to Kill, and I knew he was going straight for your heart.
I am very much looking forward to his, obviously very important, role in the future of the game and believe that through my own investigative skills I have figured out the major twist in the story near the end.

Warning: Given my high level of skill in predicting the future (for example: I knew that a simultaneous release on the 12th March 2010 wouldn't include the UK months before it happened ........ Bandai) the following theory may contain real spoilers about the ending of Final Fantasy XI: Matt Smith.

I believe that the sanctum in Final Fantasy XIII is not truly the government of Kakuna, but is actually the final Sanctum, and will bring about the end of time itself. Do not fear though as when this happens all of the main characters in the game: Robert Carlyle, Phillip Dustin Hoffman, Jessica Chobot and Lord Kelvin, will all have ascended and be safe in their own higher plane of existence.

On a serious note though, I am not too bothered by the apparent linearity of the game. In my opinion it helps to drive the story forward at a good pace. The environments themselves are graphically amazing and the levelling system and enemy combinations contain an ever increasing amount of variety, requiring more strategic Paradigm combinations and quick battle decisions as the game progresses. Adding all this together I feel the game so far has created a perfectly enjoyable (and exciting) experience. All past Final Fantasy games have had beginnings that are hugely plot driven, eventually leading to an open world full of extra places to explore and sidequests galore. The only difference in this one is that the linearity is more apparent in these early sections because they haven't introduced factors such as a world map or towns with NPC's to talk to that create the illusion of open world gameplay. As long as it eventually get's there (which it will from what I've heard) then FFXIII is turning out to be a very good balance between "epic" story and gameplay.

My final thoughts are this. Given that Hope and his Mother were not actually citizens of Bodhun, and that Snow is indirectly responsible for said Mother's death, how much longer will it be before Daniel Graystone finally has a shave and gets rid of that really annoying bit of stubble on his chin.

I'm only about 9 hours into Pokemon 13 magenta, but so far my favourite Pokemon is Lightning. She's by far the strongest, being the only pokemon that seems to know normal physical attack. Even though she's levelled up quite alot though she hasn't evovled yet, but she did give birth to another pokemon. This was a bit weird though because he wasn't a baby pokemon, but was a fully evolved horsey-manbeast. He then attacked me , I think it's because I haven't got the Dangerzone gym badge from Top Gun city.

My second favourite pokemon is Hail, the blond haired hero whose girlfriend was given a special task to do by the Pulse Valkyrie (they are the ones from the lowerworld, and not the ones who built the giant floating world of Bespin that the game starts in). My favourite part with him was when he had to fight those 2 legendary pokemon the Veronicas. It was a bit weird when they turned into a motorbike though, and they were alsolooking very blue (almost like actual real ice people) maybe they were ill. I hope that hail evolves soon though I can't wait until he turns into his stronger form Razor Hail, then he can defeat Marcus and Dom from Pokemon 92: Gears of War.

All in all I think this version of Pokémon is much better than the previous game, Pokemon 4: the Quest for Peace, and I'm looking foward to the second disc (although I am a bit worried because I've heard rumours that Maggie Gyllenhaal is recast as Vanille in it).