Originally Posted by
Aumaan_Kujata
13 feels like they intended it to be character-focused rather than plot-focused, while 12 was the reverse. So in 12 you get people like Vaan (and even the "real" characters like Ashe and Basche) basically being dragged around to watch the geopolitics and Occuria stuff happen, and only act around the edges, while the real driving forces are basically Vayne/Venat, Cid, Gabranth, Vayne's kid brother, etc. Then in 13 you get a somewhat contrived plot, with a puppetmaster bad guy, that's wrapped around giving each of the main characters some kind of growth arc.
It's a decent premise, but the downside in 13's case is that, in order to give them growth room, they're almost all kind of obnoxious human beings at the beginning. So everyone gets a bad first impression of these dudes, and it lasts long enough, along with the overlong tutorialy part and general linearity, that it taints the whole experience for a lot of people, even though most of them genuinely do "grow and evolve as human beings, etc" and become much more likeable by the end. Hope gets completely over his whineyness post-Alexander, for example, as well as getting Lightning past some of her less pleasant neuroses by acting as a mirror for them for a bit.
This is all ignoring 13-2 and -3, where the character development and plot go a bit off the rails, but a lot of how 13-1 plays out makes more sense when you look at it from this angle, I think.