13 actually did use ATB correctly. Keeping the appearance of action, while not actually being action based, which is probably the main reason I found AI controlled allies completely unjustifiable as a gameplay mechanic. With an action game single control makes sense, because you can't actively control a group. In 13 most of my time was spent being pissed off at stupid AI decisions, like healers prioritizing someone near full health over someone getting annihilated, or failing to top people off, leaving them ow enough to get killed by strong attacks, or having to wait for a saboteur or synergist to go through every single spells I didn't care about before finally trying to stack the ones I wanted, the computer couldn't play a sentinel to save its life, so I usually has to control that role myself. Basically if I needed my allies to do anything other than attack, somehow or another, they were doing it stupidly.

On fights where there was no need for microstrategy, the macrostrategy just isn't engaging. Having to open a menu and change roles every 10 seconds just didn't have me at the edge of my seat, like ever. I can forgive the game for its linear progression, and the story certainly wasn't my favorite, but it was just so hopelessly dull to play.