that's what i do with a lot of games, actually. i couldn't tell you what happened story-wise with most games i've played. it was especially useful in final fantasy xiii because that game is a disaster outside of the battle system and art direction + visual fidelity. that "find the mini chocobo" game made me ask some serious questions about what i was doing with my life the first time i played it

fortunately the battle system is so much fun and the game looks so damn good (not to mention the amazing music; what a battle theme!) that it was easy to dismiss/ignore the bad characters and narrative. i think the low quality of the story/characters actually aided my ability to not care about those things on some "this is obviously complete garbage so it's not even worth the effort" tip. the pacing is still abyssmal but at least you have some pretty corridors to walk down for the first 15 hours