I queued this up on GF, but I probably won't get it sent for a week or two considering its popularity. So, sadly, I haven't gotten to enjoy it yet.

I do see where you are coming from already though considering how ANNOYING the music in the TV commercials are. It almost makes me nervous for this game's soundtrack.

too busy grinding CP and NOT gil, fuck

ya


Well, the graphics are fucking amazing, and although the story is painfully cheesey in places, it's actually pretty entertaining.
Definitely needs moar nobuo uematsu tho.

It's fucking long.
I'm like 50 hours in, on disc 3, and there's a whole lot of side quests and stuff.
Up until disc 3 the game was painfully linear. Pretty much one long movie that you walked through.
You get tutorials up until like disc 2. It's insane.
The game really opens up around chapter 10. It's the first time you really get a chance to explore.
I'm not finished yet. I'm only on chapter 11.

The battle system:
Good:
-Moves fast. You can string together multiple attacks and you have a lot of control... over your main character. Not much of a break in the action.
-You can switch paradigms at will, and develop characters to have multiple kinds of abilities (ie, you don't have to just build one healer and that's all they're pretty much good for)
-You're able to cast libra, find information out about a monster, and pause battle mode to bring up a detailed menu of an enemy's resistances, immunities, rare drops, common drops, attack, etc. Pretty awesome.
Bad:
-The other two people in your group auto-battle based on the paradigm they're switched into (ie, medic, sentinel, commando)
-When your leader dies, it's game over. Other characters can't cast a phoenix down or revive your sorry ass... for some reason.
-Eidolons are fairly useless in most cases, and pretty much the only thing I use 'em for is to buy myself time. In IX I found myself using summons all the time. Not the case here.

Levelling:
Good:
-You shift into battle mode fast, so grinding isn't as time consuming as with past games.
-Crystal system is kinda like the license system in XII. As you progress in distributing the CP (lol) you accumulate, you gain HP, strength, magic, abilities, and more. And you develop them for each class.
Bad:
-Drops are often components used to upgrade weapons. There are fucking tons of different components, and they all give a different amount of exp. It's ridiculous to keep track of. Occasionally, you get shit worth selling for a profit.
-Monsters don't drop fucking gil. And even if they did, there's no goddamn towns you can explore to go and buy shit. It's all conveniently located on the shops in the little online kiosks/save points scattered everywhere. Fu.


Other than that, the graphics are great. The storyline is tolerable. Some of the voice acting, or mannerisms (especially from the character Hope) may make you want to kill yourself. If you're like me, you'll find yourself thinking the nigger with the chocobo in his fro is the coolest character in the game.

This post was edited by Gorikain on Mar 18 2010 01:48pm

yeah. I can't stand that bullshit. At least when you die, though, you don't go all the way back to your last save point. Usually it auto-saves right before any battle / encounter.

I like it better than 12. Honestly, it is entertaining. If it were any other game, I would have nothing but great things to say about it.
The fact that it's final fantasy, though... I'm expecting some traditional FF gameplay. A few of these changes are a major step backwards.

Especially the music. Goddamn. I think we were talking on msn when I realized Nobuo Uematsu wasn't signed on for this. Sad.

This post was edited by Gorikain on Mar 18 2010 02:07pm