Now i finaly finished the game, but to be honest i didn't like it at all.
For starters it lineair gameplay, they just set a marker for you to walk to for some cutscene or a boss fight, now mostly i don't really care that it would be lineair but this is off the charts; Normaly if i arrive in a town, i want to explore, explore and explore, now you just follow the path to the marker, no shops to visit, no NPC's to talk to (well sometimes they are there and reduced to nothing usefull to the game), there is nothing to interact with, just follow that orange thing on your minimap; I got the feeling i was walking trough a metro tunnel where the sideways were actualy painted to give me the idea i had freedom of choice. This goes on until you get to chapter 11, now you get in a huge area where you can explore, but not for long because they locked most of the pathways that goes from that huge area to another small area. Even from this chapter 11 i never had a good feeling of freedom, more a feeling like:"hey this is your new area, explore for half an hour, momma will be back by then so you can put back in the cage" and after you did the most you could from missions etc, you decide to go to the next area and guess what, we are back in the tunnels. Now i don't want to break it totaly down (if you are reading this i can hear you say: "Yeah, right") but this is depressing, in comparison with former final fantasy's this is really sad, now you can say: "final fantasy 10 was linear to, you just need to follow the marker", i say: " ok, but at least i could turn back to besaid island at the end of the game or had fun minigames.".
Now for the worst part, the story, i have a lot to say about that. For starters, WHAT WERE THEY THINKING, i mean the story they have come up with is waaaaaay below their usual lvl, i feel like they have listend to a 5 year old sputtering words while drawing something. The story is a mess, there were things that were so stupid, i was thinking: " this game has gone to hell", like i first stated in my review part 1 (or 2 whatever) your characters are retarded, snow Villiers in particular, he runs around yelling :" It was a sign of serah" every time something minor happends or when they got some luck and escaped death. Hope was the next in line, while losing his mother and becoming to hate snow for it, he is perfectly able to fight alongside him with not any troubles, that is really unrealistic in rpg games, even in final fantasy 9 some times the story had effect on your battles, like Dagger who lost her voice of the shock and is so unable to cast in combat, making her totaly useless, But hope has no troubles with that, If i was him i would have stopped healing snow and just run off. Lightning was then something strange, i have come to like her attitude, but the way she thinks was something that i didn't like, she goes from realistic to suicide attacker to someone who knows she is wrong but fails to do something about it. Sazh was the person who i liked the most, he is normal, he has funny comments, his actions are in the best way said something i expect from a final fantasy game. fang was then again a annoying character, even though she had bahamut as summon , i never found a good reason to put her into my team, or even listen to her rambling (i did listen for the story's sake). At last Vanille was the second closesd character that came to the final fantasy mindset, in someway she reminded me from vivi in final fantasy 9, lost, the feeling you're alone and many other things. The fact that the story isn't that great almost makes this game worthless, a final fantasy game is soley based on its great story. When i finaly reached the last boss (there are 3 of them) i had more trouble with the first of them, then i got with the last, they almost feel like routine bosses, "oh it has been 20 minutes, time for another boss" , most bosses doesn't really have anything special that really makes them bosses, they have high hp, much dmg, and some moves. So in short, this game story is really no worth the trouble of playing.
Next on the list is the endgame stuff you can gather, in short: almost nothing. Execpt for some material, you don't really get anything extra, some boss cource that are practicly ciet'h missions, but nothing that is worth to get, only the chocobo's are worth to find and unlocking the teleport stones, other than that there isn't much. Well you can upgrade your weapons, but it takes a lot of items just to get one weapon upgraded, so why bother to do all 8 of them for every character and don't forget the armlets etc, i beated the game with a star lvl helter skelter (or something like that) for lightning , that did the trick.
Now for its positive point, the graphics. Anywhere you look, you see details, enemy's well designed, the areas are something that i said: "oh my god" i can't denie it, it's so beautifull, but there is a downside, graphics don't matter to me in a game, i'm perfectly able to play a ps1 game graphics, as long the story is worth the trouble. What also come to my attention was the repeated use of enemy skins, how many times have i beated those flan creatures, so there weren't many different enemy types. next to that there is nothing bad to mention.
We move on to the next part. The FFX Sphere looking grid thingie. Here you can upgrade your character in a chosen role by spending CP earned in battles. Now i don't believe this is a bad system, but the roles are open to every one, making the person with the lowest hp the most useless one (and yeah that's Hope). because none of your allies are really unique, you only need a combination of characters, that have a decent hp and have usefull roles. All the roles are usefull, so i decided to implement Lightning into my party as my favorite commander with a sucky summon, followed by vannile who was the best healer in the group and as last there was Sazh, he is funny he is very usefull, he has the buffs and the magic. The grid doesn't give you much choice of where to go and what to learn, unlike FFX you can't go off that path and start learning another characters grid, here you need to follow it to the end.
The battle system, I agree that it works and it is ballanced, but it also makes the rpg element fade away, in other games where it was turn based, you could choose what you were gonna do and so control the battle, now you can hope for the best that your npc heals you instead of the other one. the paradigm system lets you control them to some extend, but not much, i have spend most of my time staring at my atb bar, my hp, and to my enemy life bar, i have absolutly no clue what is going on, on the battle field, i don't care, i'm just smashing the X button so auto combat would be selected, Yathzee from escapist does a good job explaining it watch it here. I don't want to select my actions into that bar, auto battle does it for me and hey i played it out with it, stacking them takes time, and when i have haste i'm wasting more time stacking then i would be smashing that auto button, so on that point the battle system is a serious letdown.
Now the music, for many years squaresoft and square enix were known for their high quality music, story and graphics, today it nearly grinded almost everything into dust. The music is not bad, but not outstanding either, when i was in chapter 13, the last steps from the boss, i heard a sound that made me think of final fanatsy 9 memoria, i wouldn't believe it, they don't even have the orginality to create new music, even in the battle, no victory music or nothing that even resembles that.
There isn't anything else for me to Fanrage on, i have took the trouble to summon up the wikipedia page and there was something that totaly shocked me rightout. Most of game reviewing magazines, rated this game actualy as a good game, at that moment i was thinking that square - enix must have bribed them all, i mean i agree that this was an higly anticipated game, but that doesn't mean you need to shove it bad points under the carpet. Or maybe it is because people only watch at the graphics, the better the graphics the better the game, bullshit, thats not true and will never will be, i have friends who say, that the game is good because "look at thoise graphics man, awsome" that doesn't imply that the game is fun.
Now if i would rate this game, it would be a 5/10, the bad story takes most of the points away. Also this game has no moogles ...
Now if i offended some people, or you want to argue, go ahead make me see why i was wrong. I will answer to people who give smart arguments, dumb arguments are left alone for other people to read and think: what the...
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