I'm currently on Chapter 12. Well, most of the way through Chapter 12. I honestly had to stop playing and take a break. Now that I've stopped, I don't really feel like booting it back up again. The game is decent and all, the graphics are wonderful and I love some soundtracks, like in the Ark. But...
This game doesn't strike me as very 'Final Fantasy'. Perhaps they were taking it a bold new direction... for me, they kind of went in the mostly wrong direction. Every Final Fantasy has been centered around the free exploration element. Even if it was in a confined environment for a while, it was still free exploration. That doesn't happen in this one at all, with one exception. Gran Pulse. But you don't even unlock most of the areas there (nor can you hope to legitimately fight any of the monsters there) until you beat the story part of the game! It's completely linear, point a to point b, point a to point b, over and over again. Now that battles are starting to take in the ballpark an average 5 to 10 minutes to finish, and boss fights are sometimes taking twenty to thirty, I just don't have the time or patience to keep swapping Paradigms and smashing the A button. The only real thing I do that's different is occasionally use the 'Army of One' ability on Lightning, since the animation for it is damn cool.
As for the characters... Lightning's attitude shift seems a little abrupt for my tastes, it only takes a chapter for her to change her entire outlook. I have no issues with Sazh or Fang and think their characters were done rather well, and Snow is the requisite hyper teammate/wannabe hero. Vanille just confuses the hell out of me with her mood swings. Hope comes across a little overblown in the beginning, but then when I think about his age (I'd guess he's probably about fifteen or so?) I can kind of understand his mindset.
I think this is the first FF game I've played where the characters ages haven't been expressly stated either, but I didn't play FFX or X-2, so they might not have been there. Lightning's age is the only one that's stated outright at any time in the game, and she's 21. I'd have to guess that Snow is probably about the same, perhaps 20, while Serah is 18, and that's being -very- generous. She's drawn like a 16 year old.
Vanille is probably 16 or 17, and I'd guess that Hope is 15 or so, like I said earlier. Fang is likely the second oldest, somewhere in her early twenties, but still older than Snow and Lightning. Sazh is obviously the eldest, and I'd place him in his mid to late 30's. All in all, attitude-wise, most of the characters have been portrayed accurately for their age.
The accent difference didn't bother me and I didn't look too deep into it. I could understand the necessity to give them accents to show that they are from a different world. If they had reversed it to make everyone on Cocoon have the Aussie accent and the Gran Pulsians have American accents, people would still whine that "Oh, they're showing that Americans are evil and need to be wiped out." or some such BS, so I'm not even looking into it.
The leveling system is a nice change, but the training costs on the ninth (and eventually) tenth tier are waaaaay outrageous. There is no gradual increase, you immediately go from splashing about in the kiddie pool to getting dumped in the deep end.
Despite the length of the battles towards the endstory, the battles themselves are fairly original. Since you can't move your characters, the programmed battle AI can be downright stupid at times. I can't tell you how many fights I've lost because while I was waiting for my ATB gauge to charge my character slowly walked and grouped up against my sentinel and healer, then all three of them got cleaved and died. If you're fighting 3v1 you surround your enemy, you don't group up! It's so frustrating.
So far I've got almost 44 hours in the game, spent some time getting my ass beat on Gran Pulse before I continued with the story. I'm almost on the final chapter, but rapidly getting bored. I'll probably go back to see how it ends if I have enough spare time, but the battles are starting to take too long for me to find them appealing. My attention is shot after fifteen minutes of the same thing, and to lose a battle or get hit with Doom and just miss the kill by a few thousand HP is a morale killer.
I miss being able to use the 'Eidolon's' on a regular basis like you could in the past games, mostly just to end a fight quickly. Fight the enemy toe to toe for a few, charge up, and let them have it. But that doesn't happen here, you can only use an Eidolon once every 2 to 3 battles, and even then they aren't that strong versus later enemies with monster HP. Remember those boss fights in other Final Fantasies where you'd be panicking, waiting for the gauge to fill so you can let the boss have it? Yeah... that doesn't happen here. If you expect to use your Eidolon more than once in a fight, be prepared for it to be a loooooooooong fight. Even with TP gauge boosters.
Overall, I'd rate the game a 7 out of 10, most of it for a decent story, good graphics, and a nice soundtrack. The takeaways are no freedom for exploration like you'd expect in an RPG, J-RPG or not. Having an inventory is mundane and overall useless, I made it to Chapter 10 before I changed or upgraded any weapons, and even then I likely wouldn't have needed to. You can have up to 4 accessory slots, 1st is free the other 3 you must 'level up' to get. No armor, so no damage mitigation other than what your accessories offer. The upgrade system might have seemed like a good idea but it's more complicated than it really needs to be, especially considering upgrades are ultimately pointless throughout the story. You can beat the main story without needing to upgrade a single thing, unless things are miraculously different in the last chapter, which I'm not seeing.
I was hoping things wouldn't be as bad as some reviews said they were, but those reviews were fairly accurate. I was excited when I got to Gran Pulse and could explore... but my characters were way too weak to beat almost everything I had access too. It more or less turned into an exercise in frustration. Then I started reading that you can't really DO anything there until after you beat the game! Talk about a killjoy. Because I really have the time to go back and play a game to see other stuff when there is no more story progression... yeah. If my current battles are any indication to go by, it will just be a grindfest.
Yeah, I'm not bitter about this game at all. *sigh*
As for FFVIII... I've played most of the FF series, and 8 was my favorite. To date, it's the only one I've played through completely three times. Squall seems like a bastard, sure, but if you pay attention to his backstory, his attitude makes sense. He's a war orphan as far as he knows, and his 'sis' (who pretty much was his sister in everything but blood) Ellone just up and left one day, without telling him where she was going or if she'd ever be back. Though all the kids at the orphanage treated her as 'sis', she doted upon Squall because of who his parents were.
So because of Ellone's leaving him, he comes to believe that if he acts like an ass and keeps everyone at a distance, he'll never feel the pain of loss again like he did when Ellone left. So that's what he did for the next 10 to 12 years, and Quistis was the only one who actively tried to 'break' him from acting that way, as she was the oldest among the orphans and tried to break Squall out of his funk, taking over the place of 'sis'. Squall didn't like that, and just closed up further. Then FFVIII starts, eventually Rinoa comes in, and for some reason decides that she needs to completely break down that stone wall Squall built up around himself. The Cid of FFVIII also tries to do his part, by making Squall be in charge of his entire 'SeeD' group, but Squall rebels, saying that he isn't capable of leading people, because he's afraid that he'll have to get close to them.
To me, of all the FF games I've played, Squall seems to be the most -realistic- main character I've ever played. A kid who was a beaten down orphan, had everything taken away and was trying to protect himself and be strong in the only way he knew how. So maybe he did it in a way we find odd, but without any real guidance that we know of (the Matron's story is kept rather quiet, other than the obvious plot points) he wouldn't have known better.
Rinoa's character was slightly overblown and exaggerated to me, but I could see it needing to be a person like her to break a person like Squall. I still found myself liking her in the end, though. The connection between their parents was not lost on me either.
FFVIII is probably the most controversial in the series to date, though FFXIII might take that title, we'll have to see. But I don't really see people who 'kind of liked' 8, there are either people who understood it and love it, or people who just don't like Squall (he's too emo! thats not proper if you don't have the face paint to back it up!) so therefore hate the rest of the game.
I didn't much care for it after the first play through. But I went back and played it again when I was older to see what I missed, and I finally understood the story. Then I played it a third time just because I wanted to get Ragnarok again. =P (I swear, that's my favorite part of that game.) I'm contemplating playing it for a 4th time, to actually complete it 100% this time. haha
But yeah, if any of you FFVIII haters out there are willing to give it one more shot after considering Squall's backstory again, try it. You might find it's not so bad after all.
Oh, and as an afterthought... Squall had the best weapon I've ever 'seen' on any main character in any Final Fantasy, especially once you upgrade to the Lionheart. His ultimate move once he got that weapon was one of the best as well.
Edited by Paradox Jast, 18 March 2010 - 01:06 PM.
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