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Critic & User Reviews
GF Rating
9
Excellent
great game for the smart
posted by happythug (VANCOUVER, WA) Mar 10, 2009
Member since Oct 2007
24 out of 30 gamers (80%) found this review helpful
I was really on the fence about renting this game given its low user review, but I found it very addicting with a high level of strategy. It had a couple weird flaws, but the overall experience was compelling.
Graphics are very good, except textures load every time the scene switches. So when a scene switches you will first see the low resolution textures reserved for far away objects and characters, then the high resolution textures will appear on them. This is very annoying and will happen about every scene, but it is a quick transition. The high resolution textures are good enough that I can forgive this problem, but hopefully Square-Enix never uses the unreal engine again.
You've probably all heard about combat before, so I won't over-explain. It is challenging in a good way and leaves a lot of room for strategy. I admit to looking up faqs for strategy help with some bosses and these really helped add to my enjoyment, as combat can be hard to fully understand. However, once you do there are many options you can use to your advantage depending on the situation.
Battle is beautiful with special animations for what seems like over 100 techniques at least. However, I'd say the typical battle will take an average of 15 techniques to complete, while they are automated, this is also what occasionally makes battle too long.
There is a great amount of ability customization and it is delivered in unique ways. When transitioning areas your party members will ask you what type of techniques you wish them to focus on.(Mystic, or combat-art, etc...) This actually gives you a lot of room to specialize or balance their abilities once you understand what your goals are.
There is loot, there is crafting. Your party will manage their own inventory most of the game, and make upgrades depending on what you salvage.
Any long-term-RPG lover should rent this game!
Graphics are very good, except textures load every time the scene switches. So when a scene switches you will first see the low resolution textures reserved for far away objects and characters, then the high resolution textures will appear on them. This is very annoying and will happen about every scene, but it is a quick transition. The high resolution textures are good enough that I can forgive this problem, but hopefully Square-Enix never uses the unreal engine again.
You've probably all heard about combat before, so I won't over-explain. It is challenging in a good way and leaves a lot of room for strategy. I admit to looking up faqs for strategy help with some bosses and these really helped add to my enjoyment, as combat can be hard to fully understand. However, once you do there are many options you can use to your advantage depending on the situation.
Battle is beautiful with special animations for what seems like over 100 techniques at least. However, I'd say the typical battle will take an average of 15 techniques to complete, while they are automated, this is also what occasionally makes battle too long.
There is a great amount of ability customization and it is delivered in unique ways. When transitioning areas your party members will ask you what type of techniques you wish them to focus on.(Mystic, or combat-art, etc...) This actually gives you a lot of room to specialize or balance their abilities once you understand what your goals are.
There is loot, there is crafting. Your party will manage their own inventory most of the game, and make upgrades depending on what you salvage.
Any long-term-RPG lover should rent this game!
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GF Rating
6
Above Average
Grinding Gets You Nowhere
posted by ragnarock (MOUNTLAKE TERRACE, WA) Jul 29, 2009
Member since May 2007
8 out of 10 gamers (80%) found this review helpful
I put a good 30+ hours into this game doing sidequests and exploring the entire continent. Imagine my surprise when I enter a boss fight in the main quest several hours later and he kills half my army in a single hit. Needless to say I endured a prolonged fight of rezzing all of my dying units. This unfortunately isn't a rare occurrence, nearly every boss that you'll encounter will be extremely difficult (even if the regular trash monsters die in a single round). This insane difficulty imbalance only gets worse, more frustrating and deadly. Like an earlier review, I too learned the hard way in regards to the saving feature. For example I'm easily destroying everything in the dungeon and hit a rare monster thinking my guys are overpowered in here. NOT SO. You fight with a new sense of desperation because you know if you die you could lose 1-3 hours of progress.
Besides the difficulty imbalances, the game's constant loading screens and slow rendering becomes extremely painful to the point of wanting to bash Rush's head in (who by the way is far too childish for a main character).
If I were Square-Enix and I wanted to make a sequel here's what I would do:
1. Get rid of slow loading times and rendered graphics.
2. Adds some mini-games to break up the repetition behind the long fights (ie: blitzball, pubgames, final fanstasy VII, X, etc)
3. Have more control over the combat, it is incredibly frustrating to not be able to tell your units how/when/whom to heal when they're going to die
4. Balance the gameplay and difficulty. it makes no sense to easily kill everything all over the world for hours only to return to a brutal stomping by a boss in the main story.
5. More character customization (why create items if you cant equip them?)
6. Get rid of the "one hit" kill moves that the enemies have, it's not funny. (the suicide bomber apes for example)
7. Add environment aspects to the battlefield (ie: rocks, trees, cliffs tight hallways, fire/spike traps, etc)
Besides the difficulty imbalances, the game's constant loading screens and slow rendering becomes extremely painful to the point of wanting to bash Rush's head in (who by the way is far too childish for a main character).
If I were Square-Enix and I wanted to make a sequel here's what I would do:
1. Get rid of slow loading times and rendered graphics.
2. Adds some mini-games to break up the repetition behind the long fights (ie: blitzball, pubgames, final fanstasy VII, X, etc)
3. Have more control over the combat, it is incredibly frustrating to not be able to tell your units how/when/whom to heal when they're going to die
4. Balance the gameplay and difficulty. it makes no sense to easily kill everything all over the world for hours only to return to a brutal stomping by a boss in the main story.
5. More character customization (why create items if you cant equip them?)
6. Get rid of the "one hit" kill moves that the enemies have, it's not funny. (the suicide bomber apes for example)
7. Add environment aspects to the battlefield (ie: rocks, trees, cliffs tight hallways, fire/spike traps, etc)
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GF Rating
9
Excellent
decent game after 5 hours
posted by kamalt (ARLINGTON, TX) Nov 4, 2009
Member since May 2006
4 out of 5 gamers (80%) found this review helpful
I must admit I played this game for the first two hours and was bored, second day two hours put it down bored. Tried one more time before for I was about to send it back, then something amazing happened the game got interesting. The game is really, really slow to start and the battle system seems boring. This game starts to pick up about five hours in when you get to start making and assigning unions. Why the game suffers from a camera that moves way to fast and jerky; during battle. The fighting mechanics are quite fun. Finding the right leaders that suit your style is also fun. Not to mention if you wanted to play this game as a mystic user, combat user, or a balanced player is up to you. My only problem with the game now is that its too short and not enough quests to keep you going other then that the game is pretty solid.
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