It dosnt feel like Final Fantasy anymore..
Well, Ok, alot of people will probably rip out their hair when they see that ive given the game anything but a 9-10 But atleast read and see why.
After being a little let down with the previous Final Fantasy (FF9) I was looking forward to seeing an improvement on some things. But as I played into it, I started to feel like it wasnt even a Final Fantasy game. They changed alot of small things that made Final Fantasy what it was, like the intro music, (it may seem small, but its somethin they have done in almost EVERY other FF game.), The menu screen looked like it was made by a kid in a 3rd grade arts class with some water colors.. The world didnt see very exciting to me either, I'm not a big fan of a game that takes place on a series of islands, I like these nice worlds that have a little bit of everything in them. Yes I know there was snow and desert terrain, but the world looked more like it should be just a portion of a major continent or something, I dunno.
The story itself wasnt bad, I liked some aspects of it (little did I know it would turn into FFX-2 and potentially kill any respect for square I had left). I liked some of the Characters, Auron, Jecht, Braska, Lulu, unfortunately 2 of thoes characters were only seen pretty much in flashbacks.. Aside from that, the characters all bugged me very much- Tidus just seemed to wimpy and girly, maybe a girls dream guy, I dunno... Rikku the most annoying up-breat slang creating character ive ever seen. Kimari(not sure of spelling) emotionless, and I felt him to be almost meaningless to the plot. Yuna is a very calm prissy little girl, which I suppose would be ok, but her mellow/depressing attitude really got on my nerves, Wakka, he had some good moments, but most of the time he was just some annoying ganja smoker "Eyy Mon". Auron was the wise bodyguard and a "To the point" kind of character, and I thought he was really a cool cast member, Braska and Jecht, never playable only seen in flashbacks, Braska was a high summoner who defeated sin, and seemed to be the coolest one from the small parts ive seen, Jecht just seems like a jackass, which made me think he was cool, lol. Honestly I dont want to write to much on chars- next-
The worldmap and the airship. Problems I had, in allll the other games aside from Final Fantasy Mystic Quest and Final Fantasy Tactics, ive had a free roam world map to walk about as I please, do some side quests, grind pointlessly killing monsters, fly my airship around, just do what I want when I wanted. I was stipped of this freedom in FFX, I had a connect the dots world map point and click system, which really supprised me. No more world map, world map music, world random battles, world airship flying, I was heart broken ;( . But seriousley it did make me mad, I did enjoy having a new world map in each FF game, kinda like something to expect yet you really dont know what it will be.
The Airship.... This was another disappointment, Not so much the design, but the colors were horrid. Had some neon blue, some purple, some pink, just some crazy colors, another water painted picture from a third grader...Aside from the ugly color it was an ok ship.
The trademark characters- I'm going to start with Biggs and Wedge (Dont judge what im about to say because I honestly dont remember this part) - I really dont remember Biggs and Wedge making an appearance, which was another annoying factor in my mind- But on to things I know for sure. CID Did make a return! I was happy about that. But once again, I was let down, Cids character was horrible in my opinion, he looked like a circuis sideshow freak clown with the additude from FF7 cid and FF8's Zell. But I guess on the brightside they kept him in the game..
The music. Other then the intro song being replace by some imposter song, I didnt mind it, it was all good stuff, but they removed their trademark theme song, so, it shows that Square is being influenced by something, probably Enix...
The battle system, Possibly one of the only things I did like about this game, what can I say, it was easy to use, didnt make me use a 50 min tutorial on how to fight, just a fun battlesystem with a fun summon (Anima) system.
The last thing, the CGI sequences. It was obvious to me that they had not fallen in this department, the Videos were very nice looking, but as I watched them, I was thinking, I wish I could like this game, because the CGI's are so nice, but then the Romance scene, I dont play a RPG for CGI romance scenes, its ok to have some chat scenes in the game and then it breaks out, but a 5 mins sequence of them swimming around in a pool like fairies .. too much for me, once again, maybe they are trying to appeal to girl gamers aswell, I dont know. But I can honestly say, I dont like mushy scenes.
Well that wraps it up for my review, thats what I think, dosnt make it true, yet some 100% solid truths were in there, alot of it is opinion based. Take from it what you will- I know alot of you angry people that just read my review are probably saying, what FF games did he like? Prolly the most over hyped FF game of all, FF7. Well, Yeah it was. I like FF3(6), FF7, FF8, and Final Fantasy Tactics, pre FF3 were good games, just 3 really went more in depth then anything I had ever seen. I think FF9 - FF10 were under-par FF games, but hey alot of people liked thoes games, so I cant say it dosnt sell. I just know if FFXII is as... "Flamboyant" as its main character, Its safe to say, im not playing Final Fantasy anymore.