Anyone have it yet? I got it over the weekend–needed a new stress killer. I’m in the middle of the second disc now. If you have it, what do you like/dislike about it? Who’s your favorite character? How does it rate compared to the other games in the series?
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SPOILER ALERT!!! Don’t read the following unless you’ve played it at least as far as the second disc!
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I’M NOT KIDDING!
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All in all, I find it pretty neat. I love the throwback to old-school stuff, like the first few bars of the battle music, the black and white mages, and the like. They also kept an altered version of the card game from FF8, which is pretty fun but so far not nearly as involved as the one in the previous game (no card quests as far as I know, although I might run into one later). The graphics are slightly less realistic than they were in FF8–nobody would mistake these characters for being human, while I had female friends who weren’t into gaming tell me that Squall was hot. The gameplay, however, is MUCH easier to grasp. I think FF8’s system was too complex to allow for much fun. This one has one of the best villain sidekicks since the Turks, too. Oh, and a Moogle swears at you.
Just when I think the series can’t get any better, it does. I’m completely addicted.
That is all. Gonna give this some padding underneath, too. I hate it when game secrets are ruined for me.
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The end.
So far, I’m enjoying it. It has a much lighter tone than VIII, but still leaves me with the burning desire to see the bad guys pay.
Although the magic system has evolved throughout the series, I don’t think they’ll ever top the Materia system from VII.
One thing I’ve learned from playing Japanese console RPGs is that you should talk to everybody in every town you go to, and buy anything you might need, because as soon as you leave, the Forces of Evil will reduce the place to rubble. Sometimes it’s a beam of evil from space. Sometimes a Tsunami will wash the town into the sea. Other times, they’ll send in a whole fleet of warships, and blast the town into sub-smithereens. One by one, every single item you’ve been charged with protecting will fall into the enemy’s hands, and even when you kill the enemy in the end, you will be treated to a brief FMV in which it appears that you haven’t accomplished much. Great games, though.
Don’t worry, no spoilers (not related to the story at least).
I love this game. I wasn’t as big a fan of VIII because of the whole monster leveling up with Squall thing. I like how each character has a specific purpose in battle, so choosing the right party is important (ie: dungeons where you can’t use magic). The music and dialogue is great. I can actually understand the story (unlike VIII with the whole time compression or whatever, I still don’t get it). The other thing I like is how the random battles actually require strategy because the monsters use magic ALL THE TIME, it’s not just repeatedly choosing attack. You have to save the magic users for healing spells, you have to protect yourself from the right status ailments, etc, and you need enough magic/items to heal after every battle. All in all a great game. I can’t wait to finish it, I’m near the end of Disc 3 now.
Oh yeah, and most of the secrets in the game can be found without the strategy guide, diligent searching and talking to everyone will reveal all. Except for maybe the blackjack game after the end credits, don’t know if anyone in-game tells you about that.