<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Almost at the very end now. Suffered a wipeout at Sin Guninas or whatever the heck you spell those Sin appendages because I was too cheap to rehaste. This is definitely not a game you can get by being cheap...
My thoughts:
I like the story. Yes it's another 'evil church' kind of story like Xenogears/FFT. Get used to seeing people doing the prayer and hearing "Praise be to Yevon" *a lot*. I guess the point of having all the religious stuff is to annoy you so you'll feel like Tidus, since he doesn't believe in Yevon either.
But the game does a good job from making that the overall premise. The story is always focused on Yuna and Tidus, and the supporting casts participate actually as opposed to your three guys on the main team and everyone else who only pops up during their own side events. The only character that doesn't seem to be developed very well is Seymour, who seems to show up to remind you that he's still alive as opposed to having anything important to the story. Well, he is important, it just doesn't feel like he's that way.
The battle system is quite awesome. Although sometimes it feels like you get into rock paper scissor encounters, it forces you to switch around your party members a lot. Kihmari is useless, and Lulu has crazy evade but it never saves her from anything so I didn't bother leveling her very much, but everyone else is pretty balanced. Yuna doesn't get used quite as often since it's not really efficient to summon for normal battles, but she's useful for the suicide summon charges that you'll probably find yourself using on the game's harder battles. Kind of sucks when you read like a battle description like "XYZ is weak against Holy magic!" and realized that you're not anywhere close to Holy. :( On the upshot, Tidus is pretty close to Quick Hit now, or the ability that makes a hasted Citan looks slow.
Aside from Kihamri who has no real reason to level up since he starts out with melee stats but has an extra long newbie path to go through, everyone else's board paths are pretty well designed, though Lulu doesn't get quite enough defense/HP to be useful later on. The speed disparity is pretty nasty later on though, which makes Auron not a favorable choice if not for his Armor Break which is absolutely essential if you want to even hurt Sin. I find that Rikku, the fastest character in the game, can outheal Yuna using Al Bhed Potions very easily. As far as I know most people had a party of Yuna/Auron/Tidus toward the end. I personally prefer Tidus/Wakka/Rikku for pure speed, only switching Auron in for an Armor Break and Yuna to take care of status problems.
I like the smack talk in battle. A lot of cute things they say just to make battle interesting, and it's pretty nice they do it randomly so it doesn't get repetitive like Grandia 2. My favorite one so far is "How many steaks do you think we can make out of this?" when you've Wakka in your party fighting a Behemoth.
Things in this game hit hard. Very hard. Just becuase something kills you in one hit while you're at full health doesn't mean you're underleveled. It usually means you need a summon fodder or a Power Break, or just luck. Things get easier once you get Al Bhed Potions though, which must grow on trees or something. I find Yuna a little bit slow for healing a group of people and stuck wtih Al Bhed Potions throughout most of the game. Like FF8/9 you need to steal a lot if you want to have anything decent for equipment, especially since you don't get decent equipment from monsters/treasure chests. Almost all my equipment so far is taken from a generic 3 slot weapon and slap whatever abilties I can customize, except the Brotherhood, which is a darn good sword.
Summons look pretty and everything, but they're not always useful against bosses unless you charged an Overdrive bar ahead of time. You WILL lose your summon after you pull your Overdrive. I didn't bother with summons for most bosses except the guy whose name ends with Flux, which most people agree as the hardest boss in the game. Summons have pitiful strength and low defense, and roughly same HP as characters, but you only get one of them, and you can't heal them unless you've a ton of Mega-Potions around. Bahamut can clear out the yard trash pretty well but then so can 3 melees. Summons have exceptional evade (though how does something like Anima, which is permanently chained to the ground, evades is beyond me) but once again, you usually can't evade the stuff that really hurts. Their use is basically the suicide squad that charges in to get an Overdrive off and then dies. Kind of disappointing.
The game is very linear. Like FF8/9 you don't get an airship until an hour or so before the final confrontation, and sometimes it feels like Grandia where you can't go back to old areas even though you can just because the game's structured like that. But I think that's a good thing. You're supposed to be on a mission to save the world, not wandering around doing random stuff. Of course, once you get the airship you can do all the sidequests.
I don't know why everyone has problem with Tidus and Yuna's voice acting. Tidus sounds like an arrogant hotshot blitzball player... oh wait, maybe because he is one. Yuna sounds like just another girl and I think that fits her personality too. Not the world's most exciting people to listen to, to be sure, but they're not supposed to be.</div>
My thoughts:
I like the story. Yes it's another 'evil church' kind of story like Xenogears/FFT. Get used to seeing people doing the prayer and hearing "Praise be to Yevon" *a lot*. I guess the point of having all the religious stuff is to annoy you so you'll feel like Tidus, since he doesn't believe in Yevon either.
But the game does a good job from making that the overall premise. The story is always focused on Yuna and Tidus, and the supporting casts participate actually as opposed to your three guys on the main team and everyone else who only pops up during their own side events. The only character that doesn't seem to be developed very well is Seymour, who seems to show up to remind you that he's still alive as opposed to having anything important to the story. Well, he is important, it just doesn't feel like he's that way.
The battle system is quite awesome. Although sometimes it feels like you get into rock paper scissor encounters, it forces you to switch around your party members a lot. Kihmari is useless, and Lulu has crazy evade but it never saves her from anything so I didn't bother leveling her very much, but everyone else is pretty balanced. Yuna doesn't get used quite as often since it's not really efficient to summon for normal battles, but she's useful for the suicide summon charges that you'll probably find yourself using on the game's harder battles. Kind of sucks when you read like a battle description like "XYZ is weak against Holy magic!" and realized that you're not anywhere close to Holy. :( On the upshot, Tidus is pretty close to Quick Hit now, or the ability that makes a hasted Citan looks slow.
Aside from Kihamri who has no real reason to level up since he starts out with melee stats but has an extra long newbie path to go through, everyone else's board paths are pretty well designed, though Lulu doesn't get quite enough defense/HP to be useful later on. The speed disparity is pretty nasty later on though, which makes Auron not a favorable choice if not for his Armor Break which is absolutely essential if you want to even hurt Sin. I find that Rikku, the fastest character in the game, can outheal Yuna using Al Bhed Potions very easily. As far as I know most people had a party of Yuna/Auron/Tidus toward the end. I personally prefer Tidus/Wakka/Rikku for pure speed, only switching Auron in for an Armor Break and Yuna to take care of status problems.
I like the smack talk in battle. A lot of cute things they say just to make battle interesting, and it's pretty nice they do it randomly so it doesn't get repetitive like Grandia 2. My favorite one so far is "How many steaks do you think we can make out of this?" when you've Wakka in your party fighting a Behemoth.
Things in this game hit hard. Very hard. Just becuase something kills you in one hit while you're at full health doesn't mean you're underleveled. It usually means you need a summon fodder or a Power Break, or just luck. Things get easier once you get Al Bhed Potions though, which must grow on trees or something. I find Yuna a little bit slow for healing a group of people and stuck wtih Al Bhed Potions throughout most of the game. Like FF8/9 you need to steal a lot if you want to have anything decent for equipment, especially since you don't get decent equipment from monsters/treasure chests. Almost all my equipment so far is taken from a generic 3 slot weapon and slap whatever abilties I can customize, except the Brotherhood, which is a darn good sword.
Summons look pretty and everything, but they're not always useful against bosses unless you charged an Overdrive bar ahead of time. You WILL lose your summon after you pull your Overdrive. I didn't bother with summons for most bosses except the guy whose name ends with Flux, which most people agree as the hardest boss in the game. Summons have pitiful strength and low defense, and roughly same HP as characters, but you only get one of them, and you can't heal them unless you've a ton of Mega-Potions around. Bahamut can clear out the yard trash pretty well but then so can 3 melees. Summons have exceptional evade (though how does something like Anima, which is permanently chained to the ground, evades is beyond me) but once again, you usually can't evade the stuff that really hurts. Their use is basically the suicide squad that charges in to get an Overdrive off and then dies. Kind of disappointing.
The game is very linear. Like FF8/9 you don't get an airship until an hour or so before the final confrontation, and sometimes it feels like Grandia where you can't go back to old areas even though you can just because the game's structured like that. But I think that's a good thing. You're supposed to be on a mission to save the world, not wandering around doing random stuff. Of course, once you get the airship you can do all the sidequests.
I don't know why everyone has problem with Tidus and Yuna's voice acting. Tidus sounds like an arrogant hotshot blitzball player... oh wait, maybe because he is one. Yuna sounds like just another girl and I think that fits her personality too. Not the world's most exciting people to listen to, to be sure, but they're not supposed to be.</div>
