<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>There's a bunch of things floating through my head, so I'll just say them as I think of them.
<b>Overworld</b>
No overworld. I knew this from the beginning, but it didn't really hit me until I was able to use the "airship" to go to any of the areas. To my surprise, this is actually far more effecient than having an overworld and then having to physically go everywhere. It's much quicker, and that is cool.
But it's missing something. I like overworlds. It's fun to explore them. I wonder why they cut it out; I have a few ideas as to why (nearly everything else in the game is to scale, and obviously, an overworld would not be), but I'd really like to know the reasons.
<b>Airship</b>
Okay, so I'm stuck with an airship that doesn't actually fly anywhere. I can deal. But it bothers me how static the map is. I want to be able to rotate it, zoom in, all that good stuff that makes me feel like it's a real place.
<b>Sphere Grid</b>
I really like the sphere grid. It's even cooler now near the end, now that I can have people go outside of their path and pick up even more abilities and stats. But I'm at the end, and there's not as much point in doing it. What I would have rather played is characters hit the end of their path about halfway or maybe three-fourths through the game. Then you would have more time to venture off into other parts of the sphere grid.
<b>Music</b>
There are certain tracks I like, but I haven't been as taken with this music as I have with all the other FFs. Maybe I'll notice it more after I'm done and I listen to the tracks again, but right now, there are only a few tracks that I really like. And the prelude... <i>thing</i> at the beginning is horrendus.
There are, of course, a whole slew of side quests that I don't have the patience to do, but that's always been the case with FFs. I've just had less and less patience as I get older. However, it is a shame that the only time there's departure from linearity, it's for side-quests that are generally very obscure and esoteric.
In total, however, I really have enjoyed this game. I'm actually surprised that I've almost put in 60 hours. Easily, this has the best battle system I've seen in an RPG for a long time. It's weakest point is the linearity, but because I'm such a sucker for Square and FF - or, maybe because they did such a damn fine job, I like this game.
Rather random: In FFX, using machines is forbidden. In FF6, using machines is the norm, and using magic is cause for alarm. Curious how they're the opposite of each other. I doubt it's intentional, since there was also a similar theme in FF7 (many of the machines took away from the planet's life force, or something like that).
Rather important: this is Hironobu Sakaguchi's last time as the executive producer of a FF game. FFXI is almost the exact opposite, but that doesn't indicate much about the future games to me. But what will the rest of them be like? How much of what we think of as being FF is Sakaguchi's influence? When FF9 came out, I read in several places that they were doing a nostaligia kick because it was the last FF for the PlayStation. What I think is more likely is that it was Sakaguchi's last time at making what is now called "classic" FF game. FF9 was an amalgamation of elements from many of the previous games for old time's sake, and FFX was his shot at doing something new before heading off. Of course I might be wrong, but it makes sense to me.</div>
<b>Overworld</b>
No overworld. I knew this from the beginning, but it didn't really hit me until I was able to use the "airship" to go to any of the areas. To my surprise, this is actually far more effecient than having an overworld and then having to physically go everywhere. It's much quicker, and that is cool.
But it's missing something. I like overworlds. It's fun to explore them. I wonder why they cut it out; I have a few ideas as to why (nearly everything else in the game is to scale, and obviously, an overworld would not be), but I'd really like to know the reasons.
<b>Airship</b>
Okay, so I'm stuck with an airship that doesn't actually fly anywhere. I can deal. But it bothers me how static the map is. I want to be able to rotate it, zoom in, all that good stuff that makes me feel like it's a real place.
<b>Sphere Grid</b>
I really like the sphere grid. It's even cooler now near the end, now that I can have people go outside of their path and pick up even more abilities and stats. But I'm at the end, and there's not as much point in doing it. What I would have rather played is characters hit the end of their path about halfway or maybe three-fourths through the game. Then you would have more time to venture off into other parts of the sphere grid.
<b>Music</b>
There are certain tracks I like, but I haven't been as taken with this music as I have with all the other FFs. Maybe I'll notice it more after I'm done and I listen to the tracks again, but right now, there are only a few tracks that I really like. And the prelude... <i>thing</i> at the beginning is horrendus.
There are, of course, a whole slew of side quests that I don't have the patience to do, but that's always been the case with FFs. I've just had less and less patience as I get older. However, it is a shame that the only time there's departure from linearity, it's for side-quests that are generally very obscure and esoteric.
In total, however, I really have enjoyed this game. I'm actually surprised that I've almost put in 60 hours. Easily, this has the best battle system I've seen in an RPG for a long time. It's weakest point is the linearity, but because I'm such a sucker for Square and FF - or, maybe because they did such a damn fine job, I like this game.
Rather random: In FFX, using machines is forbidden. In FF6, using machines is the norm, and using magic is cause for alarm. Curious how they're the opposite of each other. I doubt it's intentional, since there was also a similar theme in FF7 (many of the machines took away from the planet's life force, or something like that).
Rather important: this is Hironobu Sakaguchi's last time as the executive producer of a FF game. FFXI is almost the exact opposite, but that doesn't indicate much about the future games to me. But what will the rest of them be like? How much of what we think of as being FF is Sakaguchi's influence? When FF9 came out, I read in several places that they were doing a nostaligia kick because it was the last FF for the PlayStation. What I think is more likely is that it was Sakaguchi's last time at making what is now called "classic" FF game. FF9 was an amalgamation of elements from many of the previous games for old time's sake, and FFX was his shot at doing something new before heading off. Of course I might be wrong, but it makes sense to me.</div>
