24th September 2003, 8:38 PM
Story was nice, but I liked previous stories better. I even liked the FF8 story. What's so wrong with the whole lost memories thing? Worked out perfectly and wasn't a huge coincidence at all. You think in the wrong direction. Time goes FORWARD so think that way. It makes sense when you think they all hung out in the past so they would all probably stick together, even if most memories (except maybe vague familiarity maybe?) in the future. Then the story works out beautifully!
Battle system was very nice indeed, with a pokémon-esque switch system, plus the ability learning system was great too. However, it was far too linear, as pretty much everyone here says, and in an RPG I find that fatal Even if they are pretty much linear anyway, the old ones always let you go off and do whatever you want BETWEEN places you actually had to go, and that's almost all the fun right there! Why, check out Red Mage's pie chart of gaming goodness! *can't find* Well, side quests dominate 95% of any good RPG!
Well, it's not like FFX lacks side quests. It's just, well, the game prevents you from being able to go on any (except Blitz Ball, the fun turn based sport that I at least found great fun) until the VERY end simply due to the "follow the yellow brick road" nature of the game (in other words there is ONE path to walk on and that's it for the whole game). Then you can go on all manner of quests, but with them all packed in at the end, it's kinda... pushed on you. Oh, and it's just not the same when you just select a destination from a map instead of actually flying/riding/walking there yourself. They shouldn't have removed the overworld map element if they couldn't do it the way I thought they would (overworld still just as expansive but now just like the rest of the game thus meaning HUGE and OPEN, that would have been cool, actually walking into a city from a massive field of going anywhere else you want).
Still, it's not really a BAD game, just not nearly as good as the previous FF games.
Battle system was very nice indeed, with a pokémon-esque switch system, plus the ability learning system was great too. However, it was far too linear, as pretty much everyone here says, and in an RPG I find that fatal Even if they are pretty much linear anyway, the old ones always let you go off and do whatever you want BETWEEN places you actually had to go, and that's almost all the fun right there! Why, check out Red Mage's pie chart of gaming goodness! *can't find* Well, side quests dominate 95% of any good RPG!
Well, it's not like FFX lacks side quests. It's just, well, the game prevents you from being able to go on any (except Blitz Ball, the fun turn based sport that I at least found great fun) until the VERY end simply due to the "follow the yellow brick road" nature of the game (in other words there is ONE path to walk on and that's it for the whole game). Then you can go on all manner of quests, but with them all packed in at the end, it's kinda... pushed on you. Oh, and it's just not the same when you just select a destination from a map instead of actually flying/riding/walking there yourself. They shouldn't have removed the overworld map element if they couldn't do it the way I thought they would (overworld still just as expansive but now just like the rest of the game thus meaning HUGE and OPEN, that would have been cool, actually walking into a city from a massive field of going anywhere else you want).
Still, it's not really a BAD game, just not nearly as good as the previous FF games.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)