Battles are now much more interesting and strategic. Since you may switch characters, weapons, and armor mid-match, much more planning can be involved in every fight—especially boss battles.

Enemy variety is low—I mean really low. I guess this could be justified by one of the side quests you’ll discover later on in the game, but even that serves as a flimsy excuse. Pretty much every region contains the same half dozen to dozen enemy models with different colours. Even Sin reminds me of the final dragon boss in Chrono Cross. On top of that, the encounter rate is inordinately high at some points. You’re helped out, though, by the fact that save spheres now recharge your hp/mp.

It’s difficult to locate abilities on the Sphere Grid (the board that you use to level up character stats). Take note of the spells or abilities that you really want; otherwise you’ll either go through the game without even getting the best spells (most of which you don’t actually need), or you’ll just be blindly leveling up stats that you don’t even want a character to have. Take some time to plan out your route on the Sphere Grid to decide how you want your character to develop. The game gives you choices as to how to develop your characters, but not that much choice. Initially, each of your characters will be forced to go on a certain route on the grid until you can unlock certain spheres. It’s good that there is some customizability to the game, but it heavily detracts from the classes. It’s not like in FFVIII, where there are no classes, so getting everyone to learn everything really doesn’t mean much. In here, Lulu’s suppose to be a black mage, but you have the option to turn her into a warrior. For me, Rikku (a thief) became my most powerful mage. It doesn’t make much sense. Still, you can stay traditional and go on the most obvious routes.

The towns are still generally very small. With the added power of the PS2 I would have really liked to see some more elaborate and well thought-out town design. A redeeming quality is that townsfolk now walk around as if they have their own business, rather than just standing around all the time waiting for you to go over and talk to them. They’ll go in and out of houses just as you do. Problem is they say the same thing pretty much wherever they are. More context-specific dialogue would be nice. It doesn’t really cost them anything since the townsfolk are not voice acted.

Finally, something I always want to know about any adventure game or RPG: the time. This game should take about 45 to 50 hours. I clocked in at a healthy 81 hours myself. Much of that extra time was taken up playing Blitzball, while the rest of it was spent on the mini-games and acquiring ultimate weapons/secret Aeons. All-in-all a great game and a worthwhile experience for any Final Fantasy fan. Minor story problems, minor graphical glitches. Character interaction is great, with easy-to-love characters all around. Direction and voice acting are gems in a cookie-cutter RPG world. Despite minor flaws (nobody’s perfect), it is still a fantastically addictive experience.

A final score of 95%. 5% off for clipping, lip-syncing (I don’t need the lips to move perfectly, but at least time it correctly), other miscellaneous minor flaws. Any RPG fan should be delighted with this game.

Overall Score: 95%

send article   hardware newsletter   article comments (7)   Lowest prices check   print

Submit our article to: Digg this! del.icio.us