two_rivers said:

Ok, so now that it's actually out and you've played it (assuming you have), what do you think?

*there may be some very minor spoilers ahead*

I'm maybe an hour or two into it and at this point, while the cinematics, graphics, and overall presentation are very slick, I'm having a difficult time becoming immersed into the story. 

First of all, Sazh, is the epitome of a cliche with the whole Eddie Murphy/Chris Tucker/Martin Lawrence shtick.

Snow and his band of self-proclaimed "heroes" are naive on an astronomical level.  Ugh, bullets flying everywhere and that one nameless doofus in the group wants to lie down and take a nap.  It's as if nobody takes the enemy seriously at all, yet we are supposed to feel empathetic about their dire situation.

And the whole Mom part... "Moms are tough!"

When Snow drops her and she plummets to her doom, I know I was supposed to have some kind of emotional reaction, but all I could do was cringe at the cliche cheesyness.

I'm sure (actually, I hope) that the battles will get more interesting as I progress through the game, but as of right now, I'm not too fond of the system.  It doesn't seem like there is enough time to really consider strategy, it feels rushed.  I'm always in a hurry to attack exactly when the ATB gauge(WTF is ATB anyway?) fills up.

I know it's still way to early for me to pass judgment, but so far my first impression is Meh or possibly even < Meh.

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HeadTripVertigo said:

and as for the cheese...you're playing a jrpg.  it happens.  did you really expect anything different?  the plus is, it's considerably less than many other games.

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The24HourMC said:

Final fantasy can do no wrong.

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I'm 6 hours into the game, and loving it so far.

I actually like the slight deviation from the classic FF theme. The battle system is quite fun once you get far into the game and its actually challenging to fight some of the bigger enemies. I thought the battles would be easy due to the Auto Battle button, but you can't rely on it solely. You really have to learn to use the Paradigm shifts and learn to chain your attacks well to stagger the larger guys.

Now if the damn Square-enix site wuld let me redeem the damn free item code that came with the game.....grrrrr...

I'm playing it on the PS3, btw. I'd recommend anyone that has both an xbox and a PS3, to buy it on the PS3. The xbox version has a cut-down resolution, due to the fact that DVD's just can't handle all of the data, even though it comes on 3 dvd's. PS3 = 1 blu-ray

Xbox360 = 576p
PS3 = 1080p

Last but not least, I'm glad to finally be playing this game, since I've been watching trailers for it since Oct 2006.....

PsilliCoder said:

Same here. I have a copy reserved, but probably won't pick it up for a few days to a week or so. I'm getting it on 360.

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