Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Grows on you"

First off, I really liked the story of this game. There is a ton of character development, interesting plot twists, happy moments, sad moments, and a satisfying ending. And despite how deep the story can get, you never get lost. Basically there are two places that hate each other: Pulse and Cocoon. Pulse is the land below, and Cocoon is the land in the sky. There are these god-like beings called Fal'cie who control both of these lands, and occasionally they take a human and turn them into L'cie. L'cie are people who are given a focus (a goal) that they must complete within a certain period of time. If they complete the focus in time they turn into a crystal and gain eternal life. But if they don't fulfil their goal in time, they get turned into these monster type creatures. In the game, the main characters are turned into L'cie, and the game consists of trying to figure out what their focus is.

There are a lot of complaints about the linearity of this game, but I personally didn't mind this too much. In the game, the l'cie are being hunted by the army (sanctum), and the main characters are on the run. So it only makes sense that the characters don't have time to stop and explore. Once you reach chapter 11 (no spoilers), there is a LOT of exploring. You suddenly go from areas that are straight lines to this huge field with tons of cool places to explore. unfortunately, if you don't like linearity, you will have to wait 10 chapters before you reach this point.

The battle system in this game is very fast paced. The best way I can put it is imagine a combination of FFXII's system, and FFX's system. In the first 3 chapters of the game (the game is divided into 13 chapters), the battles are all fairly easy and can be completed by simply pressing the auto-battle button. But once you reach chapter 4, the battles become satisfyingly difficult and take a lot of thought to complete. My only issue with this was once you reached chapter 12 (no spoilers), and suddenly the monsters become PAINFULLY difficult, taking sometimes 20 minutes to defeat (not to mention the bosses which in some cases took an hour or more).

Lastly, I loved the music in this game. It's different from some of the older final fantasy games, but still gorgeous.