>Disc 3, ~ 32 hours in, party is between levels 31-36.
Look, I know I’m a JRPG neophyte, and my frame of reference w/r/t these games is incredibly limited, but GODDAMN. It’s all I’ve been playing for the last week. I very nearly called in sick today just so I could pull a marathon session.
Combat continues to be enjoyable, which is saying a LOT considering how tedious random encounters can be. I’m starting to be able to craft some pretty bad-ass rings, which in a way hearkens back to the Alchemy portions of Oblivion (when I first got into Oblivion, I was obsessed with harvesting ingredients). The dialog is hit-or-miss (why are there no dialog-writing seminars at GDC?) but the story is engaging, and the characters are just 3-dimensional enough to keep everything interesting. The voice actor doing Jansen – I love this guy. I’m not sure he’s ever played a videogame before, because he’s definitely NOT adhering to the usual standard of line readings (which the rest of the LO cast is guilty of); I hope this guy continues to get work, he’d be especially great with in a Bioware setting.
But again – I’ve never played any of the FF games (except for III on my DS, and I never got very far into it), nor any of the other major franchises or one-offs – so consider my recommendation accordingly.
Shouts From The Couch 