Well, just finished XF, so I guess that means I'll be moving onto either Front Mission 1 or Rondo of Swords soon. Either way, I'm done with the PSP for a while, so I won't miss it too much as it makes the rounds with XF, given there's at least two people I know who are interested in borrowing it.
As for sit down and stay gaming, Dragon Quest 8 has managed to start sucking up my time. It's a nice combo of a sweet world map, with something DQ7 desperatly needed: the feeling that they had actually refined the battle system. The skill system, while feeling a bit slow at times, is fun enough and serves its purpose well. It could do with a bit more knowledge of what you're getting into ahead of time, but then, it's always been somewhat in fashion to keep gamers in the dark about just how exactly thing work.
Currently at Pickham, trying to get Medea back, which is a shame as I had just gotten a new shield to ding and neglected to pull it out in the few minutes between when it was ready, and I foolishly progressed the plot. It doesn't help that the Reinforced Boomerang is dwindling back into the realm of vaguely balanced, and the Snakeskin Whip isn't quite as good as the boomerang for sheer ass kicking might. But, I've got my next dungeon lined up, and a list of three monsters to hunt, two of which I have a good idea where they are, and am only clueless in the case of the slime, though I think I spotted it previously, just in an area I was struggling to get through in a timely manner and so I ran away from it at the time.
But, enough of that, and on to the centerpiece of this post. XF Review
The story is... I won't say it's the worst I've ever seen, but it is stock RPG at best. Band of peace loving idiots kill all who oppose them while spouting love and peace dogma the entire time. Bonus points for preaching the power of the people (who are mostly enjoying sitting back and gouging them, doing jack all but racking in massive war time profits) whenever possible. The one nifty thing is that they do give each PC their own foil so that they're guaranteed to have a bit of time in the sun. Also, it not only didn't make blatant use of some plot points that they have hanging around from early in the game, and... highlight them in some unusual ways near the end, suggesting they'll be more important in any sequel that is made. There's also one other thing they did in the ending which I didn't expect, but I'll be bloody surprised if that doesn't get undone in some bit of dramatics in the sequel. Which is a shame, since it'd be a nice touch otherwise.
Honestly, my only really strong thought on the PCs is that Ragnar managed to annoy me whenever he was given a serious moment. Just not the kind of character I like. On the other hand, Labrynthia had her moments, and Tony was great whenever he showed up, including one or two really random, but oddly fitting moments. His last appearance in particular is nifty.
As for the villains, Rupert and Weisheit are stock villains of the puppy kicking variety, just on different scales. Weis goes big and fails, while Rupert stays small and pulls it off with style. He was a fun villain to hate, and while he was always a blast to see in action, it was also bloody satisfying to finally beat him to a pulp and know he's not getting back up this time.
Edna... honestly, her end was too good for her, and I was hoping for something a little more fitting. But, if Rupert was the villain you loved to hate, then she was the trainwreck in action that you didn't need to see die because you knew that anything she touched would go south in the worst possible way. Heck, I know I cheered when she got one especially well deserved smackdown.
Which brings me to Charlton. The man who couldn't catch a break, but also doesn't get painted as an entirely evil puppy kicker. Which is actually pretty impressive as the game gives him plenty of chances to kick the dog, and he dutifully takes them all. But... the PCs speak about him fondly once his arc is done, and the party doesn't even have to kill him. And it all feels justified, because he really does feel like he's doing it for the good of the nation instead of just his own good (there is some of that there, this ain't a Suikoden where our antagonists don't need to be evil) not to mention the fact that Murphey seems to take a particular and sadistic glee in hunting him down.
Finally, there's the gameplay. All things considered, this game is about as fun to play as FFT. You've got a lot of options, and while the synthesis system needs a lot of work, the world map feels like it's what FFT should have been, giving you the ability to choose to enter randoms. As well, you not only get a lot of choices in how you can build your characters, but the class skill progression feels like it generally has the skills in the right order from least useful to most (Accellerator being the big exception to that rule). The enemies are varied as well so that you need to think a bit about what you do in your setups, and so that just clinging to one thing won't necessarily work.
All in all, not a top tier game, but probably deserving of a 6 or 7 out of 10.
