Final Fantasy 12 Revenant Wings: Finished! I think I'll rant in a simple Pros then Cons style!
Pros:
-Core gameplay. Was worried at first, but thing worked its way nicely and such.
-Bringing back the usual Esper faces. Call me a sap, but the likes of Ifrit, Shiva, Bahamut, Ramuh, etc. are always nice to see return! FF12 having them as mere Airships felt disappointing and such.
-BASCH LIVES!!!!!!
-Weapon Customization and renaming!
-Existence of Gilgamesh
-PC Bagammon. What?
-Using Basch's new end game design. Seeing him in that outfit and new hairstyle was neat and all, for all that he didn't quite feel like Basch.
-The very last map. Cute way to have all 9 PCs fight at once, and it was stylish.
Cons:
-Plot. Its cliched beyond reason, and pretty much expected, etc. The only thing that was kind of neat was how the game goes from "Save ze Auraliths!" to "Destroy the Auraliths!" once you learn the truth about them.
-Ashe and Basch's role in the game. Lets not mince words; they were forced in. It was pretty much "the other 4 are here, as well as a few NPCs like Kytes, lets toss in those two for a reuniting the whole gang!" Ashe and Basch could have been replaced with any damn character, and nothing would have changed. What about the others? Penelo is the whole Best/Girlfriend of Vaan thing, so that's only logical. The game plays quite a bit about Sky Pirates, so Balthier and Fran are pretty much just shoe-ins based on that alone (and the beginning of the game worked them in anyway so that they wouldn't be forced in later.) They tried to get Basch, Ashe, and Larsa into the game by saying "Now Ivalice cares! The Queen and Emperor of the two main countries in Ivalice want in to help, and they brought a Judge with them too!"
-Penelo. Just...Penelo. Everything about her, excluding Gameplay, was horrible. In esscence she's Akane Tendo, except, you know, NOT FUNNY...and Akane was probably the least funny of the main characters in Ranma 1/2 anyway (this may not necessarily be an insult given what Manga I'm referring too <.<.) Her new design was atrocious. Yeah, I know; they wanted to make her look more like an adult, and less like a little girl, but...umm...did it need to be a fanservice outfit, and with a horrible hairstyle? Also, her dancing is very much unattractive <_<
-Some map designs. Mydia was a retarded fight the second time over; she can completely decimate your team without noticing, even if you blitz her. The final map was alright until near the end; yes, ok, I'm fine with you summoning Bahamut mid fight, and having a scare moment...BUT DON'T START WHIPPING OUT THIS MASSIVE DEATH BEAM THAT OHKOS ALL CARBUNCLES AND PENELO (the healers.) I had to resort to a long boring strategy of repeatedly send my level 3 (Chaos in the winning run) to attack until Bahamut came out, have Bahamut attack my main force away from the boss, beat him, send all my Espers at the final boss. Boring and stupid, and took too long.
-Too many ranged PCs. Ok, Penelo I'll let slide; she's ranged only in the Weapon Triangle sense for defensive purposes (and later, for Holy); otherwise, she's a healer and serves a completely different purpose. Otherwise? 2 Melee PCs (both good!), 2 Flying PCs (one really good, one garbage), and *4* Ranged PCs. ARGH! Yeah, some had quirks...some...yeah, needed at least one more Melee (Bagammon could have been a perm PC maybe?
), or another Flier (uhh...LARSA! Yeah, no clue how that'd work.)
...I'm running out of things to talk about. So...uhh...5/10? 6/10? Something like that!
