I wanted to wait until I beat it until I started checkin the forums. so here it goes.
And yes, there will be spoilers.
Before I get into it, I do want to say that this is a pretty good game, good level & character design, nice backstories to things, interesting gameplay.
But it's not a Final Fantasy.
First off, I already knew when it was in production that it was going to have a little bit of the touch of Final Fantasy Tactics, since that game's production team replaced the usual higher-ups to allow them to work with the PS3 and work on XIII. Cool. I loved Tactics.
But they made it waaaay too much like Tactics. First of all, Ivalice!? I'm glad they keep bringing this world up again and again, but for a numbered entry of FF? The entire game takes place on this little section-region-semi-continent-whatever. In Final Fantasy you're supposed to save the world, not a mega-kingdom. The way you're buffs go onto your characters look just like it did in FFT. The way you get around is basically the same as in FFT, the "world map" (if you really want to call it that) looks and functions exactly like it did in FFT! If they were going to do that, they should've went all out rather than this mediocre hybrid of the two series'.
Even the music sounds like it came straight out of Tactics. I understand, they're using the same development team. But if you're going to have them make a game in the same vein as their previous ones, don't make it the next Final Fantasy. The only song that sounded like it belonged in the game was the intro, which has been around since the first one! Well I guess the next best one would be Gilgamesh's theme. Oh wait, they stole that from FFV. Well they did a good job with the "Kiss Me Goodbye" song. Oh wait, Nomura did that one.
Is it just me, or does the Archades/judge theme sound like a rip off of the Empire's theme in Star Wars? This brings me to my next point.
It completely makes no sense, but this game is too much like Star Wars. I remember when I first played the demo that came with Dragon Quest VIII, I thought the game looked like a mix between FFT and Star Wars. I didn't know I was going to be right.
An empire against a rebellion. Large starcruisers with smaller ships having their dog fights. They wanted to be so cool that they made not 1, not 2, but 5 DARTH VADERS!!! (judges). Ashe is princess Leia, Balthier is Han Solo, Fran is a sexy Chewbacca (she's the non-human co-pilot!!!!), The Strahl is the Milennium Falcon, Vaan is Luke Skywalker (poor kid that just wants to fly), Basch is Vaan's Obie Wan Kinobe (except he fought with his brother instead of his father) and Penelo is R2-D2. Anastis is Yoda, the Bahamut is the Death Star, you get the idea.
Oh, and by the way.... Where the F*** is the storyline? In the beginning they bombard you with a load of movies and Omdore talking, but soon after that you're plunged into the hours of senseless dungeon wandering. Without even getting a Game Over, it takes a long time to make it through the mazes that are the dungeons in this game. If you want to go mark-hunting, one of the biggest aspects of this game, you might as well kiss any hope of a decent story goodbye. Halfway through the game, I asked myself "Where am I? What am I doing? Why am I doing this? Where am I headed? Why am I here? What is the point of this game?"
Like I said, the ratio of time you spend mindlessly wandering to the amount of time you spend advancing a story is not good. What else? Well the mini-map is rediculous, although it was necessary for the labyrinthical dungeons.. With a mini-map, we might as well go back to 2D gaming. The music was not up to par, the License system was a poor re-hash of the Sphere Grid (by the time you get everything, everyone can do everything), none of the traditional summons are there, no crystals, no theme of life & death, no 1,000 year legend, no threat to the planet, the higher power controlling the dark warriors (vanaar) had no clear motives, Cid was just some douchebag, i'd hardly call the strahl an "airship", the list can go on and on.
Like I said, I did enjoy playing the game, but if it wasn't titled Final Fantasy, it probably wouldn't have appealed to me. Thanks alot, Square-Enix, for wasting 108 hours of my life. Thanks alot.