Got a lot done. Decided to take down those two Rank V marks anyway and was pleasantly surprised to find a fair but manageable challenge. Reached Jahara, the Golmore Jungle, Henne Mines, and finally Mt. Bur-Omascie (sp?) before deciding to take a break and check out the new line of Mark Hunts that opened up.

Pros:
  • Guests characters are far more interesting in this version. Since you can actually control their Gambit set ups, they now all have several more skills than they did in the original. Larsa is nice for having access to Cura and Bubble so early and his Shades of Black is surprisingly useful, Vossler had a wealth of debuff skills like Expose and Shear, along with strong attacks like Souleater to give him much better variety in battle. Having the infinite potion thing removed also removes their gamebreaker status. The Hunts I've been doing with Larsa ended up being a bit harder since he couldn't just spam Hi-Potions to keep himself and the party alive.
  • While I still have to play around with it some more, the Espers also seem to have been improved with the ability to actually directly control them and the fact they seem to have way beefier stats. Being able to access their Ultimate Attack from the get go will certainly improve the usefulness for people who just want to treat them like classic summons, not to mention bypassing the BS requirements in the original that made it an act of fate to see Hashmal and Ultima's specials.
  • I feel like Fran is such an underrated character. Her story with the Viera and her sisters is actually pretty heartfelt and bittersweet. I'm still a bit surprised people whine about her not having much character development.
  • It's kind of interesting how much this game really foreshadows things. I mean there are major plot points like Balthier's connection with Cid and Nethicite, or Vayne plotting with his dad to stop the Senate for Larsa's sake, but even Mark Hunts and Espers get some heavy foreshadowing if you bother to walk around and actually talk to everyone around town after story events.
  • Also, while I never hated Vaan like other players, I still find it amusing how much the party treats him like trout. He gets more "what a smurfing idiot" looks and lines from the party than any other FF character I can think of. While it's mean spirited, I still find it pretty funny considering how much the Western fandom hates him yet seems to never notice this about his character in the story.
  • I still appreciate the fact that Mark Hunts sometimes require certain conditions to be met in order to face them. Having to find Orthros with an all-female team is still just a neat concept and doubles as a great shout out to the character he's referencing. As I said, it boggles my mind how much this game has shown up SE's later entries in clever design and playing this game again is just solidifying my feeling that it really is the last good FF game the studio has put out.


Cons:
  • Man, why does it take so freaking long to unlock Greatswords and Ninja Blades in this game?
  • While XII does a decent job of enemy variety, Wolves are the lone exception and their seems to be some variation of the creature in almost every area that isn't a tomb or cave, in which case it's skeleton warriors instead.
  • After dealing with the Viera and certain Clan Hunts, I feel it showed me once again that one of the game's biggest missed opportunities was not having other races in your party. I would have loved to have a Bangaa, Seeq, or Moogle party member and see how they saw the world.