Got some more playtime in.

Pros
  • I feel the two best changes to the battle system are the fact that staggering is purely optional and not a requirement for random encounters. Normal enemies don't have ridiculous HP totals yet, and so I don't usually see them get staggered often since they die before I get there with a few exceptions. The second is that the Monsters have far more variety to team building and though they are stuck to one role, their roles are not as pure as the human characters with magic builds still having a melee attack and vice versa. The Limit Breaks they have are also neat and are thankfully balanced enough to add variety and not break the game.
  • I also appreciate that these changes to the battle system actually encourages me to change up my Paradigm shifts based on the area I am in, as opposed to OG where there really is an ideal team and paradigm setup that can coast you through the whole game.
  • Just broke the timeline, so I got to experience my first changed timeline.
  • Looks like their is a trans-dimensional theme park/casino in the future.
  • Finally acquired a second medic monster and found my first Sentinel one.
  • Mog is surprisingly less annoying than I thought they would be.
  • I still keep chuckling about the Simpsons meme I posted in this thread every time Lightning and her whereabouts are mentioned. Like calm down, you already know where she is, and you know she's more or less fine spending eternity fighting discount Leon.
  • I already went to the timeline that has all the Chocobo monsters, and I acquired a Commando type, but I kind of want to go back and get the Red Chocobo I encountered and see if they have a Black one as well.
  • Just as I predicted, some of the crafted accessories give altered bonuses for lower CP cost. I am also happy the game kept the equipment set bonuses from the OG game and seem to have added some skills. I don't know if it will be well implemented yet since I only have a few options at the moment, but it was one of the better ideas from the OG version.


Cons
  • Oh god, they were not lying when they said Late Bloomer, some of my monsters are in the 20s in terms of level and won't earn another skill for like forty levels. Yeesh... Not helping me is the fact that I don't have access to the item tier to get them much higher at this point, so some of my monsters are stagnating.
  • The variety of monsters is nice, but it certainly feels like they are not created equally. Like my Chocobo COM is way meaner and more dominating than some. I have a few SAB monsters, but only two really have useful spell selections from the get go. I am probably going to have to consort a guide before I reach the end.
  • Caius is a cheating bitch. I almost nailed him with little effort in our first fight and he nearly killed my party by pulling off some uber powerful attack at last 10% of his health that crippled my team and gave him like five buffs with another move before he kept alternating between his annoying attacks and this one super attack.
  • The Yeuls have no personality whatsoever, and I feel that is going to be detrimental down the line when I get to their backstory.
  • I have reached the first point in the plot where I need to backtrack to figure out where to go next because I've reached the end for a few timeline at the moment. I am also annoyed because I've reached the point where I'm getting side missions that are going to require time-traveling smurfery to complete and I'm likely not far enough along to do any of them.