Look, it's simple. This game succeeds where so MANY past Final Fantasy games failed BUT failed where so many previous ones succeeded.

Let's get the negative outta the way. The Storyline & Characters. They pretty much sucked big fat hairey balls. They had potential but the game ended before you got seriously attached to anyone. The story....heh. Short, rushed & linear. It wasn't AWFUL, it just wasn't VI, VII or VIII (of which VIII had the worst gameplay, great story though). The rest had decent storys, maybe IV the best of the rest. So storyline & character development were where it fell off.

Let's look at the positives. TRUST ME, they out-weigh the negatives. The key word here is EVOLUTION. I can't believe some of you gamers want to hand back your opposible thumbs.

Firstly the compromise between fans wanting a world mapo back & the fact that increased graphics in-game did not fully allow that, nor make it sensible. They add fields & deserts to compromise & give you a map. Not perfect but more than u get at X.

Secondly, NO MORE RANDOM BATTLES. The most ANNOYING part of any effing FF. Listen, it's not that I don't want to fight Monmster A, B, C, D & E inbetween getting to the next save point. BUT I LOVE THE FACT IT IS NOW MY DECISION. Before it annoyed me, now I find myself running to the monsters. BUT when I want to get from point A to point B because I forgot something, I want to do it in a short time without a Random Encounter every 10 paces. RESULT.

Thirdly, Monsters make more sense. They don't SOMEHOW carry money around with them like some street ho. You take a trophy off them & sell it. Perfect compromise. They also not have slightly more intelligence. THEY RUN WHEN THEY ARE GETTING BOLLOXED...well they try to.

Forth....ly?
Graphics. Best yet. Not on your dumb fields buy where it matters. What they have done to create the eerie madness in mist-laden woods & dungeons is fantastic, surpassed themselves on what they admit to being a very dated machine. If you doubt it, stroll round Feywood, the atmosphere is amazing there.

Lastly,
The Battle System. I cannot be alone in thinking this is the best yet. It's Hastle free when you can't be bothered, you can turn auto-pilot off when you can. Gambits are an effing Godsend on those monotonous Level Up journeys you have to take, but loath.

Square evolved. It HAD to, it wasn't neccessarily LOSING fans, but it wasn't creating many new ones. Kids were being lost to Zelda & such. I think the next evolution would be losing the turn based battle system. It has many fans but many non-fans of Final Fantasy state THAT as being their reason to stay away.

I think this game, for the battle-system alone, is the botox injection this aged series needed.