That would've made it much better...

[LunarWeaver]

Better party diversity: For a game that tries so hard to make every character a specialist in at least one field, it does a lousy job. I feel the biggest issue to all this is that some characters are seriously not as useful as others. I never use Sahz as a party member despite being my fave character and the few times I try to use him, I always regret it.

I used him for a while and he was pretty awesome during a period of time. If you take direct control of him, anyway. If I began with him as a Synergist, I could buff more properly than the A.I. and follow up with a Commando for his unique Blitz. If he had Haste and a proper en[element] on, his Blitz destroyed the hell out of everything. Unfortunately, he really does drop off the map at a certain point. In the last part of the game, he doesn't hold up as well, though it is possible to still use him if you control him, I think.

Hmm, let's see. It's a common complaint, but the game truly does hold your hand too much for too long, right down to controlling your exact party leader and other members for almost 20-25 hours, rather there are more than 3 characters present or not. It wouldn't have been so hard to let me hit R2 or L2 and switch the person I control during battle, either. For a game that's already directing you straight forward, giving you an auto-battle option, and a leveling system that's fairly limited for a while, forcing firm control over you even in this simple aspect was a strange choice to me. I liked all the characters anyway (yes, even Vanille and Hope), so I had no problem being this person or that person, but I didn't necessarily want to be them for the whole stretch the game developer's decided. They acted like I needed a babysitter to fully understand their battle system.

Nitpick time! The longer animation the first time you change to a new Paradigm, oi. During fights that would be decently long or bosses, I would do it once immediately just to move it out of the way so they would change faster when I really needed them too. I hated trying to desperately change to Diversity only for everyone to strike a cool pose one by one and me be dead by the time my Medic tried to cure me.