As someone who soured on JRPGs several years ago (I've gotten angry at everything since FFVII, played VIII just for the kick-ass card game I loved), this game is seriously f***ing cool.
The battle system is incredibly fun and very different than anything I've seen before. The charged battle meter gets WAAAAYYY complicated later on as you consider "should I stun this guy here or there" or "when should I heal? in between the first or second MOB?" when your damage-dealers have already committed to attacks in other locations.
I'm a HUGE fan of this combat system and the powerups and jobs, while typical JRPG, seem acceptable.
I would also like to give a shout out to this game's AMAZING depth-of-field. Purely amazing and you'll have fun for at least 20 minutes exploring where the perfect camera focus point is and how it affects the rest of the environment. Kudos to Sakaguchi for making me love another badly written, overly teen-angst-ridden storyline. I never thought that would happen again.
Simply put, I think this is the most polished JRPG I've ever played and while I haven't beaten any recent FF games, I've played them all. And BD beats the hell out of them IMO. The combat system is the most intriguing I've seen since probably FFVI or so.
But, this game is still sitting at an 8.5 or so. I can't get over this writing and Shu's HORRIBLE voice-acting. But, an 8.5 from me is pretty amazing when I'm talking JRPGs.
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