"Ok, I respect that. I know that FFX turned some fans off because they took a lot of the explorability and backtracking of previous Final Fantasies (thankfully FFXII corrected that). I think the worst thing they did with FFX was taking off the entire World Map itself, it didn't feel the same without one."
Also the story is just coming across as nothing special, which wouldn't be a problem save for all the years in development and effort on the visuals. Plus that many of the cut scenes show all this beautiful world, and you don't get to actually look at most of it.
I remember how awesome Estar looked in FFVIII and how cool it would be to explore a place like that full. I was hoping this gen would take advantage of that. I didn't expect a GTA style game in such a city, just that S-E seems to be focusing on the visuals of these games at the expense of other things.
Not that the visuals are bad (and the look nicely sidesteps the uncanny valley by being more CGI anime than photorealism), just the focus on them.
A flashy-first game is awesome when it comes out. A great-first game is awesome forever.
Plus, just for the hell of it: Kelly Brook at the 2008 BAFTAs
