I was receiving a blow-by-blow account of the first several hours of the game from a friend last night who happens to be one of two or three people in real life whose opinions on games I truly respect.
He basically mirrored the Edge review (that he hasn't read) that so many of you were blasting as being unfair. He complained about the writing ("That's what heroes do" and "Moms are tough" being the leading groan-inducing candidates), the lack of being able to do ANYTHING outside what the game railroads you through (including even leveling), and was pretty blase on the gameplay itself.
Between some of the reviews and his accounts of the first several hours, this title went from a "meh" to a "do not purchase" for me. Maybe I'll pick it up after it drops to under $30 used. It's too damned bad that Square has apparently lost the ability to make a solid console RPG; there's still a soft spot in my heart for even mediocre JRPGs (after all, I did rather enjoy Blue Dragon not that long ago).
It looks like I'll stick to handheld JRPGs because those seem to be the only platforms doing anything interesting.
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