The game wasn;t necessarily bad. It was okay. The game however did have massive flaws because it had no clear focus in characters, the gameplay became too drawn out in the later areas and there was little extra content aside from 'hunts' and fetch quests for Espers.
At its core, the game has excellent graphics, a solid customization system, a fun and unique battle engine and good characters. The problem was, all of these things didn't have focus. It felt like the game was trying to do too much and too many people were putting their thumb in the pie.
One thing is clear, that the focus on characters was out of place. Basch, who initially starts of as a very strong character and seemingly a 'leader' of your party, ends up nearly invisible for the majority of the game after you find Ashe. Similarly, Balthier has little to do with the story aside from random introjections of opinions until near the very end of the game. And Ashe, while much of the story revolves around her, does little to move the plot along herself. The 'main' character label seems instead to fall on Vaan, which is sad because he is literally the only one in the game with no influence on the story. Even Penelo has more influence (and character) than he does.
Vaan really does feel like SquareEnix attempt to make an 'identifiable' hero. Much like Link or Chrono or any of the Dragon Quest leads. But it backfired completely, instead making Vaan stand out the most as an incompetent loser who doesn't fit in with the story.
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