Now that I've finally reviewed this monster of a game, let's look back at it. This will be sort of like my Suikoden IV review, where I just sort of keel over and talk about what I liked, disliked, and other ambiguities. Using + for what I liked, - for what I disliked, and * for the ambiguous stuff which has things I like and dislike. Also this game is 125th hardest for the Playstation, out of 162, forgot to mention that. It's apparently considered the easiest of the Playstation Final Fantasy titles.
+Junctioning magic and GFs really does help with stats in this game a lot, and the magic system is kind of cool. Drawing magic from enemies and draw points is a neat little gimmick.
+Triple Triad. Wow, this was a fantastic minigame, and honestly should've been the only one in there. The rules being able to be changed and all is fancy as well. Not to mention all the card values are things in-game as well.
+There's some nice side-stuff at Balamb Garden, usually you just listen to side conversations or boot up your computer or something to see them.
+I like the weapon crafting a lot, it still costs you, but it's worth it in the long run as usual. Farming for items from enemies is somewhat more of a hassle.
+While I didn't use them much, the idea of GFs as summons is interesting in itself, providing a meatshield in case your character in question could die easily. Plus they level up and gain abilities, further making the game more broken.
+Refining items of course, again really breaking the game open quite easily.
+Other GF abilities are fantastic, like the Call Shop one as well. Optional content that really pays off. Not to mention combining the shop, refining, bam, infinite money.
+Well, having to fight GFs to obtain them isn't entirely new, but then again, the fights against them tend to actually be pretty decent anyways. And in Ifrit's case, funny if you decide to use Shiva, just for some dialogue. Tonberry is an exception here.
+One thing I hate about most JRPG vehicles is their lack of reverse buttons. Every usable vehicle here has one, which is nice.
+Splitting up party members for certain quests is always fun.
+Squall's character at the beginning is alright. He's basically not in the mood for petty drama, and is nonchalant enough during the final exam while Zell and Seifer are less so. I like that. He's devoted to the job.
+Wedge and Biggs are pretty funny, as are Fujin and Raijin at times. Zone and Watts are also somewhat endearing at times.
+Quistis, upon figuring out Rinoa is the better girl for Squall, takes the loss in stride and doesn't end up in jealousy.
+At the end of Disc 3 Fujin drops her stupid speech pattern which I thought was cool.
+Heck, the disc ending cliff-hangers and the epic parts just before the disc changes are all done real well.
+Cactuar grinding is always lots of fun, especially once you get 100 Triples to junction onto Hit%.
+The Propagators on the Ragnarok were a pretty interesting puzzle boss gimmick.
+Thank god there's no worries about having to lose equipment overall in this game. The switching mechanic here doesn't always involve switching characters, it can involve just switching junctions and magic, which is a very nice anti-frustration feature.
+This one contradicts the one above, but when you finally fight Ultimecia, having to randomize your party is a neat gimmick and can screw an unprepared player. But if you aren't intending to use a character, you can kill them off in the hopes that someone else can take their place then.
-These tutorials offer a lot of information but it's really a lot more confusing than what you actually will end up doing.
-TIMED MISSIONS. Seriously these are horrific, especially due to this game's long screen transitions as well as the long spell animations.
-The RNG to change rules in Triple Triad is ridiculous to manipulate. Furthermore, the Direct trade rule SUCKS. As for actual rules, you want to avoid Random and get Open, and that's what I managed to do overall.
-The Queen of Cards sidequest is dumb, and let's not forget that she either takes her cards and goes off elsewhere and you have to regain the cards from her son, or again, manipulating the RNG so that you can get her to move to certain locations.
-Argh, can I please not have Squall always in my party? It really does suck that ever since Final Fantasy 7, the whole "not dropping the main character from the active party except in certain circumstances" is in full effect. I actually had to kill Squall myself in order to get him to stop gaining levels all the time and being so far ahead of the other two party members.
-Squall goes from being nonchalant and devoted to being more sappy and lovestruck with Rinoa by Disc 3. It just comes out of the blue.
-I know I considered Laguna to be an idiot hero, but somehow, Rinoa ended up being worse in hindsight. Her plans backfire a whole lot and she ends up being captured often. I keep Laguna on that list mostly since his actions didn't have anyone backing him up.
-Hell, I didn't even have Rinoa in my party at the end of Disc 2. I rarely even bother to use her and yet she still ends up being important in all the scenes.
-Seifer's whole motives on being "a sorceress's knight" in his dreams are pretty darn dumb.
-Hell, the fact that the three characters you see on the cover end up being the most annoying shows how bad some of the characterization is on the main cast. You don't see a whole lot of it on other playable characters here. Quistis is good. Selphie's okay apart from the stupid "booyaka" thing and just being overly cheerful, which isn't entirely that bad. Zell's annoyance in general also isn't entirely that bad since that's basically his whole character and he doesn't change for the worst. Irvine doesn't even get much development.
-Of course Laguna just dropping his comrades into the ocean is a really REALLY dumb moment.
-I'm generally a fan of gender-breaking characters, but Adel seriously looks nothing like a sorceress. She is jacked like some huge guy who came from a six-hour weightlifting workout.
-NORG is a character basically made to be hated, just because. The whole "Bujurururu" thing doesn't really help.
-The Obel lake sidequest is a waste of time and pixel-hunting
-Most magic in this game that isn't Meltdown, Triple, Aura, or some high-level spell isn't worth it, not even for attack weaknesses.
-The rest of the game's minigames aren't really that fun. The train mission seems hard, but it isn't. The whole "health bar" minigames, one with the clash of the gardens and Squall fighting the paratrooper, the second being Laguna vs. the Ruby Dragon, are real iffy on the controls and the reactions and are real frustrating to deal with.
-Chocobos don't really get a whole lot of love here. They don't need it, but I'm pretty sure no one even bothered to pick up a Pocketstation and do the Chocobo World thing because quite frankly, there's not much to go for it. I didn't even know a Pocketstation existed until I played this game.
-This game really does like to lag at a few inopportune spots. Examples include being at Esthar most of the time (including the shops!), and many boss battles (problematic if I intend to use Squall's attack or Renzokuken).
-The sidequest to get Tonberry King's GF was insanely boring, having to run circles around one screen of Centra Ruins to get into battles with Tonberries, which are high-health enemies capable of killing outright (assuming you killed lots of enemies with your characters already), and only appear one at a time. I challenged myself to do it while the clock was running and had to leave several times because of Odin. Maybe I should've got Odin beforehand, but I'd rather keep him instead of Gilgamesh later on in the game so that's why I saved him for Disc 4.
-Ultima Weapon and Omega Weapon are the bonus bosses that are uber hard, but neither are really worth it anyways. Ultima Weapon isn't really worth it due to the fact that killing him removes fixed encounters that have very good drops. Sure you get an A SeeD ranking as well as the Eden GF early, but bleh. Omega Weapon because the fight against it is even more boring due to following a completely set pattern and the reward being a measly Three Stars item plus Proof of Omega. It's all bragging rights.
-I really am not too keen on the whole Laguna being Squall's father thing. It's not really done to death, which is actually for the better, but it's pretty odd how it ended up being. Laguna just ended up being a stepdad to Ellone, because apparently Raine's tombstone at the end shows the name Loire, which implies that she decided to marry Laguna or something. Meanwhile, Squall was likely at the orphanage while Laguna took care of Ellone. But still, there's not much to go around out of it all.
-I can't help but think Odine and Ultimecia's dialogue is done by Chrono Cross's Accent System. I think Raijin's also the same way as well.
*The idea of the SeeD ranking for their final exam is pretty strange in itself. It's quite an accomplishment getting the best possible score by being fast, blunt (not talking to people and not running away a lot), and killing enough opponents. Getting a bonus from actually killing the stupid robot thing on the bridge is worthwhile too.
*And then there's the matter of SeeD salary, which is surprisingly the only way to get paid in-game. Rank increases upon doing plot stuff and killing things, and decreases with stupid actions at the garden, not killing or running from enemies and the like. While cool, ultimately I find no real use for this sort of mechanic. I've never really had any trouble with money in the Final Fantasy games anyways.
*Getting into the dream sequences is pretty odd, so Ellone's whole character is pretty strange overall in this game. I don't hate her though.
*Well, I'm not too keen on character deaths, and it seems that no one important actually died aside from President Deling, and even he was minor anyways. As well as Ultimecia at the end of course. But there's nothing extremely climactic overall.
*Why is it that every town in the game ends up having enemies at some point or another. It's quite interesting that it happens, except that it's always the foot soldiers you fight, which are the most boring enemy archetype in the game anyways.
*The whole Shumi Tribe thing was ambiguous as all hell. It's got the showmanship of respecting elders, but you can't really consider the Shumi Elder all that good for what he does to his attendant, even if he does do the job eventually.
*The idea to move Balamb Garden is interesting in itself but it's really slow. Also why are the train tracks connecting Galbadia to Esthar spanning the entire middle section of the world map?
*Limit breaks, in their return, are basically desperation attacks. Here's the main problem, they seem to be random on how to trigger them and you need to be at a crisis level (have a status effect and/or remain at low HP/have Aura status). Sure, there are some great ones like Irvine's Shot and Renzokuken, but trying to trigger them is quite the trouble.
*I almost want to consider everyone being related by orphanage as a negative, but it's not entirely so. Irvine, the guy who reveals that everyone except Rinoa and including Seifer were all kids at the same orphanage, also reveals that Edea was the matron. This fact is the reason why Irvine was hesitant about shooting Edea in Disc 1.
*Odin in general. Nice if you don't feel like fighting, but why bother when you can level up Diablos to get the Enc-None ability and use that instead? Odin's basically a random "get free experience" card. Gilgamesh functions the same way, and only really is just there so you don't have to really fight Seifer if you don't want to at the end of Disc 1.
*For that matter, Angelo as well. Some of her abilities tend to show up even when you aren't using limit breaks. I can imagine Angelo Search being potentially the most useful, but I never really bothered with it.
*There's really not much to the final disc apart from fighting Ultimecia. Then again, there's not much to the final disc in Final Fantasy 7 so okay.
*Moombas aren't bad, but they're not all that interesting.
*Fisherman's Horizon is a nice little breather area, with not a whole lot of fighting as well as some other events, like reuniting with other party members from the missile mission, the Master Fisherman, the antics of the boy fisher and the shopkeep he nearly chokes, and Galbadian idiots in general. It does have a moron as its leader, one who's so pacifist he doesn't realize how ruthless Galbadia was gonna be. Also moving around in this area is a hassle, considering it takes a very long time to get from Balamb Garden docking point to the rest of the area.
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