I haven't read anybody else's impressions yet, since I didn't want to 'ruin' anything for myself; but after a few hours with the game, here's some of my own. I don't know how useful they will be since it seems several people have already posted their impressions.
- Everything is real-time, which was expected (and dreaded, as I'm not a fan of RTS games at all). The difference here is that the pace is a little slower than most RTS games, and in my experience, things don't rush you - giving you time to think about what you're doing next. Enemies generally wander around on the map until you walk near them, similar to FF12.
- So far, you don't have that many options, but I find that to be in my favor. You have four unit types (flying, direct, indirect, support) and it's kind of like rock/paper/scissors in the way you'd expect: flying units do well against direct units, indrect units do well against flying units, and so on. As someone who does not like RTS games and finds herself overwhelmed when too many things are going on at once, I'm finding this to be a pretty good balance.
- Whenever you perform an action, the game de-selects your units, which can be a pain in the butt. You can select all units on the screen with X, or you can cycle through party members with Y to select them and their summons, which is useful. It
is a bit hard to select the exact unit you want sometimes, especially if you're trying to manually heal somebody. The camera is moved with the dpad, which is nice.
- You can summon monsters (of course). Each of your party members can summon monsters to be in their little group, which costs capacity, but the capacity limit is global. I actually like this a lot better than having one gargantuan force - even if you do usually travel together as a group - because it makes it very easy to split off when necessary, provided you've constructed your 'deck' of summons well (more on that later).
- It started out pretty easy. The first few missions were pathetically easy. Starting in chapter 2, some of the fights got really hard for me, especially the first real boss. The optional missions (which opened up in chapter 3) have proven to be a challenge, as well. I very nearly died in the first one I tried to do (which had me fighting monsters that were a higher rank than my own).
- The gambit system is
very disappointing. I was hoping for gambits like in FF12, but really all you do is select one move to be used automatically. On the upside, it doesn't seem like moves cost anything to use, and instead just have recharge times. I find myself switching my active gambit fairly often, just because it can be so annoying to target the units you want. For example: I usually have Penelo's gambit set to Curaga, but if a few units in the group get a negative status effect, I'll switch her gambit over to Esunaga because it's not always easy to select the units you need to cure.
- The License Ring is very simple, but it works well enough. You obtain 聖石 (called Auracite in English in one of the mission titles), and use it to make contracts with new summon monsters. You start in the center and move outwards in many different directions, moving along the paths as you would the sphere grid in FFX. The only annoying part is that you can only see one quarter of the ring at a time -- it has to be rotated with the shoulder buttons before you can see more of it.
- Before battle, you're asked to put together 'decks' of summons. The deck is just which summons will be available to you in battle, either immediately or through the summoning circle (a location available on the field, which is sometimes in control of the enemy -- you can take it over). There are five slots in a deck, and each slot has a rank number, which limits the rank of summon you can place into it.
- A little ways into the game, something called 'astral power' is introduced, which allows you to increase the power of your units mid-battle (it only lasts for the duration of the battle, however). The astral power (AP) is accrued over time during the fight, and you can use it to level your units at any summon circle that you control. It's been pretty useful for me so far!
- The story has had me chuckling a few times. There's definitely some satire here, similar to FFX-2. Whether that's a bad thing or not is up to you. There have been a number of serious parts, too, though and they have been pretty interesting. I'm eager to see what's going to happen next.
- There are some nice videos here and there, and they look pretty nice.
- The music, all in all, sounds really nice. A lot of it is from FF12, but there is actually more original stuff here than I expected. Some of the original stuff has motifs of FF12 music, too. There are even battle themes, now, which play when you encounter enemies on the field. After the last enemy dies, the music returns to the field music.
As someone who was really afraid of how this game would turn out - having LOVED FF12 but loathing RTS games - I am pleased with this game, so far. There are less of the RTS elements I really dislike than I expected, and under most circumstances, I'm allowed to go at my own pace without being rushed by the opposition. It kind of feels like a mixture of FFT and FF12 in some ways, just completely in real time. The game could get worse, but as of now (chapter 4) my opinion is a favorable one.
