Until the final chapter this game is deserving of an 8.5. Just don't play the ending chapter. Restart the
With all these great things about the game in the open, this game would get a 9.5 or 10 like most of the player reviews seem to think. However, they only judge based on the good. You also need to take into account the bad part of this game (like the end).
For the most part, the graphics and terrain were pretty cool. Occasionally, however, the terrain blocks your view of the characters, making it harder to select a single unit or seeing where a specific enemy leader is. That problem has multiple simple solutions that should have been done as part of the game. Being able to change the camera angle to see from a different side would have been nice in many situations, offering a better view in many situations. Another option could have been to temporarily remove and part of the terrain obscuring sight of characters until the battle and characters had moved elsewhere. At a minimum, they should have made it easier for a battle to move to a little instead of needing to be in one location. However, my main problem with the terrain blocking issue was that the opponents don't suffer the same disadvantages while fighting with blocking terrain.
There are 2 more little problems to address before I get to the one main problem. A class or job system was completely left out in the player controlling sense. Each character gets a class and thats eat. If you don't like it, then you have lost 1/9 of the characters. I didn't like 3 of the characters, thats 1/3 of the game being unenjoyable at least compared to the rest of the game. Most people would say "don't use the characters then," except that you are forced to (more on that later). The other is a lot more minor then the last 2, but You should be able to pick which espers get assigned to which character at the beginning of a battle.
Now for the real problem with this game. It's like a half-pipe with the finishing end about 100 feet higher then the start end, but the curve ending at the same level. At the beginning of the game, you start out and roll along. Your momentum then carries you for a while, but you do need to start working eventually to keep going. As you near the end, after having completed all the missions that can be completed by level 55-60, you find the last few side missions and make it to the last boss. For the most part, the game has increased 1 or 2 levels at a time. Once you reach the end levels, the enemies are at level 99. 50 levels higher then the rest of the enemies you have been fighting. It took long enough to get to level 60, but since the final boss is at a level equal to your game completion or something like that, you really need to be level 99 to beat this game at 100%. What a load of bull. thats a waste of 20 hours growing those final 40 levels. Also, the enemies tend to stay around the level of your strongest character (until the end), but your espers stay at the average level of all your characters. If you decide you hate a character or 2, your average level will drop but the enemies will keep getting higher leveled by the time you realize what a problem that is, its to late to retrain those weaker characters meaning that whole file has just been wasted. That means in order to beat this game at 100% game completion, you need to train 9 characters (even if you hate a few of them) to level 99.
I did not talk much about this games strong points. I know that. I will take them into consideration for the final score. However, many other reviews only talk about the good points so read them to learn about the good points in greater detail.
Overall a really good game. It is really solid and the characters are all pretty good. The graphics are nice and the battle system was developed really nicely and works quite well. The story is outstanding and deserves a bunch of credit.
Those points are why the ending of the game being total bullcrap, this game isn't given a score as bad as the ending. However, all these good things don't make the crappy end to the long game forgivable.
Score before the last chapter: 8.5 (there is still the level growing issue)
score for last chapter: 2.5 (still has graphics and story going for it)
Overall: average would be 5.5 "but the ending is only 1 chapter!!!" you're probly thinking. However, the ending is also supposed to be your reward for playing through the whole game until the end. With the ending being a total slap in the face to the people who played through the game with 90ish mission completion having to face a level 90+ boss doesn't seem to fit. We already spent 20 hours getting to the boss, then you tell ius we have to spend another 20 hours of just training to beat him?
The game gets a 5.5. Don't complain about that. Until the end, its a great game. The end just kills it.