I'll be comparing this to SO3 and SO4 since i have not played the others. This is an in progress review for those considering buying the game. I am about 15 hours in. Not sure my completion percentage.
Good
- Phenomenal voice acting makes every character a joy to the ears.
- Voiced interactions in place of cut scenes was a nice touch where i maintain control of my character. (See Bad point of this below)
- Enjoyable single character combat (when you don't have to micro manage the others, which you only do rarely anyways since the game is so easy)
Bad
- Too easy on normal, requires 0 skill making it effectively a button mash.
- Some concepts are lacking more detailed information such as the reserve gauge. There are 3 colors but how do you charge each one specifically? This was never mentioned and simply an assumption, oh the player will figure it out. This happens with some other tutorials as well. Lack of details on RUSH and the bonus received, you get 10% of your bonus passively and 100% of it if you use RUSH in the battle.
- Way too much backtracking. This has to do with the environments, how the story is setup as well as the side quests. We lack environments, they are all rather small compared to SO3 and even SO4. You keep going back to familiar settings too frequently and pub stomping weak enemies because you don't have a choice since there is no quick travel available. The side quests themselves should be forward moving like in SO3 and SO4 where they are done in new zones as the story progresses instead of taking you backwards all the time. The key word is all the time, i don't mind going back sometimes.
- All maps are already explored and no element of discovery, this makes sense since it's my home town i suppose but from a player standpoint it's rather boring.
- On the note of discovery, a joy of past games was going around talking to NPC and finding new quests, even missing some. Now you can't miss anything and it all comes from the bulletin board, making it rather boring and tedious whereas in the past i would actively try to search out new quests and even explore old areas to see if i missed anything.
- Most of the maps have this sense of being enclosed small corridors rather than open zones to explore like in SO3.
- Another reason the game is too easy is the abundance of FOL (currency), you earn it too easily in the game. In SO3, there was a high value on strategically using your potions/foods, etc. However; they are now easily acquired snacks. The same applies to weapons and armor. In SO3, you would hang onto a weapon/armor/accessory for a character for a long period of time because FOL was so hard to accumulate and you could only focus your development on a couple characters of choice. You're never broke and never in need of money, always a lot more than you'll even spend.
- Crafting and Synth was a joy in SO3, it was tedious at times but the rewards made it worthwhile. It's overly simplified and a grind fest for mats in the current game.
- Crafting is underwhelming since you progress through weapons/armors/accessories so quickly that there is no reason to make your own since you always have enough fol to buy equivalent ones from the merchant.
- Over used voiced interactions and very few cut scenes. The problem with SO4 was that the cut scenes where too long, now there are barely any in the game. *sigh*
Neutral
- Interesting story so far! A little cliche but i don't mind. SO4 had a great story at the beginning as well but went to shit towards the end so i'll reserve holding off saying it's Good or Bad until i complete the game.
- No alternate costumes.
- Weapons and Armors cannot be seen on characters, this could have been a DLC and i believe people would have paid for it.
- Emerson is a gunner in reality but still has a cross bow. *sigh*
- Cliche Star Trek
- Main villain can't be taken seriously, too much of a brat. So much wasted potential.
- 7 player party has so much potential but the game is already overly easy with 3-4. There is so much going on (lights and sounds) on the screen that make it more of a distraction than a joy. You have to micro manage each character because Roles don't really make the AI smarter, it makes rather bad choices at times. Would be nice if you could remove characters. You also can't assign the same role to multiple characters. Limits my strategy and diversity of options.
- I miss recruiting characters to my party and being able to miss them (SO3)
- Can't skip the voiced interactions *sigh*, makes me miss cut scenes even more.
- The game lacks content expected from the series. I'm glad the main story wasn't dragged out like SO4 but there is really nothing much to do and no real incentive to play at higher difficulties later on. Low replay value.
- Mobs change in zones as the story progresses, this is a nice touch but it's pretty boring since there are so few zones. Would have been a nice touch if they made more and larger zones.
- Voice acted scenes take away emotional value that would have been given by cut scenes at key moments.
Conclusion
Wait for the price to drop, it's not worth $80 CAD, more like $40. I would still recommend getting it. Square really dropped the ball on this one, i feel that all the $$$ went into FF15 sadly and they put all their eggs into one basket. I don't feel bad spending $80 yet, I'll know once i finish the game though since i'm so far enjoying the story but that could change like it did with SO4.