Well I have now played about 10 hours of this game and although it has similar gameplay to the previous games but looks much much nicer (think cut scenes are like the Final Fantasy film and the ingame graphics aren't that far behind) it seems to be more like an interactive movie. You seem fated to follow a predetermined path unlike previous FF games that I have played where you can wander round the game world where ever you liked. I'm not saying I dislike the game but the level of immersion doesn't seem to be as high as you lack a control of where your going. Apart from this I don't really have any complaints. The levelling/stats system takes a bit of getting used to. In FFIIX you collected elemental magic from enemies and stored this up and linked it to your stats. I thought that was a weird system but X goes further. You get spheres from battles and use this to activate power, mana and ability nodes on your sphere grid. Its quite confusing as there is no clear path of advancement in abilities. I think I have a couple of characters going round in circles of low level stat increases. I suppose 10 hours of play isn't that large an amount and I may adjust to the system yet (even though MGS2, Headhunter and Onimusha were all finished in about 10 hours or less).

Anyone else playing this? (I know LNCPapa is cause I just had to suffer his latest set of additional pictures to the "Picture of you and where you post from" thread and saw it on his DVD stand)

LOL - Arris,
You will get more freedom later, when you get a bit further into the game. At the beginning you do follow a path - but later, when you are trying to finish sides quests which are plentiful, you will be able to do things in different orders. I can pretty much guarantee you will do some side quests - I did most of them (not all) and it took me 97 hours to finish the game. I could have done it much faster had I not done any side quests, but they were fun to do.

LNCPapa

Well that freak Seymour just moved in on one of my chicks (proposed to Yuna) and I am going through the forest on the other side of the Thunder plains just now.
I think the dialog loses quite a bit in the translation to english, but its still fairly good. I'm looking forward to the freedom because at the moment its something that I could have seen being released on the Philips CDi...
By the way in your Console collection do you have an Amiga CD32 and a NeoGeo?

No Arris - I don't have either of those - although I am trying to acquire a Neo Geo Gold right now. People still want rediculous amounts of money for them - even new (which you can still get).

LNCPapa