played this game all the way up to chapter 9 before abandoning it. i liked some of it. both the pixel art and 3d environments are executed well. the yarhi pact system is probably the best thing about the game, and the reason i kept playing so long. it feels very close to being a decent RTS game, except for the fact that the actual RTS aspect of it absolutely sucks.
the undeniable best "strategy" for 95% of this game is to choose yarhi your opponents are weak to, then keep the entire party together and order them all to attack things as they very slowly traverse the map and hopefully win. this is not very fun or interesting, but controlling just one specific unit, or even a group of units quickly becomes very annoying, and you will likely lose precious seconds (or units) trying to execute commands. healing or buffing specific units is near impossible given how crowded the maps get during combat. ironically, a lot of this could have been alleviated with the gambit system from the original FFXII, but it's been reduced to a much less useful version: you get 1 gambit per character, and you can no longer set specific triggers for them.
i really wanted to enjoy this game, but there's only so far pixel art and a fondness for ivalice could take me. the combat is just not well designed enough for me to feel motivated to grind the extra levels and equipment that i clearly need to beat the last 2 chapters. plus i did not find myself invested in the story at all. this is much less disappointing to me than the combat, since i went in with realistic (low) expectations for the writing, but it's still a shame. & while i admittedly loved flying around the sky islands, it's kind of weird that the sequel to FFXII-- a game with a well established, massive world and lore that's only partially revealed during the game-- chose to instead make up a bunch of unrelated shit and set the game in the sky.
the undeniable best "strategy" for 95% of this game is to choose yarhi your opponents are weak to, then keep the entire party together and order them all to attack things as they very slowly traverse the map and hopefully win. this is not very fun or interesting, but controlling just one specific unit, or even a group of units quickly becomes very annoying, and you will likely lose precious seconds (or units) trying to execute commands. healing or buffing specific units is near impossible given how crowded the maps get during combat. ironically, a lot of this could have been alleviated with the gambit system from the original FFXII, but it's been reduced to a much less useful version: you get 1 gambit per character, and you can no longer set specific triggers for them.
i really wanted to enjoy this game, but there's only so far pixel art and a fondness for ivalice could take me. the combat is just not well designed enough for me to feel motivated to grind the extra levels and equipment that i clearly need to beat the last 2 chapters. plus i did not find myself invested in the story at all. this is much less disappointing to me than the combat, since i went in with realistic (low) expectations for the writing, but it's still a shame. & while i admittedly loved flying around the sky islands, it's kind of weird that the sequel to FFXII-- a game with a well established, massive world and lore that's only partially revealed during the game-- chose to instead make up a bunch of unrelated shit and set the game in the sky.