Well, waaaay longer session than I intended. Unhealthily long. One goal for this week is to keep sessions to 1-3 hours. Wrapped up after killing Medusa at Tower of Owen.
The job system is really interesting here. I guess jobs are classes, and you don't lock in each character's job at the beginning. Rather, you can flip between them somewhat smoothly. Each character has a base level that raises, and then each job they play levels up while they play it. So my character whose red mage job is level 13 could swap to thief, but she'd have to level it up from 1.
The game has a lot of jobs to pick from, mostly classics. Warrior, thief, black/white/red mages, monk (the bare-hand fighter, can't remember if the name is different), and... probably one or two I'm forgetting. My current set-up is Warrior, Thief, Red Mage, White Mage. My red mage is absolutely the all-star of the team, and I like the safety of the white mage too. Thief's damage is great, and steal is useful. Warrior is the only one I'm seriously thinking about swapping out of. He's tanky enough, but I don't know if he adds a whole lot compared to other choices.
My big concern about the last game is totally gone. The main characters here are awesome. My favorite is Refia - good mix of sass, fun, and badass - but the whole cast has got some personality.
Hi, Refia!
Fights seem smaller in general, capping out at three mobs per fight. I like this. They seem tougher, and the bosses can get two shots in per round, but I really was not a fan of the massive fights full of little guys from previous games. The best example is the Pravoka pirate fight from FFI. Not tough, but artificially long.
The plot is both retro (even for its time) and really, really interesting. Four elemental crystals to save, just like from FFI, but with a twist about a Dark World that keeps getting brought up. "Fine," I thought, "a dark world like in FFII full of evil monsters and baddies and whatever."
Not quite.
A town full of Ancestors of the Ancients told me that Dark and Light here are much more balanced, and the last time shit went out of whack, it was because the LIGHT side went overboard. There were Dark Warriors then that arose to fight the Light and restore the balance. This time, our party is Light Warriors, but not because the Light is inherently better than the Dark.
This is very cool to me. It's still pretty abstract, and I'm not sure what Light/Dark really mean, but I like the premise.
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Oh! One more thing. It's not just a bunch of normal human towns. In the short time I've played, I've met gnomes, Vikings (!!!!), and a race of blind clairvoyants. Wonderfully built world!
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Next time: onto the Dwarf Island, where fire lives apparently?
