Can't say I agree.
The voice acting wasn't great, but it was pretty typical of pretty much every anime jrpg. Pretty much just sounded like a Tales dub and I'm sure there's plenty of va crossover. Plastic Dolls I guess, but I've never found Monolith to have good character 3D models, but clearly this game was not intersted in being a cinematic as the other ones. Then again, since you can easily ignore characters you don't want to use you can easily have a party of characters that don't annoy. I never found the core cast annoying at all and it dosen't hurt that at the end of the day the story is rather simple.
Maybe at the beginning battles were drawn out, but once I understand how to actually play the game I don't that holds water. Smaller mobs are easy as pie to fight and yes bigger enemies can take a whole, but then again you really should attack specific limbs, manage your parties focus, and either focus on raw damage output or just do the tired and true XB way of toppling enemies. Either way you have many options and I never really found that battles dragged when you were actually playing the game correctly.
Eh takes a while to get to the mechs, but I don't really mind. Combat and exploration was great before you get them.
I think the OST is a lot more fun and listenable to outside of the game. XB's ost was pretty generic jrpg. Good, but nothing unique. XBX's is fantastic, fun, and really out there compared to the safe music that populates most jrpgs.
I liked high level enemies being around. Made the terrain feel tense as you ran around. I also never found it hard to get away from them and besides, death means little on the field.
I guess it's a worse grind fest, but thats up to you. If you want to focus on the main mission. No it doesn't take that much. Yes you have to level characters who you don't even use. Thats super easy. They gain levels so quick by fighting enemies way above them. You don't have to do every mission for the party members unless you want to. Getting the requirements for each main mission probably involves stuff you were already doing anyway. Did I like the linear structure of the first game? Yes, but XBX is really a different and free forum game.It's really about these soldiers and their everyday lives. This translates to this games structure. You really are allowed to go at your own pace and your own direction and I like that.
And I don't see whats wrong with the map implementation. Loved being able to pick any waypoint and fast travel so easy.
