I was expecting a phenomenal game. It turned out to be alright, but a lot of disappointments.
1- The game has amazing graphics for the PS2. There are certain scenes (not including cutscenes) that come close to the 360. 2- They clearly put a lot of time into this game. There are a ton of things to do. The game is also very long, which COULD mean a long story.. (I'll get into that later).
3- There are a lot of side things to do in the game apart from the story.
Now onto the bad things:
1- Unless you speak Ye Olde English, its time to break out the dictionary. I had to replay the game after 10 hours in because I had no idea what was going on. I couldn't understand what the characters were saying, but thought it may be cleared up later on - that never happened.
2- The music is ABYSMAL. I have never heard anything so bad in my life. There are some parts that have decent music, however its rare. I would mute the TV and turn on my own music in the background... it was THAT bad. Nobuo Uematsu probably cried himself to sleep after hearing Hitoshi Sakimoto's creations for this game.
3- (About the story comment I made above) this game is extremely long. However, maybe 1/4 to 1/5 of the time played is NOT story. Have you ever played an MMORPG? This game uses the elements of an MMORPG grinding system, however its offline. Of course, in older FF games, you spent time getting into random battles to level up your characters.. but with the battle system in this game, you are REMINDED that you are grinding nonstop. Incredibly boring.
4- Thats another thing, the battle system. This is an OK system, as it creates more of a challenge. However, when you set your Gambits (the AI control system) up the correct way later in the game, you can leave the game for a while, come back, and your characters will still be fighting through more monsters. So, basically, you're "playing" a game with little spurts of story every once in a while, and the majority of the rest of your time spent is watching endless battles. Boss battles require you there, however.
5- Again, did I mention the music?
6- The story was alright, but it was kind of boring. This is supposed to be Final "Fantasy", however there weren't many way-out-there fantasy things like there were in the previous games. Few examples from the older games:
Realm of the Espers (FF6)
Lifestream/Materia (FF7)
Time Travel/Sorceresses/Lunatic Pandora (FF8)
Lifa Tree/Mist/Terra (FF9)
Sin/Zanarkand/Dream of the Fayth (FF10)
Al'Taieu/Tu'Lia/Dynamis/Kraken Club (FF11)
and um.. Airships? Bhujerbia? Viera? Maybe a few summons here and there with some shiny magicite... (FF12) The lack of extraordinary things is one of the major downfalls of the game.
All-in-all, I was expecting an amazing game. After hearing how much time was spent, how even one of the head people on the development team nearly had a mental breakdown over this game, it promised to be jaw dropping. That is not the case. I am an avid Final Fantasy fan, and I try to look for the good in each and every game, however in my opinion this game failed to deliver the Final Fantasy Quality in most parts. Some FF quality, such as the graphics (which isn't always the most important part of a game, by the way) were good.. but there could have been a lot more.
Could have been amazing if the REAL Final Fantasy development team got back into it. Not a bunch of new guys with THEIR desires in mind, they should have kept the majority of the original people (especially the music developer Nobuo Uematsu) on the scene to present an amazing game.
Its too bad...