I may have spoken too soon by the way. Just finished chapter 7 and most of the characters have worked out most of their psychopathic character flaws, which is nice because I was getting annoyed at having to play characters that I hated and kind of wanted to see fail.
I tried to take some pictures of the game to show you guys but they looked so terrible compared to the game that I gave up on that. I have a couple save games at certain points just so I can open them and see the beautiful scenery there.
As far as the game goes I have to say I'm enjoying it a lot. The Optima system of hotswapping jobs mid-battle is integral to winning even regular fights, and it gives the niche jobs Enhancer and Jammer an important role. Fighting on Attacker Blaster Blaster and swapping over to Enhancer Jammer Healer briefly for heals and (de)buffs is good times. At first the system felt very very computer-controlled and computer-driven but the player factor comes in the delicate balance of when to swap job setups. You're constantly balancing the race with the Break gauge (it's basically impossible to win any tough fight without reaching Break status on the enemy... like you could do it, if you wanted to spend 3 hours instead of 10 minutes) against your own life total.
The Chain Bonus system of building up a break gauge is another great aspect of the combat system... it encourages diverse party setups and gives the player incentives to use each of the jobs at the appropriate times.
In short - the game is awesome^^ just wanted to mention that since I saw the bad press a little bit ago.
-benny
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