There is too much I could talk (rant) about for this one. I'll try to keep this condensed by mainly focusing on the combat and story.
THE GOOD: They changed the combat by adding the brave point system. This allows you to use orders that buff your party. It's a unique bonus that's helpful and even cheesy in some fights. You can "break" your opponent by depleting their break bar in battle. It allows you to do heavy and critical damage; incredibly useful if you can stop a boss from acting. I loved seeing character development for minor characters from the previous games. You meet a ton of previous Thors students and it's rewarding when they acknowledged events that happened and grew from those experiences. I was interested in some of the new characters they introduced here. They didn't feel like copy/paste.
THE BAD: The combat was very repetitive: break, then alt or S rank crafts. I despised all the mech fights. They were repetitive and boring. Hit a weak spot, unite, rinse and repeat. That's your strategy for every mech battle. The camera would constantly spin during combat and it was too close to your shoulder for large bosses. It was difficult to see the battlefield.
But the story...the f***ing vague storytelling. This game consistently fell into terrible cliche writing and tropes. Which is sad, considering the expansive and fascinating world they created. The magic, the orbment devices, the different countries and governments, unique cultures, etc.
I'm unbelievably tired of the characters not communicating with each other! Like someone will see or hear something fishy but instead of telling their companions, they'll go, "ahh it was nothing...maybe." This happens way too often. Or someone will go, "I need to tell you something important" and then literally wait to the end of the game to tell you. Why are you so being so vague? It got to the point, that a character even yelled about someone being too vague. The writers KNEW.
The whole game up till the last five hours gives you nothing for fact. The entire 90 hours: here's a mystery person! Here's a couple bad guys, what do they want, who knows? What's the plot here? Lol IDK. It leaves you guessing what is the absolute piss is going on until you get to the last dungeon; FINALLY they tell you what is going on instead of sprinkling the information throughout the game.
The convoluted plot (that may as well have been written by an amateur fan fiction author) and the pacing for storytelling is terrible.
P.S. Can we rid ourselves the trope that sexual harassment is funny? There are numerous instances in this game (and the previous ones) that someone will make a "joke" about a character's body. Usually at a woman's/teen's expense because they are shown embarrassed. It is not funny.
There's an elderly man that talks about how "sexy" the students are...they are TEENS. It's not funny, or endearing. It's disgusting and in case you're confused, it's literally sexual harassment. That's my TED TALK.
THE GOOD: They changed the combat by adding the brave point system. This allows you to use orders that buff your party. It's a unique bonus that's helpful and even cheesy in some fights. You can "break" your opponent by depleting their break bar in battle. It allows you to do heavy and critical damage; incredibly useful if you can stop a boss from acting. I loved seeing character development for minor characters from the previous games. You meet a ton of previous Thors students and it's rewarding when they acknowledged events that happened and grew from those experiences. I was interested in some of the new characters they introduced here. They didn't feel like copy/paste.
THE BAD: The combat was very repetitive: break, then alt or S rank crafts. I despised all the mech fights. They were repetitive and boring. Hit a weak spot, unite, rinse and repeat. That's your strategy for every mech battle. The camera would constantly spin during combat and it was too close to your shoulder for large bosses. It was difficult to see the battlefield.
But the story...the f***ing vague storytelling. This game consistently fell into terrible cliche writing and tropes. Which is sad, considering the expansive and fascinating world they created. The magic, the orbment devices, the different countries and governments, unique cultures, etc.
I'm unbelievably tired of the characters not communicating with each other! Like someone will see or hear something fishy but instead of telling their companions, they'll go, "ahh it was nothing...maybe." This happens way too often. Or someone will go, "I need to tell you something important" and then literally wait to the end of the game to tell you. Why are you so being so vague? It got to the point, that a character even yelled about someone being too vague. The writers KNEW.
The whole game up till the last five hours gives you nothing for fact. The entire 90 hours: here's a mystery person! Here's a couple bad guys, what do they want, who knows? What's the plot here? Lol IDK. It leaves you guessing what is the absolute piss is going on until you get to the last dungeon; FINALLY they tell you what is going on instead of sprinkling the information throughout the game.
The convoluted plot (that may as well have been written by an amateur fan fiction author) and the pacing for storytelling is terrible.
P.S. Can we rid ourselves the trope that sexual harassment is funny? There are numerous instances in this game (and the previous ones) that someone will make a "joke" about a character's body. Usually at a woman's/teen's expense because they are shown embarrassed. It is not funny.
There's an elderly man that talks about how "sexy" the students are...they are TEENS. It's not funny, or endearing. It's disgusting and in case you're confused, it's literally sexual harassment. That's my TED TALK.