Lets talk about World of Final Fantasy.
I'm honestly surprised at how good this game is. Not to say it's anything above a 6/10 though. So here is what I think:
The pokemon mechanic kinda reminds me of KH:DDD mixed with FXIII-2. The fact that they still managed to stuff pokeballs in there in some weird way with prisms was nice, and the actual battle requirement actually requires some forethought and strategy so it's not just "Get low health and throw as many balls at it as possible". The size mechanic is neat but the game rarely ever gives you ANY need to be unstacked, I guess if you're playing in turn based mode it's more useful since it means more turns but in full on ATB mode why would you give a shit when you can kill things in five seconds with it? The game is also balanced horribly, everything is so goddamned easy and it sucks because you can see glimmers of genius in some of the battles, like the Ice cave wolf who summons smaller wolves to fight with him that was genuinely challenging for me.
I like the customizability of the party, and this is especially do to the pokemon clone. The upgrade system is straight forward and cocketease-ey enough to actually make me want to play the goddamned game more which is rare. Collecting them all doesn't seem like much a hassle either, and the fact that you're never forced to using ONLY the "evolved" state of any monster is nice. So far the variety of monster is a little lackluster but it's not much, introducing 2-3 brand new enemies and 2-3 recolors of old enemies with different abilities isn't ideal but it's serviceable. I can ignore it because some team setups might require different abilities and being stuck with a monster you don't like because they have the abilities you need is never fun. then there is the level up board which is even made with customization in mind with the occasional blank node that you can insert abilities into is good.
The dungeon design so far is lackluster. I'm up to the fire cave now and it's still mostly just simple dungeon designs you'd expect early on in an RPG which sucks because I'm quite a ways into the game now and I expect it to get more complex, and it is, just at a really slow pace.
The QoL mechanics are a bit lacking too, or just misplaced. Why the fuck is there a whole button dedicated to switching between the main characters? This would have done better as a menu option honestly since it's purely aesthetic.And then there is the retardation of having a dedicated jump button. It is THE MOST pathetic jump I have ever seen, and what's worse there is no point in the game that I have seen where you are actually required to jump. To add insult to injury the characters walk PAINFULLY slow. Having a dedicated run button would have made it leagues better in my opinion.
Overall it feels like they actually took good concepts from other Final Fantasies and put (Mostly watered down versions) into it. You can see hints of FFX's Grid system and FFVII's materia system, and more in it but they're never as fleshed out as they originally were.
Another thing is the translation. You know the translators fucked it up every which way and then sideways when someone who doesn't know japanese, who never played the game in japanese can tell it's totally fucked. At first the characters just felt bad. Lann especially and that fox-chibi thing. But then there are points in the game where you can see the translators left in bit of dialogue and didn't fuck it up and it's genuinely funny but the moments are rare. Throughout the whole game Lann is just a fucking 4kids anime tier protagonist who is just a bit more annoying than usual. He constantly makes bad jokes and a lot of what he says borders on horrible wannabe "meme" material and I specifically remember one instance of "owned" coming out of his mouth, but then there was a moment with a little pixie thing that kept up with your Prisms involving puns and it was actually pretty funny. That was the point I realized he was supposed to be the stereotypical punny jokester but the translators just got the "jokerster" part and translated "jokester" to be "Memester" instead. Reynn on the other hand just comes off as a total bitch, she shows hints of having more personality than "Overzealous straight man" a few times but nothing ever comes of it. Really, aside from the main three most of the side characters are perfectly fine and interesting, unless they try to be funny, then it just comes off as horribly forced (The Refia and Sherlotta side episode where they fight the undead princess comes to mind) and it's just jarring to see it go from something enjoyable to something grating so fast.
tl;dr It's a 6/10 game.
