[quote=@tex]
[@Fabricant451]

	I'd prefer a concise pros/cons list tbh. Gimme like... Idk, either 3-5 reasons as to why it doesn't suck. Feel free to expand.
[/quote]



1: The score to the game is one of the franchise's best and up there with the best of Uematsu's work. Hamauzu wasn't afraid to try new styles and genres for the compositions and this is especially apparent in the sequels (but those are bad games). The constant leitmotif being reworked and remixed into various overworld maps and character themes is well done - and usually that sort of thing is reserved specifically for the romance theme or the world map and not baked into poppy ballads as characters wander around a vibrant plain. 'Good music' is nothing new for the series but considering how experimental and ultimately cohesive the score for the entire trilogy is it's worthy of note. 

2: The combat system is tactical while being fast paced and tooled around individual playstyles. Though every character can eventually get every role, characters are unique and make for better roles than others. This makes it way more viable to use whichever character you want and still be able to clear the game which is just good game design and there's even a 'best' party for the min/max crowd. The crux of the combat being to find ways to ultimately breakthrough an enemy's defenses and hit them like a truck is incredibly satisfying [i]especially[/i] against the bigger enemies and the series staples like a Behemoth. Knowing how and when to interrupt and boost your attack without waiting for the bar to fill as well as being able to swap class setups on the fly makes for a satisfying and constant gameplay loop that is tactical and turn based without having the slower pace of both. 

3: The story is, up until around chapter 11/12, a significant and nice change of pace from the norm of a Final Fantasy game. The Final Fantasy games have always centered around saving the world from some calamity and the characters are united in this goal regardless of their own personal histories. It always boils down to friendship and love and the same standard tools of the genre trade. It is because the back quarter of the game devolves into this that the game ultimately suffers from it since before the game turns into "let's be friends and kill God through the power of friendship and lesbians" it is very much a journey of personal stakes. The game is built around three central narratives that eventually culminate in the 'twist' that the deities are actually super bad people harvesting humans for nefarious purposes, sure, but up til then it's the story of Lightning/Hope and their parallel journey of how ultimately empty their single minded obsession is, Snow and his unceasing optimism and general naivety being the catalyst for so many pointless deaths, and Sazh doing whatever it takes to save his son from ultimately the same fate as him. They aren't united by a common goal until they're forced to by literally the antagonist telling them to be and this leads to a game's narrative working in collaboration with its own gameplay systems. There's a reason the subtitle for the game is 'the battle within begins' because the character development is much more personal and introspective rather than being based around big events and characters sitting around and talking about them. Each character is fundamentally flawed and spends the first three quarters of the game learning from their respective travel partners and the experience of the journey that ultimately leads them to Pulse where they have to bond or else they'll die. 

4: My Hands is the second best theme of love in the franchise and anyone who disagrees is wrong. 

5: The game has a wonderfully happy ending that wasn't at all ruined and undermined by the sequels that are shit games.