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1. The English voice acting is absolutely horrific, it's genuinely bad and it seriously detracts from the experience.
2. The disc swapping. This drove me up the wall, the further you got into the game and the more you tried to complete the more time you'd spend swapping disks around. Not everybody had the storage space or the desire to install the game to the HDD.
The game released on the 360 roughly a year prior to the International version which launched for the PS3. The re-release offered the option to use the original Japanese VA with English subs, which was a huge improvement. The requirement for disc swapping was also gone. Another issue many had beyond the above mentioned, were the character models. Many felt they had a soulless doll-like look to them.
The fact of the matter is, the game beyond those issues (essentially being the character models for the Steam release, so entirely down to personal taste) is a lot of fun. It has a serviceable story, a lot of features and content in the form of side quests and crafting. It also has what I would argue to be the best real time combat to ever grace a JRPG, it's seriously good and very rewarding once you get into it.
This game has a bad rep for minor problems that were mostly solved, people got stuck on the initial release. As far as I'm concerned this is the second best game in the SO series, beaten only by SO2. SO3 had a weaker plot and was extremely slow to start, the crafting was superior but frankly that's about it. The first game has aged poorly, it's average at best. The latest game is definitely the weakest entry.
Tbh, I think the only thing that really drove me up the wall in SO4 was the Wandering Dungeon.
But yeah, mostly fairly minor issues that I feel people got hung up on. Things that will be null and void with the Steam release.
There aren't really any spammable skills in this game until way later. Like SO2 had ripper blast with Claude, air slash with Dias, hurricane slash with Aston, etc.
Fayt in SO3 had side kick and air raid, Nel and Cliff had some good ones as well. Maria got Energy Burst post game which was god tier.
SO4......Cat girl gets X claw toward the later end of the game, and Arumat gets Dragon Roar late game. Baccus gets a black hole shot attack that's a pretty good AOE. Before you get those moves, vast majority of them are trash. The MC in SO4 is arguably the weakest in the series. He's no Claude Kenny or Fayt Leingod. I spend most of the first 1/2-3/4 of SO4 wondering why I didn't have ONE SINGLE ATTACK that I could use as a win button, like in previous installments. But once you get X claw + dragon roar, you get your win buttons, so be patient. BiS gear considered, Arumat's Dragon Roar becomes god. There is only one god, Dragon Roar. Blessed be the holy Dragon Roar. The first 'best weapon' you make should be Arumat's.
I remember in the 1st post game dungeon, I had to mute the sound, because all I heard was X claw spam, repeatedly. ♥♥♥♥ was so OP that I had to X claw spam it, or go home, basically.
As a game alone, I think it's not so bad. The PC version will likely be superior to the "xbox" one.
The crafting in SO2 is better (when talking about the PSP version, the PS1 version was awful mechanic wise). In SO3 it's superior in function definitely, but you can't even really start crafting until you've completed a good chunk of the game.
TLH offers useful crafting almost immediately. I have no idea where you're getting the post game thing from, you could make superior weapons and items from the first planet to those you could buy. Not that it was necessary, but the option was definitely there.
It's probably the only thing I legitimately hate about the game and only tolerate it cause it has more of the fun boss fights Imo
But for me, outside of that which was fixed in later releases.
I don't really like the story. There were voices that could be considered annoying in both languages(Meracle for me, others not so much).
Also keep in mind the game had some horrible freezing issues in both versions. I never had a freeze on the 360 myself, but I have had some on PS3(a few times in the 7 star dungeon boss, some on the first floor of 7 star, thankfully none in Wandering Dungeon where it would really suck)
The item cap being 20 for materials also made for a lot of backtracking for item creation, which was more annoying when disc swapping was there. That cap is fine for battle items, but not for materials.
Most boss battles were just horrible. You're forced into specific strategies to get the weakpoints open on everything. Also, the game pretty much hands you something that trivializes most of the bosses right before the boss(can easily IC fire weaponry before the Grigori on Lemuris, then you get Bacchus before the next which does a lot with Galvanic Shock, then you get Myuria before the next, then you get Meracle's wind element weapon before the next, etc.) Also, the boss fights are full of unavoidable attacks, while SO3 was designed so you could dodge due to the no damage battle trophies.
Battle system was fun enough though, just not as much as the third game.
And you could see 100% of the actual content in the game(IC, Quests, endings, etc.) in under 100 hours. But if you want to get 100% trophies/achievements, time to mindlessly grind for 400-500+ hours on tedious battle trophies that are mostly grind and not skill like most of SO3's were(SO3 did have some grind ones, but more were about speedkilling and no damage and other battle stuff)
I don't really hate the game as much as I used to, but it's still the worst one in the series I've played since I don't have a PS4 yet for SO5, though I do plan to play it eventually even though it is supposed to be worse. It's still a decent game compared to most others that come out, but when compared to other games in the series and other similar series, it's kind of a weak game. Most of the stuff in the endgame content is just overly tedious.
I remember crafting a decent weapon for Fayt really early in SO3. I also crafted lots of useful accessories pretty early. Somewhere around mid-game I was able to start doing some crazy stuff with synthesis, etc, multiplying damage mods on weapons, and other stuff. I remember putting something on one of cliff's gloves that put ball of lightnings or something on each hit, stacked a few different ones of those, and would just stun lock bosses with jabs + his stun skill. Surprisingly that worked on some of the post-game bosses as well like Valkyrie.
The SO2 I was referring to was the PS1 version. You can craft some decent accessories starting out, and once you get to laquer, you can take some detours, level up and craft 2nd or 3rd best weapons for everybody. It's possible to get your hands on a piece of mythril on disk one (I think with pick pocket? And some enemies drop them rarely.), which means you can craft the Eternal Sphere for Claude. Dias can craft a Silvance (which claude can use, if you don't get the Eternal Sphere), and also craft a Crimson Diablos. Aston could make his 2nd best weapon, as could several other characters, before 1/2 the game was even finished. I think Rena's best craftable weapon was actually her best weapon. Same for Opera, Precis, and a couple other characters.
I don't remember being able to craft anything useful until post-game in TLH. And I used the crafting mechanics in all the previous games to get OP gear. I checked guides and everything and was incredibly disappointed with what I could craft at any given time, up until post game. There was always a severe lack of resources, I either couldn't get access to at that point, or were insanely rare drops, needed to make a weapon that was a few points better than what you could buy. I remember posting on gamefaqs many years ago, and it seemed to be a consensus that crafting wasn't as good as early on as in previous SO installments.
SO3 was great for crafting from sort of mid game onward. You have to remember that SO3 has a massive intro, from the hotel to the escape area and then rescue ship, then the first planet before you meet Cliff. You can't really start crafting until after you escape with Nel, and even then you need to reach the town after the mines before it starts to become viable. The costs involved were ridiculous, money was stupidly important in SO3. Then the different researchers you'd need to find in order to make the better equipment, many of which you wouldn't meet until late game. The best 'early-ish' item you could make were Cliff's Damask Gauntlets, which were genuinely good and fairly cheap for that point in the game. For other stuff you were usually better off waiting until later before bothering. Mind you, you could make a lot of good consumables early on, although they're not something I bother with early into the game anyway.
I think part of the problem many have with crafting in TLH is that you don't find anything that's massively over powered. You're not going to make one of the best weapons in the game within the first ten hours of play, but you can make items which are superior to those available in the stores you have access to. I never had a problem in this regard, a little bit of grinding here and there but nothing I have an issue with doing in any other JRPG.