To the earlier conversation about the game's plot... I'm enjoying it, but it definitely leaves a lot to be desired. A lot of the characters come and go, and I can't tell you anything meaningful or memorable about any of them, other than Raubahn. Characters I want to bond with and get to know, like Momodi or the Sultaness, are quickly tossed away for a new set of characters in another land. Instead of feeling like a major piece in the political puzzle of Ezorea, I just feel like a pawn, moving from person to person, place to place - doing whatever they ask of me to get the gil & the EXP. I feel like a mercenary... or worse, an errand boy. I'm supposed to be an adventurer, but the only adventure in the plot basically amounts to "solve our political issues on the way to your next dungeon, pls." The only time I felt a real emotion at any point in the plot was when the Walking Sands were raided by the Garlean Empire, killing Norexia & imprisoning Minfilia.
The game has a lot of interesting themes that the writers never took anywhere. Like Ul'dah's immigration issues. You hear a lot of NPC's say "IMMIGRANTS SUCK HURR DURR", but the story never actually does anything with the subject outside of the NPC's complaining about it a few times, saying shit like "I cannot bear to see the less fortunate suffer", all before they tell you to go to that isolated location northeast of here and do a thing. The worst part is, the actual game itself actually mechanically allowed for better exploration of the subject, due to things like adventuring immigrants being given their own plots of land to buy housing, cutting off the use of that land from anyone else. This subject alone could've went MANY places, but the writers dropped the ball on doing anything with it.
And the side missions suck. They really, really suck. Not a single one of the sidequests are worth the amount of time one could spend doing them... but you have to do them to speed up the leveling process, especially if you're leveling multiple classes. These sidequests give you some dialog that they expect you to pay attention to, only for the actual gameplay to amount to picking up five or so things five feet away from the NPC who requested for you to do it. The game feels long-winded because of this. These pointless quests could've been more meaningful, and they could've made way less of them in favor for more meaningful and memorable main quest content.
EDIT: Also, the game needs WAY, WAY more voice acting. 95% of the game's plot is told through text, it's annoying.
