Started the game yesterday getting all the artifacts in new bodum proved to be quite an easy task, decided my set up would be that Serah would be my main commando and Noel my Ravager and Sentinel, Mog is adorable and fully enjoyed doing the fight with Lightning. Noel makes me facepalm at times with his heroism but he's alright, and i deliberately choose the stupid questions for Serah to ask, she's alright I'm hoping her character will develop as we go along.
Today continued with the Bresha ruins concentrated on getting the commando and Ravager bonuses first eventually I unlocked Medic for Serah and gave Noel another ATB bar. Was nice to see the extra cutscenes here which weren't in the demo I like Alyssa (sp?) she seems down to earth in this part but got slightly annoying later on. I have absolutely no idea who to give the personal notes to, I searched and search but didn't find anyone who would take them, some of the tasks I need moogle throw for i gather, riding around on chocobo at the end of story tasks is a nice touch.
Yassif Massif(sp?) sorry I'm really bad at remembering names and spelling. Was a complete nightmare Behemoths were introduced too early on, the lights don't work that well since if you are in a light and you still walk in that light, the Behemoths still appear and then your screwed. (This is what made me decide that I don't like the random encounters it's like a step backwards.) They don't attack but they don't seem to go away either. It felt like a run for survival, not much chance of gaining experience with those around. So really I didn't stick around for long. Hope's mature personality from becoming an adult is a breathe of fresh air and I do like Hope now, he seems to have grown from the spoiled brat. the girl hanging on his arm the other hand at this time has lowered my opinion of her. I don't think I caught any monsters here.
Oerba is enjoyable I liked it here I was able to actually take my time here collect all the artifacts, gain experience, caught a few monsters Noel got a Sen bonus and i can't remember what I gave Serah :o. I'm levelling all the monsters equally I don't know whether that is a smart move or not but only time will tell. I got up to Caius the first time he kicked my butt, I didn't realise he could heal he also has some annoying buffs that he puts on himself, considering I didn't have a Synegist and my only Sabetoer was one of the monsters who was only level 8 I was kinda screwed with my first set up, after I saw him heal I kinda gave up and let him kill me. The second time I decided to add the monster who was Ssabeteor (again apologise for spelling) I thought it might be able to counter his buffs and unbuff him, but I quickly realised that the monster knew no spells to counter it. I only used two paradigms for him in the end diversity, with Serah healing Noel as Ravager and a monster as commando, and oh god... i forgot what it's called but I had Serah as Commando Noel as Ravager and the Monster as a sabeteor, I won with basically just poisoning him and just surviving. By the time he had four buffs it was near the end. So I just went for it. And no I didn't choose easy for once. I'm playing this game on normal.