No ATB bullshit
ATB is optional in all the Final Fantasy games it's featured in. However, I understand your argument here is, "None of that not being able to see the next x amount of steps before they happen," right?...
shows the turn order of all characters which is better for strategy, and allows you to switch out party members mid-battle which, again, is better for strategy.
Woop, looks like you've gone and listed it as a separate argument (it's not). Anyway, and maybe this is just me talking here, I've found strategy (when necessary [which is pretty rarely]) always available in Final Fantasy games. Oh look, it's x-monster who is weak against x-element. Gonna go ahead and use that then. Oh look, one of my party members is wounded, I'm gonna go ahead and heal them as soon as possible. Woops, looks like the enemy is faster than me (gonna have to keep that in mind) and the person died. Oh well, I better use a phoenix down now in conjunction with some healing to counter the damage that is likely to be dealt on me in this next round. Button mash, button mash, etc. etc., until the fight ends. This is how all Final Fantasy games operate and none of them are terribly hard.
The battles were actually fun, and engaging,
Sure, if you like slow gameplay reminiscent of every other FF battle save for the fact it shows the order of the battle. In FFX-2, you could chain together attacks and switch jobs (perhaps the coolest RPG feature) on the fly which, if done enough, calls forth the equivalent of FFX's Aeons. Also: battles weren't painfully slow. I just can't emphasize this enough
and consisted of more than simply pressing the same button 50 times until the victory fanfare plays.
Not true. It's not like displaying the order of battle adds depth. Sure, what you're saying
would be correct if displaying the order of attacks somehow made the game magically hard and therefore required thoughtful strategy that would disrupt the monotony of RPG battle systems... but that is not the case. You don't need to plan at all, outside of the regular poop mentioned above. And I understand you make this argument because you don't want to waste that single turn on using a potion, but perhaps to remedy that you should employ
decent strategy to prevent that from ever happening (i.e. don't let your characters lower to critical health, or rather, don't get them into any situation you can't get them out of alive). Either way, you
still just button mash until the end of the fight, only now you get to see the future of your button mashing. It's not like we've only just now, with this new feature, found out the best (quickest, most button-mashiest) way to take down enemies. See a Bomb? Use an ice spell. This is just as quick and just as button mashy in FFX as it is in any other Final Fantasy.
I see nothing to lol about.
I do - FFX-2's is better.
SUPER BONUS ARGUMENTBlitzball, in both FFX and FFX-2, is a lot of fun. I liked it a lot :3. Also, FF8's card game really was a lot better than FF9's card game.