Ah, that is great news! Looking forward to it!

The ATB system isn’t that big of a deal, though. Although I’d prefer a turn-based system, I’m getting used to the ATB system.

It’s been tough the past few days, because my Japanese isn’t as fast as it was in August. I’ve been trying to read the basic commands while getting my brains beat in. But last night that wasn’t a problem, as I think I’ve got all the normal commands down pat once again. Plus, the combat pauses when you’ve really got to read, which is during the spell-casting and summoning. Also, last night—after 20 hours with the game—I randomly stumbled onto the “pause” button for combat, which is pretty handy as well.

What disappoints me more about this game is the relative simplicity of the combat system and character development, however. With jobs and party-building choices, FF3 was so rich compared to FF4.

But all this is still offset by the awesome story in FF4. This game has great velocity so far. It’s like riding a rollercoaster. I’m really loving this element of the game. It makes me want to get right back and play, as I want to see what’s going to happen next. Great stuff.

Once I get my head more completely back into the flow of the game, I think I’ll make an “impressions to date” post, but so far I really like the complexity of the story. It’s so much richer than that of the previous games in the series.

The combat system and character development seems to have taken a step backwards, though, and I’m not the greatest fan of the real-time combat engine.

I’m about 20 and a half hours now, but at this point I think I was about 19 hours, give or take some.