Eh, it feels well-paced to me and leveling is just about right without using any items. Doesn't feel like a grind at all since all the content is so
ing good. I mean, they put a LOT of love into this game and it totally shows. You can go beyond the boundaries of some quests, like forging documents for double the reward or decide whether or not to intervene on others. It's a well-forged ARPG and is quickly becoming my second favorite on PS3, right behind Demon's Souls it's so good.
It's really hard to detail every little thing they thought of or how well the world/dungeons are designed but somebody at Capcom deserves an award. There's some really brilliant design in the pawn system and how interesting the vocation system is (thanks to FFV no doubt) being able to bring some augments from other classes with you. The game is unforgiving if you venture out at night and it's really exhilarating when you down a new huge monster for the first time. I could go on and on, but people should really check it out if they liked either DS games because they won't be disappointed.
And lastly, I was pretty hard on the combat but I found once I threw away some skills for other ones, it got more interesting. I also didn't know that you can combo the evasive slash by spamming it for a pretty powerful stun to knockdown one, two punch. Lol, it makes killing just about anything a cake-walk before stamina runs low.