Blood Maggot wrote:
Unfortunately, most of the game is spent in random battles. Either that, or running around in the cell-shaded world. I can't say much else but, has anyone else played?
I've played it, and enjoyed it quite a bit. It
is very old-school, like, say, Phantasy Star II or so, and it has some neato mechanics (I think there are maybe one or two enemies in the game that you can't get to join your party). The way that party advancement works, though, does lead to some hard tradeoffs, since it's hard to keep characters with both decent skills and a decent level.
The storyline is present, and interesting, although not very deep (by "
very deep"
here, I guess I'm comparing to Metal Gear Solid and Xenogears). However, dungeon exploration (and, thus, random combat) make up the bulk of the game, so if that's not something you enjoy, prepare to be very bored. It wasn't until near the end of the game when I found that the combat really started to drag, however (that was also more out of a sense of "
I want to get done with this already!"
than due to any qualitative change in the combat, I think).
I also don't recommend the Hard difficulty unless you're familiar with the series or are using a strategy guide (and if you're using a strategy guide, what do you want to play on Hard for?) Having read some disparaging comments about the difficulty of Normal in a FAQ, I (unprepared) tried Hard. Certain bits of it are soul-crushingly difficult, at least if you don't have any idea what you're supposed to be doing with your party. Having gone back and started again on Normal, I have to say that it's no walk in the park either... it just means that when a boss surprises you with an elemental reflection, you might not be dead (as opposed to Hard, where you pretty much are dead as soon as the boss takes you out of your gameplan).
