Post by Bytor on May 1, 2012 5:17:57 GMT -5
-Visuals- 9.2/10
Let's see, here are some words that come to mind immediately. Crisp, powerful, clean, well designed, well rendered, and vibrant. In a nutshell this is to say the least an extremely solid looking DS game. The character models are fantastic, the enemies over the top and the animations top notch. I would have loved to have seen how good this game could have looked on a next-gen console. then again this IS a very Japanese game so on second thought it looks perfect for what it is. I especially loved the animations of the special attacks, so very over the top and with the characters screaming in Japanese it adds even more flavor, well done indeed!
PS...this game may be a tad risque for work or young children, so.....
-Sound- 8.4/10
A bit of a mix here. the voices are all crisp and well acted and as I stated earlier the Japanese war cries really add to the flavor of the game a lot. I did, however, get a tad tired of the repetitious music after about ten hours into the game, in other words about a quarter done, so you can imagine how old the same music got by the end...yawn....and the sad thing is that it's pretty damn enjoyable music...at first.
-Gameplay- 8.8/10
This game is essentially a turn based action game. The battles are one on one and each ally and enemy has turns, having said that you can chain attacks using your allies and by keeping the enemies up in the air (which is accomplished by timing your attacks perfectly) you can inflict even more damage. The battle system works very well and while on the surface it is simply turn based the need to time the attacks and chain the attacks together forces you to do some pretty fast button mashing. I adored the battle system. It is unique and requires just enough strategy to add some flair and depth to an otherwise simplistic turn based attack mode, You can also set up special attacks, use items and set up various status modes both on you, your allies and your enemies. However, I do have a huge problem with this system, although actually I guess it's more of an execution complaint than a true complaint about the system. In a nutshell be prepared for some serious long and difficult battles, and I mean long and hard. An average enemy will have a few thousand hit points while the bosses will push the thousands and thousands and thousands, I suspect some may even approach a million. And it is absolutely heart wrenching to spend time setting up your special attack and then have it take off a miniscule amount of hit points. the battles are truly battles of attrition, and to be honest after awhile i dreaded even normal battles, which is a true shame because the fighting mechanics are absolutely a joy. Exploration takes place in a typical fashion with a few puzzles thrown in but thank goodness the vast majority of the dungeons are somewhat short and for the most part very easy to navigate, if they were as difficult as the fighting I kinda imagine my stay with this game may have been relatively short, lol.
-Story- 8.8/10
Well...let's see...honestly I was never exactly sure what the heck was going on until the end. The story is not exactly complex by any standard instead it seems to be more of an obtuse parody of typical JRPG fodder. Fortunately I didn't really care. I enjoyed the characters and the dialogue so much that I kinda just let the story meander it's way towards whatever destination it was meandering toward.
-Overall- 8.7/10
It's fun, and I imagine fans of the series will either totally love it or totally despise it. Not being at all knowledgeable about the series I found this game to be fun. Unfortunately i felt the difficulty spike detracted an awful lot from the story and made the battles entirely too hard way too often. Still, overall a fun romp.
