Just around about ~2 hours into this absolute gem of a game, and it is quite possibly the greatest Action RPG I've ever played.
Taking a strange form for an Action RPG (basically copying Shining Soul) where you have your own little hub-town and you venture out on story sections (the places you fight)
Now onto the most unique and absolutely bloody addicting quality of this game, the battling.
You have 2 characters at once, Xion (the hero!) and one of many others (only 3 available to me at the minute.) Character 1 is controlled with the left analogue stick, so you move around and hit O to attack, hold O to charge up your selected skill, and then use L2 to dash. Ohohoho, sounds like standard affair.. but for those who have no idea what this game is about here is where it gets interesting.
Character 2 is controlled with the right analogue stick, you can move them about completely independantly, make them dash (they don't have an attack button for themselves, you just have to move them close to the enemy and they start attacking and using their skill that you select) and all that other malarky. Again, sounds like standard affair, but what you then factor in is the Link Skill.
By hitting R1 (providing you are within a very generous distance of your character) they enter link skill mode, whilst in this they prepare to use a skill... and you have to direct this using Character 1 on the left analogue stick. Basically you aim the skill using your character, and boy these skills are fantastic. The girly of the game Elwyn is a Hunter, so you hit R1 and she focuses, whilst you line your character up with the enemies, hit R1 again and BAM! Arrow DEATH!
Ryuna the Priestess has a Turn Undead link skill, where you hit R1 and then move your character out to drag a target circle (much like drawing a circle in mspaint) and then hit R1 again and all undead creatures are vaporised.
Lazarus the big heaving Knight has Dragon Spiral, again hit R1 to focus (focusing by the way doesn't mean anything, there's no sort of set time you have to have had them waiting for before you can Link Skill, it can all be done instantly) and then run towards your enemies (dragging a neat little arrowed line) and then hit R1 again... Lazarus grabs his axe and starts spinning and slashing and destroying everything along that line.
Now bear in mind I'm only 2 hours in and this is all I've uncovered for the first 3 characters, each character has 3-4 normal skills, 4 different link skills, and then 4 attribute skills.
Couple this with a gorgeously simple level up system (you gain 3 status points per level, and one skill point per level which you can assign freely) and the sheer simplicity of everything else, makes for a gorgeously fun time. See an item? go to it and press O, see a chest? smack it open!
The battling parts so far in are quite few and far between, but the general hocus about the game suggests that things start to kick off ~3-4 hours into the story when you'll find yourself slashing through groups of 100-200 enemies all in little groups... and then of course when you get the ability to mirror, letting you go back to any previous battle that you have completed for item and gold and XP purposes.
So that's about the battling... it's all very fun and charming and looks gorgeous. Now there are two minor gripes (that I have yet to come across myself) and those are the loading times, and the slowdown.
People complain about the loading times going into battle... fair enough they do take 10-20 seconds or so, but the battles are so fun and long that I couldn't really care less (plus if you're running on HDLoader those loadtimes are cut down to maybe 2/3 seconds) so that's that out of the way. The minor (at the minute, but will probably become a major) gripe that might put most people off is the slowdown. Now I haven't experienced much myself, theres no slowdown in towns or cities, and none at all at the start of the game... but as I found myself in a battle with maybe 30-40 of those gorgeous looking sprites on screen I experienced a little bit of slowdown... but it wasn't bad slowdown, it was like Guardian Heroes slowdown (or focus slowdown as I like to call it.)
The slowdown (only minor slowdown, not gears grinding to a halt slowdown) comes at the times you think "god, why is this so bloody hectic I wish I had room to think and breath" so I suppose in the end it's not a gripe at all...
Well now that I've contradicted myself, on with the rest of the game.
Story seems standard RPG affair, story of two dragon rings which when combined give great power (Xion has one, and the other is immediately called to your partner of choice... you put them on, and then you fight [Xion by the way turns into a real git when he puts his ring on, going from being a calm memoryless child to a "BRING IT ON YOU BASTARDS" hardman in an instant].)
Countries invade countries, holy places play their part etc.etc.etc. But it's all done in a nice and charming way, there is also a very :\ innuendo part early in the game that I still can't stop thinking about.
The graphics are bloody gorgeous. Gives a nice old school feel and the 2D artwork of the characters is probably the best I've ever seen... quite a lot of the girls are very chesty :\ but that's what you'd expect when the artwork guy has done quite a few H-Mangas. Things don't exactly animate smoothly, but the nice retro feel to it is just overwhelmingly charming.
But yes, buy this game... it rocks! Soundtrack is pretty awesome too \o/
Taking a strange form for an Action RPG (basically copying Shining Soul) where you have your own little hub-town and you venture out on story sections (the places you fight)
Now onto the most unique and absolutely bloody addicting quality of this game, the battling.
You have 2 characters at once, Xion (the hero!) and one of many others (only 3 available to me at the minute.) Character 1 is controlled with the left analogue stick, so you move around and hit O to attack, hold O to charge up your selected skill, and then use L2 to dash. Ohohoho, sounds like standard affair.. but for those who have no idea what this game is about here is where it gets interesting.
Character 2 is controlled with the right analogue stick, you can move them about completely independantly, make them dash (they don't have an attack button for themselves, you just have to move them close to the enemy and they start attacking and using their skill that you select) and all that other malarky. Again, sounds like standard affair, but what you then factor in is the Link Skill.
By hitting R1 (providing you are within a very generous distance of your character) they enter link skill mode, whilst in this they prepare to use a skill... and you have to direct this using Character 1 on the left analogue stick. Basically you aim the skill using your character, and boy these skills are fantastic. The girly of the game Elwyn is a Hunter, so you hit R1 and she focuses, whilst you line your character up with the enemies, hit R1 again and BAM! Arrow DEATH!
Ryuna the Priestess has a Turn Undead link skill, where you hit R1 and then move your character out to drag a target circle (much like drawing a circle in mspaint) and then hit R1 again and all undead creatures are vaporised.
Lazarus the big heaving Knight has Dragon Spiral, again hit R1 to focus (focusing by the way doesn't mean anything, there's no sort of set time you have to have had them waiting for before you can Link Skill, it can all be done instantly) and then run towards your enemies (dragging a neat little arrowed line) and then hit R1 again... Lazarus grabs his axe and starts spinning and slashing and destroying everything along that line.
Now bear in mind I'm only 2 hours in and this is all I've uncovered for the first 3 characters, each character has 3-4 normal skills, 4 different link skills, and then 4 attribute skills.
Couple this with a gorgeously simple level up system (you gain 3 status points per level, and one skill point per level which you can assign freely) and the sheer simplicity of everything else, makes for a gorgeously fun time. See an item? go to it and press O, see a chest? smack it open!
The battling parts so far in are quite few and far between, but the general hocus about the game suggests that things start to kick off ~3-4 hours into the story when you'll find yourself slashing through groups of 100-200 enemies all in little groups... and then of course when you get the ability to mirror, letting you go back to any previous battle that you have completed for item and gold and XP purposes.
So that's about the battling... it's all very fun and charming and looks gorgeous. Now there are two minor gripes (that I have yet to come across myself) and those are the loading times, and the slowdown.
People complain about the loading times going into battle... fair enough they do take 10-20 seconds or so, but the battles are so fun and long that I couldn't really care less (plus if you're running on HDLoader those loadtimes are cut down to maybe 2/3 seconds) so that's that out of the way. The minor (at the minute, but will probably become a major) gripe that might put most people off is the slowdown. Now I haven't experienced much myself, theres no slowdown in towns or cities, and none at all at the start of the game... but as I found myself in a battle with maybe 30-40 of those gorgeous looking sprites on screen I experienced a little bit of slowdown... but it wasn't bad slowdown, it was like Guardian Heroes slowdown (or focus slowdown as I like to call it.)
The slowdown (only minor slowdown, not gears grinding to a halt slowdown) comes at the times you think "god, why is this so bloody hectic I wish I had room to think and breath" so I suppose in the end it's not a gripe at all...
Well now that I've contradicted myself, on with the rest of the game.
Story seems standard RPG affair, story of two dragon rings which when combined give great power (Xion has one, and the other is immediately called to your partner of choice... you put them on, and then you fight [Xion by the way turns into a real git when he puts his ring on, going from being a calm memoryless child to a "BRING IT ON YOU BASTARDS" hardman in an instant].)
Countries invade countries, holy places play their part etc.etc.etc. But it's all done in a nice and charming way, there is also a very :\ innuendo part early in the game that I still can't stop thinking about.
The graphics are bloody gorgeous. Gives a nice old school feel and the 2D artwork of the characters is probably the best I've ever seen... quite a lot of the girls are very chesty :\ but that's what you'd expect when the artwork guy has done quite a few H-Mangas. Things don't exactly animate smoothly, but the nice retro feel to it is just overwhelmingly charming.
But yes, buy this game... it rocks! Soundtrack is pretty awesome too \o/
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