Got this game yesterday and I've only really had a chance to play about an hour of it so far. What I've played of it seems pretty good. The music is decent and the story is told in a mixture of in game scenes and some sort of 3d cel-shaded cutscenes(not too dissimilar to Anime).
All of the text I've come across so far seems to be voiced, except for in the 3d cutscenes where there doesn't appear to be any accompanying text(I'm hoping there might be subtitle option for these scenes as I don't want to be missing out on any important plot details). This is where the first problem arises for me, some of the voices seem a bit too quiet and this isn't helped by the fact that the music seems to be pretty loud on the default settings so it is difficult to pick up some of the voices. Although this can be rectified by lowering the BGM volume in the menu and raising the speech volume. It could be just me though as I've been having a bit of trouble with my hearing recently. I've got no real problems with the voice overs as they seem to be pretty good(although again I actually still play Baten Kaitos with the VOs on so you might turn them off anyway).
I've played a couple of battles so far and there certainly seems to be a lot of scope for using strategy due to the battle system. It's not like Disgaea where by you do you're move and then the computer does it's moves. There's a timeline at the top of the screen which shows whose "turn" it is next and by this I mean which character/enemy will get to move and do the various things they want to do. So for example you might find that once you've finished moving and attacking with one character, an enemies turn pops up and they do their thing and then back to another of your characters and so on.
You have a set amount of AP(action points) you can use in each turn, I think this is set to 100 for everyone(I don't know if it increases with level or anything like that). You need AP to move, to attack and to use skills(skills also use MP). This is also what determines when you will get you're next turn with that character. A character gets another turn when their AP reaches 100 and your AP starts to refill as soon as you finish the turn with that character. This means that in one turn you can move right up to an enemy but you might not have enough AP to attack them, so you have to be careful of the amout of AP you use. This can work in your advantage though, because if you can get to the enemy whilst moving as little as possible you can get a couple of attacks on them in one turn. You can of course save your AP and this means your turn with that character will come around much quicker, as the AP will take less "time" to fill e.g. a character finishing a turn with 89AP will obviously get their next turn sooner than a character finishing with 12AP and so on.
According to the manual you can also adjust the upcoming turn order and AP using R1/R2 and L1/L2 respectively. I didn't try this in my short playthrough so I don't know the exact details of how it works. Also according to the manual only you can adjust the turn order, the enemy can't do this.
When you attack an enemy the direction you attack them in affects how much damage you deal and how accurate your attacks are. Attacking from behind gives the best results, whilst attack from the sides is less advantageous and the worst position to attack from being the front of an enemy. The height of the square you're on also plays a big part in battling. I haven't come across a bow user yet but according to the manual if you are on higher ground with a bow user then their attacking range increases. Aside from that it seems the standard rules apply, swords/axes do more damage but have less range than spears and so on. You can rotate the camera in the battles using the right analogue stick, which is very useful IMO.
There's a fair bit to this game, I've barely mentioned the team attacks and skills, fusing items and so on(all of which are mentioned in the manual). I have a feeling most SRPG fans will lap this up(much like I am right now). I'm not too sure about where the story is going but for the moment at least I'm in love with the combat which can only be a good thing. My main problem now is going to be finding the time to play more of this game, especially with my uni exams coming up in a few weeks and with the huge backlog of games to play through.
All of the text I've come across so far seems to be voiced, except for in the 3d cutscenes where there doesn't appear to be any accompanying text(I'm hoping there might be subtitle option for these scenes as I don't want to be missing out on any important plot details). This is where the first problem arises for me, some of the voices seem a bit too quiet and this isn't helped by the fact that the music seems to be pretty loud on the default settings so it is difficult to pick up some of the voices. Although this can be rectified by lowering the BGM volume in the menu and raising the speech volume. It could be just me though as I've been having a bit of trouble with my hearing recently. I've got no real problems with the voice overs as they seem to be pretty good(although again I actually still play Baten Kaitos with the VOs on so you might turn them off anyway).
I've played a couple of battles so far and there certainly seems to be a lot of scope for using strategy due to the battle system. It's not like Disgaea where by you do you're move and then the computer does it's moves. There's a timeline at the top of the screen which shows whose "turn" it is next and by this I mean which character/enemy will get to move and do the various things they want to do. So for example you might find that once you've finished moving and attacking with one character, an enemies turn pops up and they do their thing and then back to another of your characters and so on.
You have a set amount of AP(action points) you can use in each turn, I think this is set to 100 for everyone(I don't know if it increases with level or anything like that). You need AP to move, to attack and to use skills(skills also use MP). This is also what determines when you will get you're next turn with that character. A character gets another turn when their AP reaches 100 and your AP starts to refill as soon as you finish the turn with that character. This means that in one turn you can move right up to an enemy but you might not have enough AP to attack them, so you have to be careful of the amout of AP you use. This can work in your advantage though, because if you can get to the enemy whilst moving as little as possible you can get a couple of attacks on them in one turn. You can of course save your AP and this means your turn with that character will come around much quicker, as the AP will take less "time" to fill e.g. a character finishing a turn with 89AP will obviously get their next turn sooner than a character finishing with 12AP and so on.
According to the manual you can also adjust the upcoming turn order and AP using R1/R2 and L1/L2 respectively. I didn't try this in my short playthrough so I don't know the exact details of how it works. Also according to the manual only you can adjust the turn order, the enemy can't do this.
When you attack an enemy the direction you attack them in affects how much damage you deal and how accurate your attacks are. Attacking from behind gives the best results, whilst attack from the sides is less advantageous and the worst position to attack from being the front of an enemy. The height of the square you're on also plays a big part in battling. I haven't come across a bow user yet but according to the manual if you are on higher ground with a bow user then their attacking range increases. Aside from that it seems the standard rules apply, swords/axes do more damage but have less range than spears and so on. You can rotate the camera in the battles using the right analogue stick, which is very useful IMO.
There's a fair bit to this game, I've barely mentioned the team attacks and skills, fusing items and so on(all of which are mentioned in the manual). I have a feeling most SRPG fans will lap this up(much like I am right now). I'm not too sure about where the story is going but for the moment at least I'm in love with the combat which can only be a good thing. My main problem now is going to be finding the time to play more of this game, especially with my uni exams coming up in a few weeks and with the huge backlog of games to play through.
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