Got this today and have so far played it for around 3 hours.
I gotta say first off this game is beautiful. It's the very first thing that hit me after I watched the intro movie. From actual game graphics, to art direction, to the audio, it's first class. FMV cutscenes are mixed in with game engine cutscenes and it all flows rather nicely.
Getting down to the game itself, you play initially as Yo****sune (a lightning fast samurai) before meeting/unlocking Benkei. He's just an out and out brute. You can switch between the characters when you like although it requires going back to a particular place. From what I've played so far, some areas of the game require a certain character to be used to open up a new area or collect an item. Sometimes it's a pain, but there are moments as the game progresses where a required character will be referenced in the story and therefore 'catch up' with you. You search and collect stones to upgrade your characters stats. Defeating enemies gets you money to buy weapons, items, etc.
The combat system is easy to get into and can get quite deep thanks to combos, although you can hack and slash if you prefer. There's also a cool counter-attack (Kamui) effect that kicks in if you time your dodge and counter-attack correctly - this works well on multiple enemies when you're backed into a corner. It can also be activated manually using one of your Kamui gauge blocks. It's then a stand-off where you wait for the enemy to attack. When they do, the square button icon will flash on the screen briefly. If you hit square when it's showing, you block the attack and counter-attack doing alot of damage (handy on boss battles). Mis-time and you take the hit.
If you play as Yoshi, the battles are totally different than as Benkei. Yoshi is more nimble and quick whereas Benkei is slow but does more damage. So far I'm tending to favour Yoshi. After using him for the first half-hour, Benkei seemed slow and cumbersome. Many of the standard battles are against 3 or 4 quick enemies who try to circle you so quick reflexes are my preference
One thing I've found so far is that the boss battles are not overly difficult (maybe I use Kamui mode too much). As far as I can tell there is only 'normal' difficulty at first so hopefully completion will result in some more modes. Also, from what I've read, the game can be completed in 7-8 hours. Not a big deal for me as I don't have 40+ hours on a game thesedays although I'm not rushing through it.
Although I can't fully translate the text and audio by any means, I'm not having any problems with progressing. The important elements of the story are spoken (Japanese) whilst the rest is just written, although you can get a general idea of the story via the cutscenes. There is hardly any english here but most of the stat screens and item menus are fairly easy to work out if you've ever played an RPG before. Waiting for the US release is a good idea if you fully want to follow the story fully. Hopefully the voice acting won't kill it
I gotta say first off this game is beautiful. It's the very first thing that hit me after I watched the intro movie. From actual game graphics, to art direction, to the audio, it's first class. FMV cutscenes are mixed in with game engine cutscenes and it all flows rather nicely.
Getting down to the game itself, you play initially as Yo****sune (a lightning fast samurai) before meeting/unlocking Benkei. He's just an out and out brute. You can switch between the characters when you like although it requires going back to a particular place. From what I've played so far, some areas of the game require a certain character to be used to open up a new area or collect an item. Sometimes it's a pain, but there are moments as the game progresses where a required character will be referenced in the story and therefore 'catch up' with you. You search and collect stones to upgrade your characters stats. Defeating enemies gets you money to buy weapons, items, etc.
The combat system is easy to get into and can get quite deep thanks to combos, although you can hack and slash if you prefer. There's also a cool counter-attack (Kamui) effect that kicks in if you time your dodge and counter-attack correctly - this works well on multiple enemies when you're backed into a corner. It can also be activated manually using one of your Kamui gauge blocks. It's then a stand-off where you wait for the enemy to attack. When they do, the square button icon will flash on the screen briefly. If you hit square when it's showing, you block the attack and counter-attack doing alot of damage (handy on boss battles). Mis-time and you take the hit.
If you play as Yoshi, the battles are totally different than as Benkei. Yoshi is more nimble and quick whereas Benkei is slow but does more damage. So far I'm tending to favour Yoshi. After using him for the first half-hour, Benkei seemed slow and cumbersome. Many of the standard battles are against 3 or 4 quick enemies who try to circle you so quick reflexes are my preference
One thing I've found so far is that the boss battles are not overly difficult (maybe I use Kamui mode too much). As far as I can tell there is only 'normal' difficulty at first so hopefully completion will result in some more modes. Also, from what I've read, the game can be completed in 7-8 hours. Not a big deal for me as I don't have 40+ hours on a game thesedays although I'm not rushing through it.
Although I can't fully translate the text and audio by any means, I'm not having any problems with progressing. The important elements of the story are spoken (Japanese) whilst the rest is just written, although you can get a general idea of the story via the cutscenes. There is hardly any english here but most of the stat screens and item menus are fairly easy to work out if you've ever played an RPG before. Waiting for the US release is a good idea if you fully want to follow the story fully. Hopefully the voice acting won't kill it
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