Hey, this game is pretty good! And it has a fully-done fan translation as of about two years ago so it's more accessible than ever.
The combat is pretty simple as it's just your usual turn-based system. The five character classes are all pretty interesting and each have their own mechanic such as the Samurai having two 'stances' that you switch between to change what skills are available or the psychic being your main magic user and having to balance using powerful offensive spells with your heals and recovery spells. The game does offer some challenge in bosses and mini-bosses but it can be pretty easily overcome if you just grind out a handful of levels now and then (which the game makes very easy to do, because of some nice quality-of-life mechanics).
And while we're on the topic of crunchy mechanics, I want to mention the level design in the dungeons because it was pretty consistently very good. It had a lot of interesting moments where what is revealed on your map or what you're able to see with the fixed camera is taken in to account to either try and pull a fast one on your or to tease you about things that you won't get around to until later. It's all very cleverly designed (except for the ice dungeon which just felt cruel and confusing).
And, hey, speaking of design: this game is chock full of good design. I'm pretty ambivalent about the chibi character models but the portraits that go with them are all pretty cool (outside of a few that are a bit too fan-servicey for my tastes). The enemy design were all very cool, although I wish there was a larger variety of things. Seeing the same cool frog get recolored multiple times was a small bummer. The real star here, though, is the environment designs because they really went hogwild with it. Each dungeon has a unique aesthetic that is a part of Tokyo combined with some wild magic nonsense and it's always extremely cool. One of my favorite parts of the game was unlocking a new area so that I could see what it looked like.
The idea that you get to create your characters is neat but I feel like the game needed to either fully commit to more customization or not have it at all. Only getting to pick one of ten portaits, a custom name, plus one of fifteen voices (per gender) doesn't give me much to really play with in terms of making my own characters. Especially when you shove your trio of OCs into the main plot to try and fill the gaping hole where a protagonist would normally go. Since everything has to be written around that hole, it means that your characters basically don't matter. Sure, you're the ones fighting the dragons but anyone with your level of ability could do it and the game is sure to let you know that you're just one group of many that could be doing this (everyone else is either busy or dead, I guess). But also this is one of very few games that let me have a big tiddy milf as a main character so maybe that balances it all out. Who could say.
The main plot itself is pretty milquetoast. Dragons have invaded and it's up to you to unite and defeat them with the power of friendship or whatever. Also you fight god at the end. It's a lot of very common and predictable JRPG tropes shoved together and while it executes on them all pretty well it ends up with something that isn't going to stick in memory for much longer after beating it. The rest of the world, however has some very interesting bits of information that the game has seemingly no interest in actually exploring. Aliens, synthetic humans, secret goverment supersoldiers, plus more, that all get introduced on the fringes of the story but never given much actual detail of. If some of that had even been better incorporated into the plot then it could've been something more engaging but instead it's just a story that is only good enough to keep you going through 'til the end.
One thing I'd me remiss to not mention is that Hatsune Miku is in this game. You save her before she gets eaten by a dragon and then she rewards you with an alternate "Diva Mode" for the soundtrack. The developers got a bunch of vocaloid artists to make Miku remixes of the game's entire soundtrack. At first I thought that was an awesome idea but as I switched back and for between both OSTs I realized that I liked the original one better. Vocaloid music is good but the tracks in this game are just pretty mediocre vocaloid songs. Miku's character model and portrait are very cute though, so that's fun.
Finally, I need to talk about the post-game dungeon. After you roll credits, one of the aliens tells you you need to talk. So after you clean up the last few dragons it unlocks one last dungeon and each bit of progress you make in it rewards you with just a smidge more lore about the dragons and aliens and how they all got here to Earth. At first the dungeon was a neat idea - a mix of all the previous dungeons with only dragon enemies to challenge you with - but after getting halfway through it, it was just too much of a grind for me. The little tidbits of lore weren't worth all the time I was putting in to getting through all these day dragons and doing re-fights with all the bosses of the game. I'm sure I could do it and finish the rest of it off in a few hours but the game has just worn itself out and I wasn't having fun anymore. Whatever happens at the end is extremely unlikely to significantly change how I feel about the game anyway so I don't think I'm missing much there.
Overall, 7th Dragon 2020 is a cool game. It was fun to playthrough and it makes me glad that the fan translation has been completed. It's a little hidden gem of the PSP that I hope more people check out because, despite the issues I have with it, I think it's worth the time to play it.
The combat is pretty simple as it's just your usual turn-based system. The five character classes are all pretty interesting and each have their own mechanic such as the Samurai having two 'stances' that you switch between to change what skills are available or the psychic being your main magic user and having to balance using powerful offensive spells with your heals and recovery spells. The game does offer some challenge in bosses and mini-bosses but it can be pretty easily overcome if you just grind out a handful of levels now and then (which the game makes very easy to do, because of some nice quality-of-life mechanics).
And while we're on the topic of crunchy mechanics, I want to mention the level design in the dungeons because it was pretty consistently very good. It had a lot of interesting moments where what is revealed on your map or what you're able to see with the fixed camera is taken in to account to either try and pull a fast one on your or to tease you about things that you won't get around to until later. It's all very cleverly designed (except for the ice dungeon which just felt cruel and confusing).
And, hey, speaking of design: this game is chock full of good design. I'm pretty ambivalent about the chibi character models but the portraits that go with them are all pretty cool (outside of a few that are a bit too fan-servicey for my tastes). The enemy design were all very cool, although I wish there was a larger variety of things. Seeing the same cool frog get recolored multiple times was a small bummer. The real star here, though, is the environment designs because they really went hogwild with it. Each dungeon has a unique aesthetic that is a part of Tokyo combined with some wild magic nonsense and it's always extremely cool. One of my favorite parts of the game was unlocking a new area so that I could see what it looked like.
The idea that you get to create your characters is neat but I feel like the game needed to either fully commit to more customization or not have it at all. Only getting to pick one of ten portaits, a custom name, plus one of fifteen voices (per gender) doesn't give me much to really play with in terms of making my own characters. Especially when you shove your trio of OCs into the main plot to try and fill the gaping hole where a protagonist would normally go. Since everything has to be written around that hole, it means that your characters basically don't matter. Sure, you're the ones fighting the dragons but anyone with your level of ability could do it and the game is sure to let you know that you're just one group of many that could be doing this (everyone else is either busy or dead, I guess). But also this is one of very few games that let me have a big tiddy milf as a main character so maybe that balances it all out. Who could say.
The main plot itself is pretty milquetoast. Dragons have invaded and it's up to you to unite and defeat them with the power of friendship or whatever. Also you fight god at the end. It's a lot of very common and predictable JRPG tropes shoved together and while it executes on them all pretty well it ends up with something that isn't going to stick in memory for much longer after beating it. The rest of the world, however has some very interesting bits of information that the game has seemingly no interest in actually exploring. Aliens, synthetic humans, secret goverment supersoldiers, plus more, that all get introduced on the fringes of the story but never given much actual detail of. If some of that had even been better incorporated into the plot then it could've been something more engaging but instead it's just a story that is only good enough to keep you going through 'til the end.
One thing I'd me remiss to not mention is that Hatsune Miku is in this game. You save her before she gets eaten by a dragon and then she rewards you with an alternate "Diva Mode" for the soundtrack. The developers got a bunch of vocaloid artists to make Miku remixes of the game's entire soundtrack. At first I thought that was an awesome idea but as I switched back and for between both OSTs I realized that I liked the original one better. Vocaloid music is good but the tracks in this game are just pretty mediocre vocaloid songs. Miku's character model and portrait are very cute though, so that's fun.
Finally, I need to talk about the post-game dungeon. After you roll credits, one of the aliens tells you you need to talk. So after you clean up the last few dragons it unlocks one last dungeon and each bit of progress you make in it rewards you with just a smidge more lore about the dragons and aliens and how they all got here to Earth. At first the dungeon was a neat idea - a mix of all the previous dungeons with only dragon enemies to challenge you with - but after getting halfway through it, it was just too much of a grind for me. The little tidbits of lore weren't worth all the time I was putting in to getting through all these day dragons and doing re-fights with all the bosses of the game. I'm sure I could do it and finish the rest of it off in a few hours but the game has just worn itself out and I wasn't having fun anymore. Whatever happens at the end is extremely unlikely to significantly change how I feel about the game anyway so I don't think I'm missing much there.
Overall, 7th Dragon 2020 is a cool game. It was fun to playthrough and it makes me glad that the fan translation has been completed. It's a little hidden gem of the PSP that I hope more people check out because, despite the issues I have with it, I think it's worth the time to play it.