I really enjoyed my time with this game. I got very interested in the world and characters, as it had been a while a RPG of this scale and quality had been released. It's a very classic RPG, think PSX, PS2 era in nowadays graphics. A very linear game in its story, level design and character arc progression, which is what I enjoy with RPGs so that worked well for me.
It's also very much a Tales of game, with the usual anime story, reactions and scenes. Sakuraba's music is a bit hit and miss but when it hits (mostly the combat tracks) it's very good. Not his best work, but for Tales, I'd say he delivered compared to some of his past works on this series.
Most of the fun is during the combat, which flow extremely well and can be a lot of fun. There are a good number of systems and combo possibilities feel endless. Each character plays quite differently too so it's easy to keep the fun on by switching characters.
Unfortunately, the AI is not good enough to really allow this combat system to shine and it brings a lot of frustration. Some of the decisions made are truly frustrating, such as not being able to make your party members assist target on you.
The boss fights also feel like a different game all together that I did not enjoy at all. It turned into some Monster Hunter lite at times, where again, the AI could not follow leading to tedious and difficult fights with little fun.
Other negative points would be the limited bestiary that gets really tiring by the end and also way too many dialogues that are not necessary and just break the pace of the game.
It's also very much a Tales of game, with the usual anime story, reactions and scenes. Sakuraba's music is a bit hit and miss but when it hits (mostly the combat tracks) it's very good. Not his best work, but for Tales, I'd say he delivered compared to some of his past works on this series.
Most of the fun is during the combat, which flow extremely well and can be a lot of fun. There are a good number of systems and combo possibilities feel endless. Each character plays quite differently too so it's easy to keep the fun on by switching characters.
Unfortunately, the AI is not good enough to really allow this combat system to shine and it brings a lot of frustration. Some of the decisions made are truly frustrating, such as not being able to make your party members assist target on you.
The boss fights also feel like a different game all together that I did not enjoy at all. It turned into some Monster Hunter lite at times, where again, the AI could not follow leading to tedious and difficult fights with little fun.
Other negative points would be the limited bestiary that gets really tiring by the end and also way too many dialogues that are not necessary and just break the pace of the game.