Another pillar of the burgeoning JRPG genre released shortly after Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. Naturally, a comparison is to the two is inevitable, and it performs favorably when put up against the other two breakout hits of the late 80s.
The story tackles mature themes and is well presented for the time. The visuals also have a more "realistic" look compared to the spritework of the other two aforementioned franchises. The soundtrack is decent, but doesn't hi nearly as hard as Final Fantasy did for me.
The combat is in first person, and the animations and enemy designs really shine here. Unfortunately, the dungeon crawling also takes a page out of Ultima and Sorcery, without automapping and can just become utterly tiresome, which is also true for the level of grinding this game requires.
Overall, I think this game was a noteworthy addition to the JRPG franchise pantheon, with a mostly successful execution held back by some small gameplay annoyances.
The story tackles mature themes and is well presented for the time. The visuals also have a more "realistic" look compared to the spritework of the other two aforementioned franchises. The soundtrack is decent, but doesn't hi nearly as hard as Final Fantasy did for me.
The combat is in first person, and the animations and enemy designs really shine here. Unfortunately, the dungeon crawling also takes a page out of Ultima and Sorcery, without automapping and can just become utterly tiresome, which is also true for the level of grinding this game requires.
Overall, I think this game was a noteworthy addition to the JRPG franchise pantheon, with a mostly successful execution held back by some small gameplay annoyances.