My first playthrough of the entire trilogy, back-to-back. For reference: I had played GS right when it came out and it has always held a special place in my library.
I was aware of the mediocre to negative reviews of this game but was pleasantly surprised! The quality-of-life changes are significant, it has that low-poly NDS era graphics that I love, and it pokes fun at itself a bit. The battles are visually interesting, it moves at a good clip, and it's an easy game to manage.
Where it falls apart is primarily in the story and battles. Like the previous games, the story can be all over the place. I used a guide and without it, I would have often been lost as to what my current objectives are. The save screen does update with a brief synopsis, but the story thread is just hard to follow.
As for battles, I rarely found myself using summons and Djinn as the weapons and their specials quickly became just as powerful and I just spammed standard attacks in all battles sans boss fights. I would have liked more mid- or main-boss battles too. Sometimes it felt like I'd go through an entire dungeon with 1 or 2 battles and then no boss battle.
All in all, an ok game. That said, if I had played this in my formative years, I could see it really setting the stage for better RPGs. It's a great beginner's JRPG.
I was aware of the mediocre to negative reviews of this game but was pleasantly surprised! The quality-of-life changes are significant, it has that low-poly NDS era graphics that I love, and it pokes fun at itself a bit. The battles are visually interesting, it moves at a good clip, and it's an easy game to manage.
Where it falls apart is primarily in the story and battles. Like the previous games, the story can be all over the place. I used a guide and without it, I would have often been lost as to what my current objectives are. The save screen does update with a brief synopsis, but the story thread is just hard to follow.
As for battles, I rarely found myself using summons and Djinn as the weapons and their specials quickly became just as powerful and I just spammed standard attacks in all battles sans boss fights. I would have liked more mid- or main-boss battles too. Sometimes it felt like I'd go through an entire dungeon with 1 or 2 battles and then no boss battle.
All in all, an ok game. That said, if I had played this in my formative years, I could see it really setting the stage for better RPGs. It's a great beginner's JRPG.