Possibly the ideal battle RPG. Amazing battle system, full of tactical possibilities. Balanced extremely well, too - I beat the final boss in a real do-or-die type situation and that kind of thing happened all the time.
The RPG part is no slouch either, though it's unusual. Presented in a picture-book style, it is more like a tabletop game in that you just move between encounters, either in towns, dungeons or with people or monsters in the open. It's refreshingly direct, and it feels like the non-essentials have been stripped away.
There's some weird loading stuff that goes on in battles, which is a hangover from the Vita version; the machine clearly didn't have the RAM to handle the game running on Unity so it would slowly load all the moves and effects before each turn. It does so here too, but in a much faster fashion. The effect is still a drag on the overall tempo, but it does provide for some great drama as you wonder why it's spending a little longer than usual preparing the turn to play out. I don't think it'd work if the characters had more hit points; a couple of bad hits or a mistake can easily take out one or two of your characters and set you on a slide towards defeat, even in a relatively 'easy' fight by the numbers.
The ports added a limited amount of voices but the real star of the show remains the music. My only real complaint would be that there isn't enough as a lot is spread across the four scenarios. That said, from what I can gather the four different characters progress through the story in a very different manner to one another. I'll definitely be playing through as another character at some point, after clearing it as the sarcastic ceramicist Taria. Dialogue is relatively scarce for an RPG but what's there is well-written and full of character. I really enjoyed the pairing of Taria and Kahn going through her story and the game's actually full of funny little moments, little mysteries, medium length stories and stuff that's left hanging or unsolved because you didn't do stuff in the right order.
I think this is coming out in English relatively soon. I can't recommend enough that you give this a shot. It's huge, it's daunting, the party levelling system initially makes it sound like you can chronically mess your game up but it's actually the opposite because it drags you up to where it thinks you should be. It's a series of systems and algorithms which have been agonised over for hundreds of hours to the point where it almost feels like it's scripted or even that someone's in control of it for maximum drama, but it really isn't. The Grace system in particular contributes hugely to that sensation and it's not like any Japanese RPG I've played before.
The RPG part is no slouch either, though it's unusual. Presented in a picture-book style, it is more like a tabletop game in that you just move between encounters, either in towns, dungeons or with people or monsters in the open. It's refreshingly direct, and it feels like the non-essentials have been stripped away.
There's some weird loading stuff that goes on in battles, which is a hangover from the Vita version; the machine clearly didn't have the RAM to handle the game running on Unity so it would slowly load all the moves and effects before each turn. It does so here too, but in a much faster fashion. The effect is still a drag on the overall tempo, but it does provide for some great drama as you wonder why it's spending a little longer than usual preparing the turn to play out. I don't think it'd work if the characters had more hit points; a couple of bad hits or a mistake can easily take out one or two of your characters and set you on a slide towards defeat, even in a relatively 'easy' fight by the numbers.
The ports added a limited amount of voices but the real star of the show remains the music. My only real complaint would be that there isn't enough as a lot is spread across the four scenarios. That said, from what I can gather the four different characters progress through the story in a very different manner to one another. I'll definitely be playing through as another character at some point, after clearing it as the sarcastic ceramicist Taria. Dialogue is relatively scarce for an RPG but what's there is well-written and full of character. I really enjoyed the pairing of Taria and Kahn going through her story and the game's actually full of funny little moments, little mysteries, medium length stories and stuff that's left hanging or unsolved because you didn't do stuff in the right order.
I think this is coming out in English relatively soon. I can't recommend enough that you give this a shot. It's huge, it's daunting, the party levelling system initially makes it sound like you can chronically mess your game up but it's actually the opposite because it drags you up to where it thinks you should be. It's a series of systems and algorithms which have been agonised over for hundreds of hours to the point where it almost feels like it's scripted or even that someone's in control of it for maximum drama, but it really isn't. The Grace system in particular contributes hugely to that sensation and it's not like any Japanese RPG I've played before.