"PSP has needed an RPG and this one won't disapoint"

Just to start, I prefer to give games as low of a score as I can, so that a reader will know what will disappoint them first. A fifty dollar investment is a lot to put a pre-order on a game, or pick something up without first knowing what was done right, or more importantly wrong. Good reviews are easy to find a dime a dozen, so I do my best to nit pick a game. This one was hard to find much wrong with.

Graphics:
Simply put, beautiful. This game makes use of the PSP's power. While the environment is not itself special, it is good enough. The colors are gorgeous, and the environmental effects are excellent. You see ripples on water, the glare of light, just to name a few. The colors are vivid and very bright and the anime style character portraits are expressive and pretty. When a character speaks you will see a portrait (if they are important enough) which will have an emotive expression. The battle effects are very nice to look at too. Ultimately I can find very little to complain about these graphics. If I had to nitpick I would say the blockish style the environments look is the only thing I can find and the chibi style characters on screen is a matter of taste. For more specifics, check out the screen shots.

Sound:
Let's break this down into music and sound effects. Starting with music I have to say I am awestruck, the songs fit the situation, they are beautifully composed and the samples they use to piece these songs together are excellent. This game's sound track could have easily appeared on a regular game system and not disappointed anyone. They did their homework and the end result: Good music.

Now the sound effects. First of all there is no voice acting; perhaps it would have taken too much space, perhaps too much production value. I would of been much more impressed if they had put at least some voices in, but there is no talking to be found. Pity. The other sound effects however fit with the music, they are very clear, crisp and well implemented. My only complaint here is that while dialogue is coming on the screen you will hear this annoying beeping sound for every letter displayed. Okay guys, this is not the 1980's, this is a very poor replacement for voices and frankly I found this addition not just annoying, but extremely annoying. If you hit a button while talking is going on you can at least skip the remainder of the annoying beeps by having the rest of the text flash right onto your screen. The only complaint I have here, though I still would of liked voices. Yet another aspect where the game will not disappoint, aside from the beeping.

Game play:
Starting with the story, it is fairly typical RPG story. Though they open up with making you have some emotional attachment to the characters, this means that you will wait a long time from the start until you actually get to experience a battle, but it means the characters are developed very well to start. You will have all sorts of small interactions and conversations going. A strong start for a game genre that is story driven.

The field is animated in that all of the characters, even the minor ones, have something to say and typically seem to be more people than just completely blank cookie cutter npcs. You will see a bubble over their head to describe their feelings and you will see exclamation marks for objects you're supposed to interact with. This makes the field aspect of the game easier to deal with. While it is a touch annoying to use the analogue stick to move, I'm glad they included it; and yes, it is pressure sensitive, small movement to one side will walk, hard will run. During dungeon crawling the game does us the favor of putting monsters on the screen; I always feel this is preferred in an RPG over the random encounter. Better yet, monsters have emotions too, when you see one it will give an icon over its head to determine how the monster feels about your presence. This is based off your level vs. its level, end result? Weak monsters will try to avoid you and strong monsters will be aggressive. Wow, it's not rocket science, but it's nice to know for once monsters aren't completely dumb AI. Big thumbs up there.

Finally combat. The combat system at a first glance is your typical turn based. You start by choosing the actions of all of your party, however the order it is carried out will be based on speed of the character, enemy included. This adds an element or two of tactics, further more it's not just your line versus their line. In addition to attacking, you can 'wait' which enables you to move your character to another location, which is actually worthwhile to do because attacking has a range. You have a few different forms of attack at your disposal too. Regular attacks will give you a circle to determine who is in range, your character will automatically move over to your opponent and make the attack. You also have spells, 'deadly' attacks and skills. The variety is well used so far and the 'deadly' attacks work a lot like limit breaks, you have to use a 'power' meter which fills as you attack and get attacked. Ultimately this makes for a very simple interface that is both full of depth and fairly fresh in the RPG genre while still easy to use.

Conclusion:
If you are a fan of RPGs, then there is very little reason not to pick up this game for the PSP. I haven't finished it yet, so I can't speak for length, but it has story, character development, excellent graphics, sound and a very fun battle system. The PSP fans cried out for an RPG and this is just what the doctor ordered.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/21/05