"Great underrated game, however doesn't appeal to whiney fanatics so it seems."

The gamespot reviewer is terrible.

I always hate dubs. I watched a lot of anime and know just how superior Japanese voice acting is. But with that said, this games voice acting is much better than other games. It can be switched off.

Frame rate drops? Who cares? It only happens for a second when a screen full of monsters appear. Just pretend it's a matrix rip off. I personally enjoy it when it happens because it means more things to kill.

The graphics are great. Character designs are terrific, I never though a centaur could look so good. The 2 chibi characters are adorable. Cyrille is pretty and Toma looks awesome.

It seems weird to me that people are complaining about how the combat is "shallow." These complaints come from people who enjoy their turn-based menu-browsing crap. Since when is that fun and real-time hack n slash boring? The attacks are smooth and the enemies all die with style. Love how the corpses can be hit additionally just for fun. Enemies attack differently so game play changes through the game. Movement and weapons speeds vary and strategy changes based on weapon. Unlike other rpgs time spent killing monsters is in the seconds and not minutes. I kill 1000 monsters in this game in the time it takes to kill one in other rpgs.

This game is very customizable. The weapon/armor designs are good. Many choices too.

Easy to get places, teleport, save, loading times are very short.

The written dialogue is good, I didn't mind reading it like I did in other RPGS. Humorous and not so dramatic.

Problems that I saw are that enemies are either overpowered or underpowered. I spend some times fighting in the training area where monsters get tough and when I get back to the main story, I am super overpowered. Something that makes monsters proportional to level would have been nice. The mythril is distributed well, so Cyrille is never underpowered even though I rarely use her. Music, well it's fitting. As for the story, nothing here that any other doesn't RPG have. Though I am glad it doesn't emphasize story, because when an rpg takes it's own crappy generic story to seriously you get something pathetic to watch like in so many RPGs. The combat be it very good; still could be improved with a little bit more buttons to smash.

9.5/10

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 06/18/07