Absolute mistake! A flashy show to blind the senses and mask the lack of any content in this awful game.
"As the spirit wanes the form appears"
It is exactly what one can see in this very game. Within which everything is a joke and sad parody of what one can call story, interesting characters and plot. It is a fan ride for people who are still stuck on children-tricycles, having absolutely no comparison to world of big cars and bikes behind the huge wall that devides universe of J-RPGs and Good RPGs. This kind of people, with no comparison, who experience only this kind of games will most posibly find it enjoable... people who find action, effects and over-'poetized' dialogs full of cheep drama lines - a most important part of rpg, should embrace this game with all the might of their arms. If the story and depth is what they seek, they will be destroyed with the amount of shame this game is wrapped in, though refusing to admitt it.
The only thing this game shows is visual effects, barraging us with endless bombast mass of visual shiny junk. Starting with characters, who are so shallow, dumb and unlikable, absolute clichees of the typical J-RPG heroes. Like protagonist: a self troubled feminine transsexual with dark background that left him in bad pseudo-reflective mood... also an absolute champion in combat. Like rest of characters throughout the story he is just an empty bucket that opens up every now and then to puke out a random line of random, mostly politicaly correct semi-badass/semi-emo comment on the situation, that is really annoying. Characters are in fact so unbarable that YOU are GLAD they die! I drew more satisfaction of seeing how they are defeated, and watching their wonderfull defeat animations, than to push forward in some of most absurdal, generic stories with absolutely no sense whatsoever.
There is this idea, that game makers and other 'artists' use to gain upper hand on slow thinkers and less demanding fans... mass fans also. Some people think that way: If something consufes me, and I can't understand it, it must mean, it's something deep or inteligent.
So this kind of games become more random, more generic, more strange, cutscenes full of strange looking people and magic. nothing's ever explained, so that a viewer watches it and is staggered with amount of random content. They add cheesy music, often some falling angel feathers to built drama, because they wel know those empty shallow characters can present no drama at all. (I was talking now about J-RPGs in general) At first the story seemed like something original, but it is a very politicaly correct variation upon racism and equality, this kind of stuff you could expect from Barney the Dinosaur.
The visual style, as it is complete cliche of other alike games, has nothing you could call unique or original. It reminds me of a situation that once took place in old game making company in poland, where three departaments created different games, and there was a bunch of artists who produced artworks, and the rest of those people working, just gathered up arround those drawings, chose some and mage a game based on this crap... That's how thegame here looks like...
Like somewhere in japan there was this strange pit where artists dump their artworks and people just run towards it, snatch some random drawings and run away. That's how it looks... like Final Fantasy leftovers.
You just feel no actual need to endure this madness... no motivation to go on, avange your comrades, or save the day. In fact, I'd rather wait and watch how they all die... well, one of rules of old RPGs was to kill the annoying guys... Why the heck I have to play them here?
Combat system is a true pain, it's like they tried to do something new than other J-RPGs, but in fact its the same kind of turnbased boooring schematic WITH a little push-right-button-on-time mini game, making any encounters even longer and more boring. Camera settings are simply horrible, making a walk through a corridor kind of gimicks you could expect from party of drunken capoeira fighters smoked and stoned like Trailer Park Boys.
You may have a strange idea this game takes long to play, what is an obvious lie and the game is enlonged artificialy by frustrating elements like dungeons and mass of random encounters, whereas not to get backstabbed, ye got to switch to walk mode, to stay alert, what makes a normal dungeon last at least one third time more than normaly.
Linearity in this game is awfull. Be prepaired for "dog-on-a-leash" gameplay with almost no-choice making. If you like making decisions and choosing dialogue options like in Western RPGs than this will be a nightmare.
Also it is a game where player's sexual orientation and sexual drives have a strongest role in drawing one towards this game. It is a girl's game obviously and perhaps game for guys who find mighty fine buttocks of metrosexual protagonist flashing at our eyes from the uncovered parts of his dress-like outfit... delicious.
It's absolutely one of worst games I've played in my life it is not worth the money and your time. Just Don't... don't...
So is this game worht anything?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31g0YE61PLQ
So...
There is nothing in this game, or about this game, beside cheep flashy visuality.
As the spirit wanes the form appears