A nice game with some humour and some darkness...
Gameplay:
I never really liked the dungeon crawler games. Except this time, it has random encounters and... was better. HOWEVER, i still dislike dungeon crawler games. I found myself continuously looking at the map instead of the copy and pasted dungeon walls all over the dungeons. Not only were the dungeons easy to get lost in, they were plain annoying, repetitive...and ... annoying. I mean, after completing a HUGE dungeon with lots of dark places and random maze like puzzels, you have to get back out... Fortunately though, you have a map that traces out the route you had taken to get in...but anyways, still annoying with all those random encounters.
Battle System was fun. Old Schoolish except with range (which was annoying) and other random things that weren't exactly very clear in the game but great anyways. Got repetitive after a while, and summoning persona's all the time ... well took too long, and wasn't much of a spectacle either.
Story:
This is where the game excelled rather greatly. Nothing epic here for those who love epic stories like Final Fantasy, Xenogears etc. Although the game is only based inside a small (but feels very very large....) town...actually two towns... the game is still great and would take you hours just to explore a few of the places, and a few more hours to explore the dungeons, talk to people in rooms and stuff. Back to the story: anyways, the story is great. About a group of high school students who have run into quite an unlikely fate which lead to demons and more demons.
The story is a bit dark, but not really. It has a funny sense of humour with the monsters and...umm strangeness but also some dark psychological aspects in it as well. I'll leave that for you to find out.
Graphics:
Actually i thought they were horrible. But i gotta remember that this is psx time so it wasn't bad. Just wasn't good. No where near as great as Final Fantasy vii, viii, ix.... but the anime type drawings were alright. Sprites were...horrible but good enough tor me.
Overall:
Not a must play, but you should still try it out. It has a great story, gameplay isn't small, is rather large and a bit more complex than simple...
Pros:
+ Great Story
+ Not an overly simple gameplay (like most other *** rpg sleepers)
+ Fun
Cons:
- Stupid dungeons...too long and confusing and copy and pasted...
- Load times are...irritating...
- The sprites get annoying after a while.
- Too much...work