Absolutely hands-down the single most addicting game on the face of the planet. You'll play WoW to wean yourself off it
The review (as always, out of ten):
Story: 6 (8)
The story is very bland. You're a member of a guild of mercenaries known to the colonists you are with as Hunter. That is, regardless of which class, race, and gender you choose, you are a Hunter. You are the only people other than the military that is permitted to go to the surface of the planet that the colonists are looking to inhabit and are investigating the disappearance of you predecessors on the ship Pioneer 1. You're on Pioneer 2. The second person you talk to tells you that your boss' daughter is missing and asks you to find her for him (your boss, that is). That's the story. Period. The second number is for the story behind the quests which is far, far superior to the main story. That story has two distinct arcs that somewhat intertwine. One of the arcs has you searching for the pirate Black Paper who is wreaking havoc on the military and the Hunter's guild. You can essentially find him and kill him later on and get his awesome scythe. The other arc has you helping an android and her master/creator to find her sister who was abducted by the military on Ragol. As you can see, there's much more to the story in the quests.
Sound: 7
The sound is not bad, it's just not good. You're probably going to keep the same weapons for a while and your weapons make one of about 30 different noises per class per type of hit. That is, there's about 10 different kinds of "normal" weapons between sword-like melee weapons, guns, and canes (essentially the magic-user's sword), and 3 different types of attacks, normal, heavy, and special. Sometimes, there's a unique weapon like Akiko's Frying Pan, which makes noises like, well, a frying pan hitting someone.
Graphics: 7
Even for 2002, for early-ish GameCube, they're very 'meh'. Again, not bad, just not good.
Controls: 8
Even though they're hard to master, the controls only take a short while to figure out how to customize them. You essentially have six things that you can do at a time, using A, B, and X when you set the command for them in the menu. You get an additional three (a total of 6--sorry to confuse) when you hold the R button. By pressing R and Y at the same time, you can access a quick menu to swap weapons, and by pressing R an additional time, you can get to a quick magic (called "techniques" in the game) and to a quick item use menu. The combos that make up the essential combat are tricky part. You must time the buttons correctly in order to execute a good combo.
Replay Value: 10+
This is where the game gets interesting. There are literally somewhere in the range of 7,500 different items in the game, and if you find a way to hack on to a free server (the servers are down now), there's nearly double that. There are hundreds of combinations of how you character looks and though you cannot change your gender, there are 3 different classes. The classes are labeled with a prefix and a suffix indicating a class, race, and gender. HU=hunter: a master of melee combat
RA=ranger: a master of ranged combat
FO=force: a master of techniques
The races are the following:
mar/marl: Male human/female human
cast/ceasel: Male android/female android
newm/newearl: Male newman/female newman (a race of elf-like creatures)
There are class specific items such as swords for hunters, rifles for hunters, and canes for forces. The difficulty of the game is often based on which weapon which class is wielding as it goes into battle. The game also lets you take monster's body parts and, through a slightly complicated process, convert them into powerful weapons such as the grass assassin blades or the rappy fan. The game also has 4 different difficulties that grow exponentially in difficulty and sport new weapons, monsters, and surprises. What also sets this game apart from the rest is the fact that the maximum level is actually 200. Also, let us not forget that there are two complete games in one. Episode 1 was just described. Episode 2 is much more difficult and has new weapons, monsters, and difficulties.
Overall: 8
Final notes: If you're looking to wean yourself off of your growing WoW addiction, try this one out. It's truly an experience that is nearly impossible for me to completely describe. Despite it being one of the lowest-rated games that I've reviewed or rated, the game itself is absolutely amazing. You'll find yourself playing for hours on end trying to find the coveted chainsword (actually called the Chainsawd) or trying to get rare monster drops. As you've probably guessed, the game is all about items. Buy it if you feel like a good 300+ hour game. No exaggeration.