Over 100 Characters? Ha you only get to use 3. Story? Slow, Stereotypical and just plan Stupid. The game
Gameplay: I was in the beginning enthusiastic when I heard that you are able to recruit over 100 members for battle. In my RPG mind I wondered, how should I order them? Should I go with more healers or more fighters? I was soon picturing Lord of the Ring Battles. However, after being promoted to "sergeant," my hopes were slightly squashed. The system defeats its own strength. How? Due to two reasons.
The first one is the fact that you are limited to 3 people in battle. Even though you may have 100 available, you are only allowed to pick 3. What does this turn into? It turns into a nice little familiarity with GameFaqs or BradyGames in order to recruit the best. The other method is to become "Jack the Bisexual Teammate Stalker" who chases everyone every day any day of the week in order to get that "one" person who has those nice stats. Jeez, such a pain in the @ss.
The second one is the fact that "your recruits have little to no intriguing personality whatsoever." They all live in their little "time bubble world" where they do the same things every day at the same time regardless of what happens. Also, there is no story revealing deeper character into them. No offense, but it would be nice to know a little more about the teammates who are "risking their lives for you." The game DID attempt to put in some romance, ex:fireworks, but it was really half - @ssed and nothing special. Even though I still have to give the game some props for that. *Hahaha thinking about Anastacia waving me goodbye in the ending credits makes me laugh.
Now, to the STORY... the story sucks. As my mom asked me, "so.. you wasted 70 hours on this game... what was it about?" My answer, "well mum...It was about dragons, a giant battle, and cosmic order!" My mom responded, "Do you still have the receipt? We can sell it and watch the Chronicles of Narnia, or is this games the extended Chronicles of Narnia."
The story progresses slowly, the story has no detail, the story is just plan cliched and simple. The romance is corny, undeveloped, and unrealistic. The saving grace of this game was Jack's humourous character. However, I eventually got bored of this long before the end because he had no one to balance his personality with. Ridley becomes.... extremely quiet and Ganz as well. Its like Final Fantasy 7 with Cloud alone. Pretty Boring.
Graphics: Graphics on the whole were good. I like the anime style; big heads, big eyes, ect. As for the cutscenes, perhaps I am spoiled but if Square shoved out the movie scenes to FF quality then things would have been amazing and would have earned a 10. However, they did not do this and used the same quality of graphics as they do throughout the game. It still got a strong score of 8.
Sound: Annoying, monotonous, gah.. my younger sister asked me if they took some music out of a kid's show. I kept on telling her no. Music isn't bad, its just that it never changes. Instead of having "music cd" items you have to buy, save the players and just put them in the game in the first place. SERIOUSLY, I'm not gonig to listen to RIdley's theme for half an hour just because I love simplistic and mono-tone music. The game had a wide variety but didn't sort it out properly and instead used the same songs over and over again. Not bad songs, just songs which get boring.
Replay Value: Seriously? I'd give it a 0. All the strengths are really put down by the game itself, I was not inspired by the story, and it just sucked. I finished the human path and was about almost done with the non - human path when I decided. This game sucks, I'm going to actually study for the SAT like I'm supposed to. Don't get pulled in by the hype, this game is terrible. Even Wild ARms 2nd Ignition had more flavor than this.
Reviewer's Tilt: Jack I like your character. If only you weren't the only person who had a story then I would love you. As it is, this game I felt was a lazy effort. Maybe that took some story which was thrown away and then quickly threw stuff together, however, I am definently dissapointed in Square. I've written some fiction better than this and I am truly dissapointed. Super Mario RPG was a better game than this, and that was pretty old. Sorry Radiata, but this is one review that Jack can't save you from.