I didn't enjoy this game that much... but that doesn't mean that this is a bad game.
If you asked me what I thought of the game after about 10 hours of playing it, I would have said that it was shallow, unoriginal and just plain boring, but as I have spent over 40 hours playing this game I have to say that it is quite impressive and innovative. It uses the basic formula of all JRPG's and enchants them for better or worse, but more for the better. Even though I did not enjoy it as much, I can see why people love this game.
The story is about a boy named Lloyd who lives in a small village of Isselia. The world the story takes place in is called Sylverant and every decade or so a chosen is born who must, when the time comes, go on a pilgrimage to restore the worlds mana. The chosen happens to be Lloyd's dear friend Collete who lives in the same village. After a few minor difficulties Lloyd decides to go on a journey with Collete to protect her along with his best friend Genis, his sister Raine and a mercenary Kratos (not the God of War :D ).
At first the story obviously seems like a Final Fantasy X rip off and that gave me a bad impression over it. But as the story goes on... man... does it get COMPLICATED. In all my years of playing video games, I don't think I have ever seen a story with more plot twists then this one. I mean, my god, one minute i'm doing 'A' and the minute I'm doing 'Z'. It's like at first you are looking for someone and once you find him/her you get something completely different such as obtaining all the hidden powers of the world and after that you have to find a secret weapon. I know it sounds like a regular JRPG but I'm pretty sure this game could hold a record of the number of plot twists.
In fact, I bet the producers came up with a bunch of stories and squeezed them all into this one and somehow managed to make it into a pretty epic tale. But of course with so many stories the game just lasts longer... Like I said before, right when you think you are near the end... BOOM... something else happens and you have to do another thing, meaning: at least another 10 hours in the game. Sure, it lasts as much as any other JRPG but at least in other JRPG's you have some knowledge of how far into the game you are. Still, not knowing when the game will end can make it more enjoyable.
The characters in the story are a mixed bag in my opinion. If the characters in a JRPG are boring, then the whole game is screwed. The characters you start with are well... not that interesting. It's not that they are badly written or undeveloped it's just that they are too cliche. I've seen the same characters over and over again in other games so I wasn't that impressed at first, but later when the story gets a bit more complicated they kinda evolve and you get a bit attached to them but not enough in my opinion. The characters you get later in the story are completely different on the other hand. This is where the game begins to shine! These characters are anything but boring or undeveloped. At first glance at them you will want them in your party. They all have really interesting back-stories, skeletons in their closets and great personalities and as stated by most fans of the game, are the better half of the party. So one half of your party consists of been-there-done-that characters and the other half of holy-cow characters.
The gameplay is innovative as well. The battles aren't triggered randomly like in old school JRPG's but by touching an enemy that roams through the world/dungeon. The battles themselves aren't turn based as well. Instead they are played in a real-time-action style, meaning that you will have to control both the movement and the action of one of your character. At first I thought that this was kind of broken because you control all of your movements with one character while your other characters are set to auto attacking (which you can tweak slightly). You can also switch and control other characters but I never found the need for it because I simply got used to the main one. Sure you can pause the battle and set all the actions of other characters manually but it just wasn't the same. It got a bit boring to me, when I realized that the character I was controlling was the only one who was doing decent damage and the battles themselves were kinda easy as well. You could pretty much beat any enemy by charging at it and mashing the A button with an occasional block and a technique. That was until I figured out that you could plug in 3 more controllers into your gamecube and have 3 of your friends play as the rest of your party. Finally, a JRPG that has a co-op multiplayer. This totally changed the view of the gameplay for me. I mean, sure it doesn't work perfectly but what other JRPG has this? Also, didn't you ever wish you could have a friend control a party member in a Final Fantasy game or some other JRPG?
Summoning creatures is a bit complicated seeing how only one character can do it (Kinda like Yuna from FFX right?) and she has to be enraged in order to do it.
You can also pull union attacks for some heavy damage which are basically a combination of one attack from every character in your party
Leveling up your characters also feels fresh. You will barely, and I use the term loosely, have to grind at all. You will gain most of your levels simply by following the story and you basically won't ever have to stop and grind unless of course you want to overpower yourself, and let me tell you, you can REALLY overpower yourself seeing how in order to beat the finally boss you need to be about level 65 and the maximum level is 250!!!!
The overworld and it's locations are the same as in any other old school game. You have non-random battles in the overworld, at first you walk then you get a boat and, of course, an airship :) .
What's interesting to note is that in your party menu you have the option 'cooking'. Cooking basically means healing your party a bit right after a battle, assuming you have all the cooking ingredients. At first I found it amusing, but later I simply forgot about it when I got healing spells...
The music is ok, nothing special. The zone and overworld themes are what-is-to-be-expected form a JRPG, the battle themes are pretty much the same.
The graphics are in a cartoonish anime style. They look kinda childish and I kinda had a problem of taking the story seriously because of the graphics and style of the game, but that's probably just me.
One thing that came out of nowhere is INSTANT LOADING SCREENS! Seriously, it's a miracle amongst miracles. You would think that this game, like most RPG's, would have loading screens but you couldn't be more wrong. You go into a building and you don't even see the black screen for more then half a second and the building has already been loaded. The same thing goes for battles.
There are also some High-quality CG cutscenes in the game. Actually the coolest one is the game's opening (kinda like an Anime opening). In the original Japanese version there is even a cool song, but unfortunately it got replaced by some crappy orchestra in the English version :( . Other then that, you have one CG scene at the very end of the game, and a few when something is crumbling or when something is growing, which is kinda disappointing.
If you want a fresh JRPG, with cool characters, an innovative new gameplay, a story with tons of plot-twist that lasts FOREVER, get this game. Even though I didn't enjoy it as much, I'm sure that sane people will :).