An ambitious, overly hyped game that fails to follow through.
User Rating: 5.7 | Arc the Lad: End of Darkness PS2
This is really hard for me to write, I had such high hopes for this game. Unfortunately... I have been let down. The game attempts to change from the SRPG formula that the series started with, into some sort of action- RPG. The battle system is incredibly difficult to handle at first, and you need to make some serious adjustments to your playing style to get anywhere. Under no circumstances do I suggest playing the game in a 'Kingdom Hearts' fashion, you will die, a lot. Instead the best tactic is to run up to a single enemy, do a quick combo, and retreat. As enemies tend to bulk together in battle, this can be difficult. The main way that the game progresses is with hunter quests, you take a mission, go kill some monsters/ capture a monster/ collect parts/ etc... Then cash in. Then you do it again. If you lose however, all of your equipped abilities are confiscated from you, permanently. Then you go and do the mission again, without the abilities you just lost, and try and win. Overall there is far too much trial and error to combat. Making the game very tedious and not fun. On the plus side, the game does feature the return of 24 of the series characters. and once you find each characters card, you can fight as them. As for online play, the Japanese servers have already been given the go ahead to be taken down due to lack of interest, so I don't know how long the US servers will remain up. The game is not a complete waste of time, and longtime fans of the series will find plenty of things to keep them entertained. Id say rent though, it does not warrant a purchase. Im not that far into the game, and I really hope it gets better, Its such a huge letdown. I love this series.
