A unique game with unseen potential.
Pros: Very unique equipment customization feature. The armor, weapons, shoes, everything appears on your character.
The choice of choosing two separate characters' adventure.
Cons: Poor graphics for a PS2 game. It's more like a glorified PSX game.
After not playing this game for about 3 years, I went back to it, became addicted for about 1 week and beat it.
Storyline: The storyline itself can be a bit confusing at first, because you are given two characters to choose from and thrust into seemingly random areas with not much of any background information. However, as you progress farther into the game, you begin to connect the dots in between these two characters' journeys. Some areas are unique to each character's story, while some others are seen in both stories. The climax of the game is quite cheesy to say the least, but I'll leave that for you to discover.
Gameplay: The gameplay starts off somewhat strong and eventually leaves you screaming at the TV for the blatant fallacies of some of the mechanics. The energy meter is pretty clever, but proves to be more of a hindrance rather than a virtue. Most of the game is running around, and when you get to an enemy, you're forced to "walk it off" and regain your energy before engaging in combat. Combat itself is one of the more negative aspects of the game; for almost ALL of the battles, there only exists one method of battle: run in a circle around the enemy, slash enemy, repeat. The slowness of combat is reciprocated by how easy and quickly it is to die however. It's impossible to knock enemies off the ledge, but it's more than easy for an enemy to knock YOU off the ledge, resulting in an automatic return to a "Load Saved Game" screen. It's so abrupt and callous that you just want to cry in a corner. The customization process of armor and weapons, however, is very cool indeed. You are able to change the color of armor, boots and helmets, as well as upgrade them to become even stronger. Equipment can also break after wearing it for too long or using its "Palmira Action" to excess. Palmira Action is essentially the special attack attributed to the equipment depending on its upgrade level and elemental property.
Sound: The soundtrack is catchy at first, but the constant looping of 1 minute tracks as you trek across fields and caves can absolutely drive one insane. The only track I am able to bear is the main title theme. My advice? Go to settings and mute the music and then play your own music over it.
Replay value: After beating the game, you are plunged back into the beginning with all of your previously owned equipment for the sole purpose of searching for new equipment you may have missed before. I've beaten the game twice and honestly it gets boring to kill bosses in one hit with Zul's Toy.
This is a game that not many people can enjoy to its full potential. Don't buy this game if you are looking for instant gratification because this game can take years (in my case at least) to grow on you.