I'm now beginning to understand why the original game was never released in the US...Boy, was this game hard!
*SPOILER* First you have to go through the main antagonist's castle where almost all the random enemies are clones of the bosses (beefed up versions) fought in the game. If you manage to defeat him/her, you're then introduced to yet another villian and are transported to a different world. Here, EVERY random enemy fought are definately clones (beefed up versions) of bosses fought earlier in the game. In order for the final battle to be anything close to a fair fight, you have beat four more bosses prior to it! *END SPOILER*
That in itself was pretty insane and combine that with the fact that you cannot save at any point during the whole thing makes it mind blowing. The best way to handle this is to get all the treasures and spoils you want out of the castle, fight your way all the way back out to the world map and save.
Besides the difficulty, it was pretty neat to see how the summons and job systems were in the game they originally appeared in.
My Breakdown:
What's Good:
- The charcters this time around are given identities with backgrounds
- Bonus job classes and content
- The revamped Onion Knight job class
What's Not-So-Good:
- The graphics could have been better
- Beyond their initial introductions and a few areas in the plot, the characters' development is poor
- Jobs that become useless after earning others
What's Bad:
- This game makes things difficult that really weren't necessary to make difficult (i.e. lack of pheniox downs, no world map portions to save at during the last group of dungeons on the game, etc)
In all, this game was very fun for me to play and the difficulty was managable until the end! All the little things about the game that annoyed you will all come to a head and manage to come between you and victory.