perhaps a good try, but come on...
I was a huge fan of the original game, and had hoped that this was a remake for GBA, or at least something similar. I was seriously mistaken. There's not much to say about the quailty of the graphics and sound, it is afterall a GBA. But the thing that really killed it for me, was the overabundance of colors, and the childish story line. The original, as we all know, was set in grim times with a serious theme of war (unforunatly, i never got to finish it.). The colours were mostly earthy colours which gave it a feeling of added realism. I'm a christian, so the theme of zodiac wasn't my favourite, but it was interesting in the least
Now as for this newer game on GBA, well it simply had TOO MANY COLOURS!!!! I mean hello, im here to play a tactics game, NOT the Care Bears!! There was so much colour, my head was spinning after 5 minutes! I was really not impressed by that. Problem number two (the biggest problem in my opinion), was the story line. SquareEnix, i am truly disappointed. I expected so much more. Maybe, i was just a bit too old for the game, but i found the whole story quite weak. Not much substance at all. Don't get me wrong "Lets all go home and be friends" is a great theme for children, but it dosnt cross over too well into teen/adult gaming. I also felt the game ended too soon. I finished it in just under 109 hours and 30 minutes, and im one of those gamers who takes their time. So much more could have been done, and the stories of the supporting characters should have been explored much further.
Next problem, was race. The original contained only humans as far as i could tell. But this new one has all these different races, the only ones of which i liked to a decent extent were human and viera. And the most iritating thing about the races, was the job restrictions!! And I really hated that race of elephant/cow resembling creatures. I felt that if you wanted races, fine, but we could do without that one, and they should have kept it to 3 race: human, moggle and viera.
One of the things that got to me the most about the game: The judges!! We sooooo dont need that! It absolutly sucked! Worst Idea ever hands down, for a fighting game!! And the stupid laws are just irritating!! I mean hello, why would you outlaw the 'fight' command!!!!!!
Another major problem was that of the characters themselves. Yes they were nicely flawed without being too damaged, and they were physically attractive, mentally mature, and facing real problems, but, THEY WERE CHILDREN!! I was able to over look this for most of the time, exept for most of the ocassions when they had dialogue. They were irritating. They were more like mature in a childish way. I would have appreciated following the stories of the other characters a lot further, expecially the girl. And I think it would have been interesting if some of the real world bullies had been there too. But i guess that would have made going back to reality impossible. Being able to play as the supporting characters would have been great too.
Apart from that, the games got good themes like freindship, and not running from problems, which make it bearably, the dialogue box pictures are great, and the musical score is nice enough and i guess the game is alright for a younger audience. I would buy it for a 8 to 12 year old. As for you older people, you might as well steer clear of this one unless your a collector like me. :-)