Destroy the World in this fun RPG with a colorful cast of characters and areas that will have you coming back for more.
The game starts with Naja and Rajiv, commanders for the World Salvation Committee, a group who is trying to stop the end of the world. The city is suddenly attacked by Morte, a member of the World Annihilation Front, who is trying to destroy the world. After a short battle, Morte claims she knows how to destroy the world after paper rains from the sky and leaves. The game then cuts to Barni, and our protagonist Kyrie. His Uncle asks him to go get mushrooms in the nearby cave. After harvesting them, Kyrie is confronted in town and brought to Ursa Rex, the lord of the town. The World Salvation Committee accuses Kyrie of being part of the World Annihilation Front and Kyrie flees. Kyrie is cornered in the main hall and begins to glow and reduces the entire town to sand. More World Salvation Committee ferals show up and take Kyrie to the Sky Gaol, where Morte breaks him out with the help of her friend Agan, a smuggler and member of the Golden Lions, a group of people who are out to free humans from their feral masters. Morte and Kyrie leave Agan's ship and embark on their adventure to destroy the world.
Despite what should be a serious tone, the game is full of humor and silliness. The cast is great, and they're all able to provide great contrast to eachother, especially Taupy, who just awesome. In fact, the only characters I've managed to not like are some of the Beast Lords, who are not supposed to be liked -shakes fist at Rana Rex-. The game also sports a top notch soundtrack, which is just fantastic (especially the battle theme against the Beast Lords).
Combat is fun and akin to Xenosaga. Different moves are assigned to different buttons, X for Blow which is a single hit strong attack, Y for Flurry which is a series of weak hits (and the best moves in the game), A to enter the Item and Skill menu, and B to guard. While in combat, you have HP, SP which allows you to use skills, and BP, which is represented by small yellow dots under the SP meter. BP determines how many actions you can preform during your turn. At the end of each round, whatever you haven't used is not carried over, and your BP returns to it's original stat. You can increase your BP through several different methods, the most notable is getting a combo of 10 or more hits. If your BP hits 6, you can then perform your Special Attack. Special Attacks are performed by hitting a sequence of buttons before the gauge at the bottom empties. The higher the gauge, the stronger the attack. This is the primary reason why I say your Flurry attacks are the best in the game. Your Flurry attacks can be chained together so you can perform 3 different attacks with 1 BP. This allows you to get to 6 quickly and blast away with specials.
Now, when you finish your opponents and win battle, you are awarded EXP, Items, and CP. The 3 members of your party that battled gain full EXP while members in your reserve receive half EXP. CP is what you use to upgrade your skills. With CP, you can make your attacks more powerful by leveling them up. Think of it as EXP for your Skills. You can level up all combat related skills and attacks. I highly recommend leveling up your Flurry attacks (your first 3) as quickly as possible. But, that's just me. You can also get Books that increase your CP.
Alright, time for the complaints. While the game has solid voice acting, there are several characters who's voice acting is actually quite bad. Like Kyrie. Oh god, Kyrie. Also, it may just be because I accidentally level grinded since I was stuck in the Sky Gaol, but all the bosses after my second trip to the Sky Gaol were really weak and enemies were easy as cake. I also think that Rhi'a is overpowered. The game is also quite short. I finished it in about 24 hours, and that's also because I got lost a lot. I think that if I didn't get lost so much, I could have finished the game in about 20 hours or less. Which also brings me to my next point. Some of the dungeon layouts are confusing and you can easily get lost. I've also needed to use a guide for several of the later areas due to a lack of any hints or explanation of how to move through the area. The game is also very linear. You get almost no time to explore the World Map (which is tiny anyways) and don't get any free time to do side quests till you are about to go fight the final boss. The side quests also only consist of getting each character their strongest Weapon and Armor, which wasn't worth it for me since I was so over leveled. Also, random encounter rate is stupid high.
Despite it's flaws, the game is very enjoyable and very fun. I'd highly recommend it for the RPG fan or if your just looking for something new and interesting. I've enjoyed it thus far and I can't wait to start my next play through.