Had decent potential but squandered it.

User Rating: 1 | The Guided Fate Paradox PS3

As a game developer myself, I'm going to be extra critical here.

-Rating 1/10

-Pros-

Interesting characters...sort of. None that were really original, but interesting all the same.

Very nice art style.

Great Voice acting in the English Dub.

-Cons-

The story is poorly written.

The protagonist was chosen by lottery of all things. That is fine. The big bad guy threatens to destroy the world. Also, fine. The protagonist is the ONLY one who can kill the big bad guy. Once again, fine! However, in Celestia, the only non-dungeon map, there is this bird called Misery. Misery can "consume" you if you refuse to do your job as "god". Wait, if this bird can eat "god", why doesn't she just eat the big bad guy? This, for me, was a HUGE problem! Misery is such a minute, insignificant character that she plays ZERO role in the story, aside from being this unused Chekhov's gun. She's just THERE, despite how desperate the angels' situation is! This completely ruined the narrative for me! A standard, if you don't do this, the world is doomed scenario would have worked a lot better! They could have made the protagonist more important as well instead of telling him, "thousands of "gods" have tried and failed before you".

Invisible traps!

WHY!? Just why!? There's NO reason for them to be invisible! Image walking around and you stepped on a landmine. No warning, not even a suspicious mound of dirt to even hint that there was a trap there!

The Enemies are stupid!

Almost all the enemies have the simplest Ai! Move toward player/angel, Attack! That's it!

The Leveling System is just unnecessarily weird and unbalanced.

Half the time you're either killing enemies in ONE-HIT or They're doing that to you!

There's no balance at all what so ever! They didn't even try!

Super simple cutscenes, but the story was still 100% linear!

There was little to no effort was made in blending the gameplay with the cutscenes.

They blacked out the NPC's faces and bodies to save time and money.

The cutscenes themselves were mostly just blinking, roughly animated portraits of characters talking or spritework on a map that looks vaguely like the place you're in! Think Fire Emblem on the Gameboy Advance or Ragnarok Online.

Really Annoying Stock Music!

Aside from a handful of tracks, such as the boss themes, the music wore on my nerves FAST, especially the blacksmith's theme!

-Closing Thoughts-

Considering how cheap this game was to make, it had amazing potential! It could have gone all in with the story like TellTale Games does. It could have NOT had a boring linear story of a stereotypical JRPG. Oh, When I said cheap, I meant it! They basically ripped the combat engine straight from their Disgaea series! The most complex thing in the game was already made! They could have easily had multiple endings, using the amazing Chrono Cross as an example. Heck, the "Ending" they give you is just THREE anime-style pictures with a voice over from the characters! Clearly, the developer didn't care, why should you?