Ys seven may not have the best story and character, but it has an outstanding soundtracks that you'd want to listen to.
Presentation and Story:
The presentation does nothing special, you will only see ONE cutscene and that's it. The rest of the game is story, gameplay and bubble-texted conversation. There somethings missing in in-game menu such as the proper instructions on where to go or the mini-map's non-exisiting instructions and you will see a lot of things that aren't there.
Every RPG should have this element, because that's what RPG games have been all about. Well, Ys seven has a mediocre story at best and that is predictable and cliché at the same time. Sure, at first I forced myself to play the game because, it gives you a very good impressive at first. That's what sucked me more and I was kept hooked, but then I began to lose interest because what you do is very predictable especially when a new character is introduced.
Score: 6/10 "Fair"
Graphics:
Well, at the first glimpse, they look nice, not great, nice. Fortunately, the game runs smooth and that is really great. There are no graphical glitches, but very minor slow downs during a heated fight and that happens when a lot of enemies in the screen, however that is something that doesn't ruin the game.
Also, the characters are animated well and they look. Usually, you'll see the main characters better animated than the rest of the NPCs but here, surprisingly, everything's equal. The environment looks astonishing, everything is not only described in the story well-designed but well-implemented. Everything's different although the way it's designed is the same.
Score: 8/10 "Great"
Sound:
The voice acting is non-existed because all you have is .."how should I put it in a good language..?" well, first lines or catchphrases .. oh yeah screams. Something like that. All that negative aside, the game has an impressive number of soundtracks and it's the best thing that happened to this game so far. The game compliments almost ever aspect, exploring, shopping, battling, and talking to NPCs. Like I said, the game has a great music and it should be commended for it.
Score: 9/10 "Amazing"
Gameplay:
It's really interesting here, at first, it starts out like any typical Action Role-Playing game and it keeps at this pace until you've made a little progression in the story. Then you realize it's becoming very different because then you get skills, event items "used only in the story", and other cool weapons, armors, shields and accessories, but after that the game returns to be the repetitive role-playing game. What you do is hack and slash anyone that is in front of you. There is no challenge and even if there was, it's not balanced. During the story, you'll encounter "Quests" which is basically side missions. You don't wanna waste your time here, because it doesn't do much. It's not rewarding at all. You only get money for it while you can defeat enemies and squeeze much more money out of them.
Every weapon, for each character, has skills. Upgrading those skills comes from defeating as many enemies as possible. That being said, you have to use them and they consume your SP "special points". The other skill is the strongest attack, for each character as well. All you have to do is defeat enemies until the gauge is filled, and after than you unleash it and it's a very strong attack.
You control a character at a time and swapping characters is accessable from the party menu. It's good, anytime you wanna change your party, you just change whoever you like. But main character isn't changeable.
You can set up till 3 characters and the rest will be put on hold. In addition, it can be saved in any place.
Score: 8/10 "Great"
General PROs and CONs:
-_- Predictable story
-_- Cliché characters
-_- Repetitive hack&slash gameplay
-_- Bad localization
^_^ Great Soundtracks.
Overall Score: 7/10
Conclusion: The game had a big potential, it just wasn't executed well. It has problems and they're mentioned above. I will try to continue playing it because I don't wanna stop what I started.