3 hours into the game, here are my impressions:
Graphics
Outstanding. The environments and locales are lush and full of life with NPC characters walking around, and ambient sounds coming from all directions. The lighting engine is quite nice with everything in the game casting shadows over all objects. There are some in-game cutscenes in the game that could be confused as pre-rendered, as it looks stunning at times.
So far, the framerate has been quite smooth with very few occurrances of significant framerate drop.
Sound
The music in the game is adequate and nice, but nothing so far has been outstanding about it. The sounds, however, have been spot on, and make the locales and environments full of life. The use of 5.1 is very evident when the NPC/PC speak and you move around and also for the ambient sounds.
The voice acting is sometimes decent, and a lot of times downright bad. The worst instances have been when talking to random soldiers that spout the same kind of messages with the same dull voice. The main characters' voices have been ok, but Tal's face is so bad that it makes me cringe everytime they focus the camera on him and he starts talking. I have to wonder who the hell approved his face model. It sucks.
Gameplay
The combat engine reminds me a lot of ToS, with the main differences being that it doesn't support multiplayer, and that it's not nearly as fast paced. Otherwise, it's very very similar. You control a character, set the AI of the other characters to be Attacking/Defending/etc., can switch to any character at any time, and perform combos. The other difference is that it's not as combo friendly as ToS, but hey, it's similar enough as it is.
Combat is quite fun. You use X and A to do two types of attack, and when timing these correct, you can get a 3-hit combo that finishes the move with a more powerful attack (instead of the third command). When playing with either Elco (tech guy) or Ailish (Magic guy) you pretty much attack in First Person mode with either a gun or a staff. I was very surprised at how good the FP mode worked in the game. Of course, you have spells, and skill moves.
The last thing within the combat is the spirit summons, which is some sort of spell that releases some summon and causes massive damage. I've only gotten Tal's first summon spirit and has been quite useful. In order to be able to use it, you have to fill up a meter by killing enemies.
The combat engine has been smooth so far, and while it started somewhat erratic, with practice, I've been getting better and better at it. It's very fun as well, and I'm really enjoying the ability to switch from a sword-based attack method, to a FP shooting one, on the fly. Quite amusing.
Other elements in the gameplay include the usual RPG exploration and puzzle elements, along with the main and optional quests. The game is quest based, and updates a quest book everytime you are assigned a quest. The exploration element is just as deep as in a thousand other RPGs... it's the same. You go around town talking to NPCs and breaking boxes/jars for items.
Each character has a certain ability that is used in figuring out puzzles. Tal's ability lies in being able to move heavy stuff, Ailish's ability is being able to see and reveal what's not apparent to the eye, and the other two I'm not sure, as I haven't played with them yet (though I read Buki's able to climb up some surfaces, and Elco can use his jet pack to get across some areas.)
Finally, the storyline has been progressing slow in the first 3 hours (though i have taken my time in exploring and completing optional quests) but so far, it points to the same generic, save the world plot with the usual character's conflicted or odd backgrounds.
Overall
So far the game has been very engaging and appealing as it kept me playing for 3 straight hours, this, without counting the times I got killed and had to restart from a previous save. As you can probably deduct from the above text, the game has many good qualities that, so far, more than make up for the bad ones.
So far, it r0x.
SCREW YOU HATAS!
Graphics
Outstanding. The environments and locales are lush and full of life with NPC characters walking around, and ambient sounds coming from all directions. The lighting engine is quite nice with everything in the game casting shadows over all objects. There are some in-game cutscenes in the game that could be confused as pre-rendered, as it looks stunning at times.
So far, the framerate has been quite smooth with very few occurrances of significant framerate drop.
Sound
The music in the game is adequate and nice, but nothing so far has been outstanding about it. The sounds, however, have been spot on, and make the locales and environments full of life. The use of 5.1 is very evident when the NPC/PC speak and you move around and also for the ambient sounds.
The voice acting is sometimes decent, and a lot of times downright bad. The worst instances have been when talking to random soldiers that spout the same kind of messages with the same dull voice. The main characters' voices have been ok, but Tal's face is so bad that it makes me cringe everytime they focus the camera on him and he starts talking. I have to wonder who the hell approved his face model. It sucks.
Gameplay
The combat engine reminds me a lot of ToS, with the main differences being that it doesn't support multiplayer, and that it's not nearly as fast paced. Otherwise, it's very very similar. You control a character, set the AI of the other characters to be Attacking/Defending/etc., can switch to any character at any time, and perform combos. The other difference is that it's not as combo friendly as ToS, but hey, it's similar enough as it is.
Combat is quite fun. You use X and A to do two types of attack, and when timing these correct, you can get a 3-hit combo that finishes the move with a more powerful attack (instead of the third command). When playing with either Elco (tech guy) or Ailish (Magic guy) you pretty much attack in First Person mode with either a gun or a staff. I was very surprised at how good the FP mode worked in the game. Of course, you have spells, and skill moves.
The last thing within the combat is the spirit summons, which is some sort of spell that releases some summon and causes massive damage. I've only gotten Tal's first summon spirit and has been quite useful. In order to be able to use it, you have to fill up a meter by killing enemies.
The combat engine has been smooth so far, and while it started somewhat erratic, with practice, I've been getting better and better at it. It's very fun as well, and I'm really enjoying the ability to switch from a sword-based attack method, to a FP shooting one, on the fly. Quite amusing.
Other elements in the gameplay include the usual RPG exploration and puzzle elements, along with the main and optional quests. The game is quest based, and updates a quest book everytime you are assigned a quest. The exploration element is just as deep as in a thousand other RPGs... it's the same. You go around town talking to NPCs and breaking boxes/jars for items.
Each character has a certain ability that is used in figuring out puzzles. Tal's ability lies in being able to move heavy stuff, Ailish's ability is being able to see and reveal what's not apparent to the eye, and the other two I'm not sure, as I haven't played with them yet (though I read Buki's able to climb up some surfaces, and Elco can use his jet pack to get across some areas.)
Finally, the storyline has been progressing slow in the first 3 hours (though i have taken my time in exploring and completing optional quests) but so far, it points to the same generic, save the world plot with the usual character's conflicted or odd backgrounds.
Overall
So far the game has been very engaging and appealing as it kept me playing for 3 straight hours, this, without counting the times I got killed and had to restart from a previous save. As you can probably deduct from the above text, the game has many good qualities that, so far, more than make up for the bad ones.
So far, it r0x.
SCREW YOU HATAS!
