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For those of you who have missed previous announcements here is a short trailer:
THE GAME
The game can roughly be described as a cross between Phantasy Star, Valkyria Chronicles, and Third Birthday and sadly Lord of Arcana. For some reason you play as a party of cadets (school themes are heavy in this game). The game breaks between combat and base sequences as well as long drawn out cut scenes (typical SE at this point) and customization. Like Third Birthday the story is about as coherent as a drunk man on his 200th beer. Interestingly though for a Final Fantasy spin off it is decidedly darker than most of its brothers and sisters and leaves a mixed taste for gameplay as well. Following in the footsteps of lord of Arcana, gore has been added to the series to never before seen levels. Heck in the demo intro cut scene alone the blood bath (almost literally) was hard to square with Final Fantasy overall, as a lot of death and injury is glossed over with artistic elements. This game is more raw in that it just shows you the aftermath of violence. Though interestingly in the gameplay itself this is heavily reduced.
GRAPHICS
The game appears to be running on a souped up version of the Crisis Core engine, as such characters are expressive and well detailed. Additionally, textures tones have been more clearly defined than ever before with shading and lighting looking almost as good it did in the God of War efforts on the PSP. The only downside is that this time around colors were kept in dark washy tones, which contribute to the games atmosphere and help define the shading but also make overall feel and seem rather dull, morose and outright pessimistic in tone overall. The repetitive nature of outdoor sequences and the static school environment don't help much either, hopefully with the full release we will see more varied work, but considering the heavy dark coloring and odd pacing (a la Lord of Arcana) I am not sure if my wish will come true.
GAMEPLAY
There are long drawn out cutscenes which only add to the confusing story's woes and detract from the heavy action elements, you go form fast to super slow paced elements nearly simultaneously and it is quite a shame in my opinion. You spend a great deal of time customizing your party members (A la Valkyria Chronicles) giving them abilities, setting their AI primaries and equipment. You run around trying to piece the story together from casual chat around your academy and of course whenever you are dispatched to do some work. It is a grindy type of game as well which has become sadly the staple of a lot of JRPGS and a lot of SE games in general these days. While a lot of elements are promising they are held together so poorly by the story and intrusive cut scenes that is trying at this point.
COMBAT
Combat is fairly interesting but sort of flawed. You run around in a free-map style similar to Phantasy Star Online and its ilk. Enemies are sort of auto locked onto and you have a series of options as to how to attack them, with the face buttons either casting spells, or attacks. Attacks are different depending on your characters but it all just feels like same effect/different animation type of effort. Summons form a part of the game but unlike other FF games you transform into the Summon, and like Third Birthday the juvenile fantasy level is off the chart, when transforming into Shiva for example she appears as this rollerblading skank complete with pectoral jiggle and a thong. This is how you know SE is just going base denomination here, they can't even come up with the kick ass designs summons used to have. The summons are very powerful and have more HP than your character but they drain your MP like mad and only last so long. Their implementation actually feels like a corrector to the odd combat set up where targeting feels random and your abilities are just barely adequate for the task at hand (a la Lord of Arcana again). If they can work out these bugs then it would be promising as the pacing of combat is fast and the enemies are a hodgepodge of foes we all know and remember from other FF games, like Ahrimans and the like.
MUSIC
Mostly bland, sad, and at times overused FF fanfares permeate throughout the tracks presented in the demo. In some cases they are so dull they actually make the wash down dark tones of the game feel that much more dull. While I know it is tying to keep pace with the nonsensical super sad story it is just not helping make the game that attractive in my opinion. Sometimes it just tugs at the nostalgia strings and sometimes it is just there just to be there it feels.
OVERALL
The game has promise if a bit of the gameplay is tweaked up but as it stands it is definitely a mixed bag, it is at times a treat to behold, at times and eye-sour. At times exciting, at times trying. At times engaging, but mostly confusing. The presentation is like a manic depressive on fast forward with highs and lows going all over the place and the confusing story not adding much to the mix. Hopefully they make it better before release.
This post has been edited by Basukesu: 27 August 2011 - 02:25 AM
