PixlBit

A week or two ago I posted a blog about how I was undecided on which game to play next, Rogue Galaxy or Final Fantasy XIII-2.  I went with my heart and played the game I really wanted to play, because XIII and XIII-2 (got all the way to the last boss and got my ass kicked, and now I just want it over with)  just weren't as fun as previous Final Fantasy games, and lately Level-5 just never disappoints.  22 hours in, and that streak continues, Level-5 are the new Square.  

Back when the game originally released I missed out on the game because I wasn't gaming much at that time, the bulk of my gaming was FIFA 05 against my cousin, my once mighty Milan pummelling any team he picked.  So fast forward to present times, and I was very happy (unlike many whiners) to see PS2 games getting an HD treatment of sorts with added trophies for the PS4, now I would have a chance to finish some games I never played or others that I wanted to play again with a cleaner crisper picture.  

The combat is great, it is an action RPG with a great cast of characters to choose from.  Each character feels a bit different, and having close range and long range weapons gives it a much better combat feel than games like Kingdom Hearts.  It's quite the joy to slash someone down to fragments of health, and pop up a couple pistol shots to finish them off.  Leveling up your characters is addicting, something that all Level-5 games excel at.  The revelation board which gives your characters new abilities is easy to use, and helps making the level grinding rewarding.  It's kind of like the sphere grid in Final Fantasy X, or the one from Final Fantasy XII, but a lot easier to navigate in my opinion.  Also, the maps that you run around in are like dungeons similar to Dragon Quest games, no world map which is a bummer, but each area is huge with multiple paths to explore.

 I've never been a fan of role playing games that require you to craft new weapons, the only game that did that that I enjoyed was Final Fantasy IX, and this game has a similar approach to that.  Once you max out the stats of a weapon, you can feed 2 maxed out weapons of the same character to Toady, he'll eat them and spit you out a new and improved weapon.  He's basically an alchmey pot, but it's easy to use and doesn't require me finding a bunch of crap I don't feel like looking for.  

The soundtrack is great.  So good in fact that I checked on iTunes to see if it was available and was sad to find out that it wasn't.  So maybe I'll have to make like this rag tag group of pirates I am playing as and find a way to "pirate" the tracks.  It's not too often I enjoy soundtracks to RPG's anymore, so it was nice to get some great memorable melodies again.

There's a lot of stuff I haven't tried out too much, the Insectron battles don't seem like my cup of tea so I haven't put in any time to them, and the Factory where you can get new items to assemble seems more like work and less like fun for me to dive into.  I am something of a trophy whore though, so I'm sure I'll get a platinum itch and dive into them later.  As of now though I can't offer much opinion into them.

If I had one fault with the game it would be that the story takes a long time to take off.  It took me about 12 horus into the game before I felt like their was a story, and not just my characters going around planets doing fetch quests.  After that point it really starts to emphasize the story a lot more, but it does seem weaker than the typical JRPG, but with such a pleasant cast of characters you don't really notice.  Like Dragon Quest IX and Fantasy Life after it, Level-5 does such a great job of creating fun characters and addicting grinding that you don't notice too much.

After getting about halfway through the game I just wanted to share my experience so far with the game, and if you're like me and missed the game years ago when it originally released I say give it a try, especially if you're a big fan of JRPGs and Level-5 like me.  Also, it's currently half off, at $7.50 you'll get a lot of game for your buck.