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I will compare a lot with YS VIII and Trails. This game is definitely one of the best games in the PSP library. I admit that the main reason I play this game are the portraits and general Art Style of it, yes, they are by the same author la Zero and Ao no kiseki, Katsumi Enami. I love his work and he will do the illustrations for Kuro no Kiseki too :)
The story is a classic JRPG adventure re-imagined and smaller in scope, which silly I prefer than that 'whole world is over' chatter. It has some unexpected events that break the rhythm of the story that I really loved (2 specific moments). But apart from those 2 moments it's a decent story. The ending is decent too with a brief highlight. So overall I just consider it that, a decent story with 2 high points. Something very annoying is that it lacks in terms of execution of most of the scenes, part of the blame is on the hardware, but not entirely.
The world has a pretty good wealth of NPCs.
And why make Adol a 'silent protagonist', in Ys VIII it was like that too, but there she had expressions and you chose more complex phrases and 'spoken' more. And from what I read in Ys IX this improves even more.
The gameplay is pretty simple, too much actually, but it entertained me enough and it has good boss fights. It amused me.
The first Boss fight is fairly difficult and cool. And the tree forest dungeon already has a better and more interesting level design than usual. And the insect boss was pretty good. And damn the Fire Boss Fight I liked it a lot. Damn the bird was for me the most challenging so far. The octopus was fun but easy compared to the others.
The level design even though limited by hardware is good and simple, it worked for me. And the 'synthetize' system I really liked, you build the weapons to get the skills and such. The Earth Dragon Boss fight is badass too and the dungeon good. As for fire, both the boss fight and the dungeon were just mediocre. The wind dungeon is a little better than the fire dungeon and the boss too. Now the water one I liked a lot more, both the dungeon and the original boss fight. And Moon Dragon is a Boss of respect too. Well of Souls is pretty good and Scias Boss fight is one of the most challenging even if not very original (level 56 passed). MY GOD THAT SUCKS, serial who has to use ALL the characters in the last boss fight, what a DISGUSTING, I think I'll have to grind. The Final Boss Fiht was pretty good even, but man, this thing about using all party members is a SAW BAG.
I really like how the game doesn't even need markings or arrows to tell you where to go, I only realized I had that in a crash after 6 hours of play. Apart from this second arc where at times it is totally lost unfortunately. And the gameplay with Aisha is one of the best and I found it very original.
The variation of enemies, scenes and soundtrack is another extremely important point in a game like this, as its gameplay can easily get cloying. Despite the cliché, the variation of scenarios is decent and the variation of enemies is good. Kylos Village is massive and original for example so it has some excesses going on. And the soundtrack variation is pretty good.
Very good game design overall.
If there's one point that's really negative about gameplay, it's your party's AI. When you are getting resources they ignore you and go after an unreachable mob or when you stop attacking a mob they leave too even if the mob is on their side. Also, they don't focus on mobs that have weakness against them.
Another thing is that compared to Ys VIII besides the game not having that decrease in time to dodge the game has one less 'layer' in combat, the air.
The graphics aren't horrible or anything in general, now the character models are, and even worse than being ugly, they're pretty unfaithful to the portraits. Which by the way are all magnificent.
The game has 0 VA during cutscenes, the characters just moan as they attack... It's a PSP port so you can understand it but it's a shame there wasn't an improved PS Vita version like Trails.
Very good opening, really good music and reminds me of Trails (too much for my taste). And if goofing off the version without vocals is better than the vocals dude, because that's rare for me.
The face... has soundtracks, but they are highly similar to Trails, especially the quieter ones like villages for example. They are probably just the same songwriters but they needed to give identity to each franchise, as it is today for example. Cold Steel 1 and 2 have a very different track from YS VIII with rare excesses. The 'exploration' trails I found to be the best and most original in general.
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