Once you get a full team of four characters, these game really takes off.
CONS
The graphics are low-quality, in the style of so-called 'retro' games. It starts off slow, as the real joy comes from having multiple characters, but you start out with just one and only gradually get the others over the first few hours. The stories are decent, but nothing particularly special (unless there's a twist or things come together much later in the game, which I haven't got to yet). And the story is text and cut-scene heavy, rather than driven by gameplay.
PROS
Both the combat and 'in-town' interactions are amazingly fun. The 8 characters to choose 4 from, have unique sets of combat abilities, semi-unique NPC interaction abilities, and one completely unique special ability. On top of that, there's a 'job' sharing system that allows each character to essentially copy the combat ability set of one other character. Although the base graphics are a dud, they make clever use of a range of visual effects, like blurring, fog, glistening sand, sun rays, etc, to at least make many of the backgrounds strangely beautiful!
This combination of features means there are a tonne of possible ways to combine characters for unique and clever combinations, and plenty of bonus fun to be had with some of the completely unique abilities.
Regarding in-town interactions, there are essentially 4 special ways to interact with NPCs (in addition to the usual chat):
1) Get stuff off them.
2) Challenge them to a duel.
3) Elicit hidden information.
4) Get them to tag along so you can call on them in battle.
In each of the cases 2-5, there are two characters with similar abilities that ultimately do the same thing (eg. For 2, one character can steal and another can pay for the stuff you get). There are minor differences, but the end result is essentially the same. With the right combination of characters, all options will be available to your party at all times. And you can swap characters when in town if you really need to, if you don't normally have the right combo.
This adds so much to the game that many similar games are missing, acting like 4 built-in mini-games.
Regarding combat, in addition to all the variety, there are two features that make you really want to play into that:
- A 'break the enemy' system.
These combine in a clever way that encourages you to use all the variety available to you. That's because a weakness is there until the enemy has been broken. That encourages you to use varied abilities, because you adapt to exploit different creature's weaknesses - both dealing slightly more damage and leading to a 'broken' creature. And at the same time, it doesn't lock you in to just the abilities enemies are weak to, because once a creature is broken it temporarily becomes weak to *everything*.
It seems to strike the perfect balance between focusing on weaknesses without doing it too much.
As for completely unique abilities, want to get townspeople to fight for you, or how about monsters, or have a special 'tank' character that can auto-protect others, or better exploit enemy weaknesses, or steal stuff, or find money everywhere, or combine herbs to have more unusual effects!?!
Try them all out - so... much... fun.
Finally, one tip if you do play. Aim to have one from each pair:
- Apothecary* or scholar: the two that can elicit hidden info from NPCs.
- Cleric or dancer: the two that can get NPCs to tag along.
- Thief or merchant: the two that can get items of NPCs.
- Hunter* or warrior: the two that can challenge NPCs to a fight.
* I'd recommend apothecary and hunter over scholar and warrior, because their completely unique abilities are much more unusual. Don't worry if you want warrior or scholar combat skills - you can still give each to a character using the 'secondary job' system. You can't do that with the completely unique abilities, though!
