Inuyasha: The Secret of the Cursed Mask

This game is for children & moderately hard core fans. Positives are the animated waiting & opening sequences are excellent. The music is outstanding. The voices are the English cast & the storyline is an excellent little side track to directly involve the player in the Feudal Era. Items which bear mentioning but are not specifically gripes are that the gameplay is almost identical to Final Fantasy for gameboy back in '95! It grows tedious, then wearisome, this selection of attack (what kind? Physical, special, co-op?) defence, use of item, flee. OK, so that's really a gripe, & the strongest one at that. While I'm griping, I'd like to point out the severely limited comment pool recorded. In post battle victory taunting, the character who struck the last fatal blow to an enemy says something, ranging from surprised to be alive (player character) to encouraging & supportive (Kagome) to braggart-ish (Inuyasha). I'd rather have them be silent than listen to the same dreck over & over again. While I'm on the subject of sound, the final gripe is that there's no control of the volume of in-game music. The music & sound effects tend to drown out the characters, so either the music is tolerably loud & you can't hear the character or you can understand what you need to hear & get your hearing assaulted by the music. Finally, be prepared for a very cartoon-ish interpretation of the characters. Like a cross between SD Gundam & the Care Bears. Still, even a cutesy Inuyasha gets your blood up by performing all the classic attacks; "Iron reaver SOUL STEALER!" & "WIND scar!"

I must not be a very good player though. I've got 5 hours into it & I'm still at the spider/Akebi village task. Still, I'm enjoying it a lot. I've even given Fallout, B.I.A., & DBZ 3 a rest to play this exclusively.