Doing a round of Chapter 2s, completed five so far. They range from fantastic to abysmal.
Olberic's and Primrose's were particularly fun and had very good dialogue. Ophilia's felt like a C-Tier sidequest and Tressa's premise was really stupid.

My brightness is at 50 (halfway) contrast is max.

Its amazing, im not one for JRPGs but this game is good

Just a heads up if you run into the cat enemies who are holding sacks they are the game's equivalent to metal slimes in Dragon Quest where they give you a tonne of exp and jp but are hard to hit and often flee. It's often best to focus on them in a battle, the one I fought was weak to daggers.

Just for starters, thanks for this post.

This was a gigantic problem for me in just the demo. But I think it is more the RATE of encounters, which is higher than most games outside of perhaps Seventh Saga, Final Fantasy 1 and 2 (NES) and the original Phantasy Star games, in combination with all the portions of the game where random encounters are occurring: since the SNES, the majority of RPGs took place in locations where random encounters wouldn't be occurring.
I admit, I only played the demo, but it made even the original Dragon Warrior games feel relaxed. Also, the demo wasn't very fast, a lot of those older RPGs I mentioned progressed a lot faster than the demo did.

All the little things like transitions and extras in the battle system really wear down on the patience over time. So even a thing like a 3 second transition is annoying after going through 20 battles in 12-15 minutes; and definitely when it starts hitting something like 200 battles in 2-2.5 hours.

Anyway, thanks for this post, it was really insightful. I almost tricked myself into buying the game due to the very pretty artstyle in combination with all the over the top praise the game has had on some sources - I even came across a youtube video where the player enthusiastically declared this to be one of the best games of all time. Really the only thing holding me back was that I didn't enjoy the demo, and a large number of people were really fanatical in defending it and attacking me (for my alleged lack of taste and retardation) when I said I didn't like it and listed the issues; and apparently I'm the one who is biased against Nintendo and oldschool RPGs (despite the fact that Nintendo is my favourite company and old school RPGs are my most played games), so I had an assumption that the fanbase for the game might be the same dickheads around for the demo =D

I won't be tricked by pretty graphics and dishonest fans again... *cought*Madworld*cough*Bravely Default*cough*Child of Light

The pacing is so good! There's just enough random battles to keep things interesting without feeling bogged down. There's plenty of sidequests to do in between dungeons, and you can skip a character's intro if you like. Being able to see the turn order beforehand really helps in knowing which enemies to attack and stun. I really like the different combat abilities that every character has. The Hunter has to be my favorite with the ability to capture monsters and then use them for later. But these monsters can only be used so many times, so you have to go back and stock up on new ones. My only complaint about the combat is that no boss has truly tested my mettle. They are all decently strong, but they don't require expert strategy and timing to beat.

Gameplay is really fun, especially the combat stands out. Music is awesome and I love the visuals. As far as the writing and dialogue goes; it's not very good, pure and simple, but I don't really care all that much. The stories so far are uninteresting mostly, mind you I only have about 9 hours play time so maybe it'll change. I only did one chapter 2 so far (Therion).
Overall, the game is really good and it's the first one I thoroughly enjoyed in handheld mode.

Now that I own the game and have spent a dozen or so hours on it (which I know is but a small sample size):

- The graphic style is really neat, with the sort of Paper Mario-esque flat sprites on a 3D plane, and particle and lighting effects are impressive.
- Excellent soundtrack that engrosses you into the experience
- Battle system is a nice balance between simplicity and complexity. You can sort of mindlessly plow through it as long as your evenly matched though you can also really stretegize you break points, spells, etc and be resourceful, which is often demanded in harder battles and boss fights.
- Like that there a 8 individual unique characters, each with their own backstory and dynamics in battle. Enjoying Therion's ability to snag items from villagers and Primrose able to snag the villagers themselves hehe. Having a super-powered guard swooping in a boss battle to save the day with some crazy strong attacks is quite satisfying.
- Doing each prologue can get excessive and repetitive at times though they are at least pretty short.
- Love how open world everything is and that you can wander around and do things in your own order and pace. You can somewhat carve out your own story.
- Side quests are interesting.. The fact that you aren't guided as to where to go forces you be be aware of the dialogue exchanges and surroundings which can become a bit burdensome but are that much more satisfying when you complete them.
- Some of the story lines seem meh so far but some do interest me, particularly Primrose and Olberic

I'm usually not too crazy about turn based RPGs (my commonality for RPG preference is either J or WRPGs that are more action-oriented like Secret of Mana and Skyrim), though this game manages to still make the battles interesting and exciting enough where I can get into or at least tolerate the more slow-paced turn based battles. Sometimes the random battle instances can pop up too frequently for my tastes but luckily I have an equipable skill that dials back the frequency more to my liking.

Will add my impressions later here.

not earthbound, FFVI. remake FFVI with thoses graphics. please !