A quick 1hr review of the game. I haven't had the chance to play much. I promised my girlfriend I'd only play the game w/ her....So that gimps my time on the game.
At any rate:
+ The art is UNGODLY. This puts litterally EVERY game made to shame. N-tards eat your hearts out. There will be no comparison on the Wii, or last-gen to the fantastic art quality that such a HD-optimized game will have. I forgot I was playing a game during the many cutscenes. The cutscenes are anime-quality.
+ The battle transitions (ie, time from initiating a battle to first move) is just about the quickest I've ever seen for a turn based JRPG. No lag, or loading, whatsoever.
+ The music is top-notch. The soundtrack is just as good as Blue Dragon, and quite possibly one of the 5 best I've ever heard. There's also a music player, that you can listen to all the music in the game.
+/- The storyline, atleast 1hr into it, is much better paced and overall better than Blue Dragons. Not a perfect storyline by any means, but definately passable, and better than such JRPG tripe as EM or PSU's SP mode.
+ On-The-Fly language format changing. The subtitles are US-only (but you can cut them off). However, you can goto options and change to Japanese voice-acting at any time. Definate plus.
- The art is flawless, but the graphics for some (not all) terrain isn't as good as Blue Dragon. Blue Dragon still has the watermark, since it has a freeroaming camera.
-/+ Lip-syncing for the English voice acting isn't spot-on. However, the Japanese voice/syncing track is, and it's flawless.
-/+ US VA is passable. Overall, it's as good as Blue Dragon's, but doesn't have Maro. So that's a plus.
Definate buy. Everyone must buy this if you liked Blue Dragon, or liked the Eternal Sonata demo.
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
