You guys have got to be kidding right? ES is not better than LO, not even better than Blue Dragon.
The battle system is fun for about the first hour or two then it get really boring and repetitive. (This is because you fight the same enemies over and over with different colors shade on them). The story is a mess (if you can call it story). The characters started out interesting then they evolve into cardboard stand-in. There is really no sense of characters growth whatsoever. And if you make it to the end, you will sit through 45mins of gibberish and non-sense speech which seems like the dev. team themselves don't even know what the story was about.
However, the game do have some redeeming quality, the battle system is fun especially if you have another person play with you. (you can co-op battle with two other perons) I finished this game with the help from my kids and it's quite fun to pull off the combo and do giant damage with harmony chains. Graphics and musics are top quality and the game is really beautiful in both sight and sound.
It took me over 6 months to finally finish the games (and only because my kids keep bugging me because they want to see the end boss,oh let not get start on that...) In the end, even they got bored with the final dungeon and I was the one that finish off the games.
Yes the chick with bow (Viola) is pretty much make most combat easy mode. (though her healing is not quite enough for the end dungeon boss, and you need to use Polka) oh that's another the thing, Polka is the "man" character but we didn't used her at all (unless we had to) untill the final part of the game because the game is so unbalance.
If you find the game for sub $20.00 then pick it up, it will be nice for killing times here and there. But don't expect a masterpiece.
If you want real good old fashion JRPG, try Lost Oddyssey or even Blue Dragon.
