ZanathKariashi

Reasonably good, possibly the best in the series so far relatively speaking (though DWG2 is still a close contender), though it does have it's share of faults. The mobile armor battles are still not that great compared to DWG2, though it is nice to actually get to use them yourself, even if their move-sets are usually fairly simple. Several storylines are missing that were in previous games. And STILL no Shiro Amada (EZ-8) and Norris Packard (Gouf Custom) being on the roster despite topping the polls since DWG1. And instead just a bunch more garbage from SEED that no one outside of Japan gives a crap about.

(2015) Pretty much every prior review is no longer relevant as nearly every issue people have had with the game has been fixed or at least addressed. WASD controls were added (though click controls are still the primary method of control). The dynamic combat update made nearly every skill (excluding magic and alchemy, where loading times made sense) in the game instant-loading, speeding up combat (pets were unaffected by this change, so you want to see what the old system looked like, just try playing as your horse or eagle) as well as greatly reducing the effect lag had on combat, while still retaining the tactical elements of battle that Mabi is known for, just upping the pace a little. (there is some current imbalances with the newer combat skills being OP, however a comprehensive adjustment is in the works in Korea and we should start getting it pretty soon) About the only remaining one is due to the age of the game's engine, and even that has been getting some work with more to come with new changes to source client in Korea. The game is now a perfect example of how to do Free to play right.....though the fact it took Nexon nearly 7 years to get this point (most of the changes of which only started happening en mass in the last 2 years) is still reason enough to be wary of their other products they have a hand in (or soon will, in the case of Peria Chronicles). Free players now have basically the entire game open to them these days, with premium or VIP not even being worth the money because of just how little you get for your money's worth compared to just playing free. Up to 8 free character cards (slots) (6 by default and 2 more can be earned in game by taking a human to talk to the elf and giant leaders and joining their side, quitting after 24 hours and joining the other), 2 free pets (a ground mount and flying mount), and each character can also earn another free pet during one of the Generation quests for a total of 10 free pets without paying for extra character slots. Beginner benefits have also been extended until a character on the account reaches level 1000, allowing you to reset all your skills back to rank F to recover the AP spent and try different builds. Free recovery items daily (20 each of Beginner 30 stam/HP/Mana potions, and 3 Nao soul stones). Not only that daily quests (per character) have been added that can be used to earn additional AP or adventurer seals which can be turned in for a lot of neat items (one of the most notable being skill exp seals (only available on Saturdays) which can be used to help train previously very grindy skills, like CP-dependant skills or production professions). Events (there's usually at least 1 going on at any given time, usually 2-3 overlapping) also have no restrictions for free players, and can often have a myriad of useful perks, such as bags, pets, special items, ap potions, or special abilities/actions/emotes. Usage of bags is free, as is opening player shops, and transferring items between characters via the bank tabs. All the generation content is free. Spirit weapons are free. Rebirths are completely free (purchased character cards are now only used to making new characters once you've run out of free cards). At this point you're basically paying for extra pets (optional but nice to have), extra appearance customizations, or a few quality of life items (the VIP players also get an extra inventory tab over mere premium players). Or the ability to rent a house (which unlocks the ability to sell items even when offline. The normal player shops require you be online). Or use farmland...which is completely useless. Since it's original purpose was allowing free players to make money since they couldn't open shops, but was rife with bots. Now that it's a premium feature, it's almost never used period, since it's a lot of work over the course of a real week, but gives less profit then you can make in a few minutes of opening up a shop and selling a single stack of holy water. A lot of the earlier translation errors have been fixed, and a lot of the time sink quests have been tweaked to remove completely or at least greatly lessen any grinding previously required or long periods of waiting (some of the quests used to require real DAYS before the next quest would come, which is now reduced to around 5-10 minutes). However...this does run the risk of players being thrown into content that is fairly difficult within less then an hour of starting the game, where as before, you'd have at least had a few days to mess around learn the game before getting to those quests). It's a pretty solid game these days....still a lot of room for improvement, but very much worth playing if a fantasy style sandbox is your thing.

Easily the best of the "modern" Final Fantasys (though still not quite as good as the some of the SNES era FFs). Graphics are out of the park. Going with a heavily stylized art-style helped the game in the long run, and even today it's one of the best looking Final Fantasys as a result. The ATE system add a surprising amount of depth and interactivity, letting you see background events or even gaining access to certain perks or encounters depending on the choices taken, which is one of the best uses to date for the player who actually wants to immerse themselves fully into the world/story. Going back to static classes was initially a downside, (since only really 1, 4, and 9 have enforced class roles) unlocking pretty much everything at anytime, but on the other hand, it does at least prevent everything from becoming Samey since each character is definitely unique, instead of everyone becoming pretty much carbon copies of each other with only minor statistical differences (or their limit break or weapon type alone having the biggest change). Music of course is great as always. The story was great of course, and was quite refreshing after the double-dipped gloom/doom of the previous titles, though the final boss could've used at least a little more in-game explanation, instead of requiring assembling of some fridge logic on the part of the player. (nothing really wrong with requiring a player to think a little, but it's such a common complaint it might've been just a tad too vague for the tastes of a vocal majority to piece it together). The mini-game being the only real mark against it, due to being completely up to RNG, no matter how well you played, unlike 8's card game which at least had consistent rules.

Fairly Average overall. Sadly even the Gameboy/GBC versions have more depth. The controls are lackluster and leave several buttons unused, forcing you to go into a menu to do repetitive actions, and while the ability to replenish your bait with a single button press while fishing was a nice change, it won't let you re-position with your pole out like you could in the older games. The social and RPG aspects are very lackluster and there's very little feedback on what you're doing (the character choice is also largely cosmetic, though the father's specialty rod makes an already easy game even more mindnumbingly boring). Not to mention the fishing system manages to be even more dumbed down then in the original version games for the Gameboy/GBC. This being fairly sad since again, this ISN'T the first game in the series, and with Natsume's experience with Harvest Moon, you'd think they'd have taken a few good ideas from that series to improve on what the original River King games did. Instead you get essentially the same game as for the gameboy, but with even less challenge and false depth through a leveling system that has basically no benefit and several largely meaningless mini-games, very poorly done side-quests, and bad controls.

To a fan of the other original....skip **** a new **** MIGHT be what you're looking for. I'd personally recommend getting the originals off of GoG and then adding mods to bring it up to your tastes, since the fan mods aren't bound by the same restrictions Beamdog was and have put forth a much more enjoyable game. Well it was a project doomed to failure before it even began. They're under contract to not change ANY of the original story plots or character quests, which means anyone hoping to see BG and BG2 in the way they were MEANT to be played, without the time constraints that forced so many quests and characters to be ****'re out of luck. Even among the modding community only a handful of the unfinished quests and plots have been implemented. And those terms are very likely to carry forth to BG2:EE as well. Meaning several character's questlines and plot points will remain tragically cut short, and ToB will still be a gutted, contradictory mess of what was supposed to have been an epic third full game (not an expansion) finale to the series. And rather then correcting oversights in the BG2 engine that EE uses, they've broken it even further. Not to mention the new kits that are utterly broken (either they don't work at all, or are stupidly overpowered). But I don't 100% blame the developers for that. BG2's hasty release resulted in several official kits being grossly more powerful then intended and Beamdog simply based their new kits on those already in the game, since they're contract bound to not re-balance the kits. The new NPCs are somewhat of a mixed bag. Dorn is an overpowered monster that doesn't need a party at all, while Neera and Rashad are closer to proper NPCs (Rashad being grossly underestimated due to the fact that a low level monk plays MUCH differently then a high level one, rather then playing the same way throughout as in 3rd edition). The 4th hidden character, despite having ridiculous stats (they don't really do anything worth while to warrant griping about, unlike Dorn), isn't a gamebreaker any more then any other npc part-caster can be, and has a reasonably well written personality. With exception to Dorn, who needs some heavy tweaking, the NPCs weren't too bad.

The best of the infinite engine games in terms of roleplaying (REAL roleplaying, not a game with a level-based progression system, more story then an action game typically has, with a bunch of empty choices). You're given a blank slate and are free to develop them however you wish, with your choices in game actually mattering, starting with your basic stats. In the other infinite engine games, there's few minimum stat requirements for dialog or quest options, making mental stats largely a waste, while physical stats, even for casters are usually the best stats. Not so in Torment....every action you take generally has some degree of minimum requirement involved. While a combat focused character can beat the game, they will have a DRAMATICALLY different experience from a more cerebral character would. This is actually largely a part of the setting. In the outer planes, reality is more malleable then on more stabilized prime worlds, allowing things as simple as believing in something enough (or enough people believing in it) to make it happen. This lends itself to a more thought provocting story. Though I will go ahead and acknowledge that the game play might not be for everyone. If you're more interested in combat or dungeon crawling, Baldur's Gate (equal balance on story and combat) or Icewind Dale (Dungeon Crawler with minimal story) might be more up your alley. However if a quality roleplaying experience is what you want, Torment does it best. There are actually very few games that can even rival it in those terms (mostly just Fallout 1 and 2, which are very similar in quality, though using a different overall system).