chasehas

Now, I've played a LOT of games (going back to 1990 or so) and in my estimation, this game's plot ranks in my all-time top 10. I confess to some bias, as I love me some space operas, but let me quickly try to outline what struck me about this game's story: -A Japanese anime-styled game that follows several genre tropes but also ridicules them periodically. (Line from the game: "What, you see anyone else around here with white hair?") -Mature subject matter. Lengthy discussions on the nature of man, man's purpose and destiny in life, religion, etc. Friendly characters become enemies, enemies become friends. Unlike most JRPG's where you're clearly taking down a stereotypical "big bad," many fights are against characters with noble goals of their own. Sometimes the game takes the classic weasel route and has the character "miraculously survive," but yeah, sometimes, you KILL them. -Compelling main character. Okay, yeah, you start out as the traditional "kid going off on an adventure," but your worldview adapts and changes. One bit that struck me (tiny spoiler): later in the game, you're directed to a generic informant NPC in an alley to learn the location of an important-to-the-plot NPC who's in hiding. Standard, right? Well, this informant starts boasting about how well he's adapted to the new regime in power, and how much money he's made informing on other people. Your character whips out a blade, and I'm expecting the usual "here's where the hero shows he can control his emotions bit." Nope. Murders the informant and leaves the corpse in the alley. Whoa. -Plot twists. Not predictable at all (though the ending reaches a bit). -Epic length. Even if you skip all the sidequests and just go straight through the story, this is easily a 40+ hour game. Gameplay: Unlike the amazing story, the actual gameplay is good, but not great. It's very complex; unlike most RPG's where there's only one system of character progression (gaining levels), you'll be dealing with new ships, new weapons and modules for said ships, crew (your characters, who do level up), and more. There's a couple tutorials, but generally, you'll want to refer to the manual or the in-game help system for details. This is all well-presented and fun. Module placement is unexpectedly interesting; frequently, you'll get upgraded modules that are actually worse in stats than earlier modules, but fit into a smaller space, forcing some interesting tradeoffs. Unfortunately, a lot of the game's complexity is wasted, due to fighters being vastly overpowered. Once you can afford two carriers loaded with fighters, you can win most every battle by launching the fighters and putting the DS down for a bit. Yes, even boss bottles, though you'll have to pick the DS up to relaunch the fighters every minute or so. It would have been a lot better if they let you control ships individually; unfortunately, your entire fleet acts as one, and your options for the entire game are limited to "Dodge" (1AP), "Attack" (1AP), and "Barrage" (Triple attack, 2AP, misses if enemy uses Dodge). Okay, later on you can launch fighters (who act totally autonomously), trigger AA fire (useless), or board for melee combat (which uses a simple rock-paper-scissors mechanic), but those options are mostly superfluous. Compounding this problem is the lack of detail about enemy health; enemies are either alive or dead, and you'll never see a HP bar. That said, almost every random encounter is skippable, and everything in the game is fast-forwardable. You can skip all the battle animations (both yours and enemies') which makes the encounters very bearable. Overall: I know I've criticized the gameplay a bit, but this game's story is absolutely fantastic, and worth the pickup alone. Buy it if you can find it.