A constant remix of tried and true horror techniques that's left me more afraid, not the technique itself, but always wondering when it would finally arrive and in what form. For example, there are countless times you enter a bloodied bathroom expecting something to jump out. Over and over again the game lets you off the hook. You worry every single time you enter one. Making you keep your guard up constantly was what this title excels at. Overall it is an engaging and thrilling experience that could not be polished further.
What a boring, hollywood game, with very little depth. It manages to deliver solid play, but as an experience is a massive and predictable snore. The sequel doesn't even try to hide what's going to happen, and pacing has been thrown out the window to make for a more "epic" experience. At the start, even though the necros have literally JUST broke out, one of the more bulky creatures makes a very early appearance, even though there would not have been nearly enough time for it to have grown (or died). I'm never sure which it is, with necros. Compare that to the first game, which was a constant remix of tried and true horror techniques, leaving me more afraid of not the technique itself, but always wondering when it would finally arrive. For example there are countless times you enter a bloodied bathroom expecting something to jump out. Over and over again the game lets you off the hook. You worry every single time you enter one. Making you keep your guard up constantly was what the first game excelled at. EA seems good at taking great first franchise entries and immediately **** them to the point where fans of the first will be unlikely to enjoy the sequels.
Oh boy, if 7 Grand Steps is not your thing, it really isn't your thing. But if any aspect of it tickles you, you will enjoy every moment of it. I was taken in by the simple, almost too simple gameplay, but don't let this game fool you, it's tough to get under your finger. Just as you think you're getting the hang of it, quickly raising families and achieving legends, the game shifts ages on you and throws you off. So you shift your strategy to adjust, and once you've got the hang of it again, bam, it introduces a part of the game that's plain absent for the first few hours, at least for me. Good luck taking the appropriate risks at this stage. I ended up backed into a corner, so focused on the new dynamic that emerged, that I didn't realize my resources had slowly been drained away turn by turn. In the next age I discovered just how frustrating it could be to become poor, having little to teach my heirs and often relying solely on the whim of fate. And let me tell you one part of the game that's not forgiving. It's Fate. There is no clever AI here, just simple gameplay that's hard to lose, but hard to win. The constant threat of setbacks just as you're climbing your way out is always present, causing you to think carefully about not only your short term strategy, but longer term how you will bring your family to greatness while surviving the challenges of the ages. I'm not finished with the game yet, I'm actually not even sure how much there is in it (which is nice in a way). So far it's been an addicting 6-7 hours and there's still more to discover. I might add to this review once I'm done to see if anything changes or if the developers really are as evil as I think they are.
Ok, I just HAD to review this game. It's so crappy it becomes lovable. Story is non-existent, but who cares, the combat is actually kind of fun and interesting. You start a game with a deck of randomly thrown together crap cards. The entire point of this game is that you can combine 2 or more cards together to produce stronger cards. You can combine your entire hand if you wanted! The fun is discovering and remembering a huge number of card combination recipes. Also, the combinations appear to change from game to game, so if you got stuck with a bad deck or set of recipes, you pretty much had to start over because this game is.... HARD. Oh my goodness is it difficult. Your opponents will never have any trouble completely wrecking you. Near the end of the game, I actually transported my disk contents to PC so I could cheat with a program that would give me every card in the game and infinite starchips (which seems to be a requirement if you want to beat it). Even with this obvious advantage, I had to fight the last few bosses multiple times because I'm not kidding they would completely wreck you in one turn. You had to get the PERFECT hand to win. Of course it's not hard to figure out how this happened. This is what lazy game designers do when they run out of time to put real content in a game. Hey, we're out of time, let's just crank up the difficultly! That'll make things seem like an engaging and fun experience! Well no, it didn't. But the game is so terrible it's charming.
Surprised to see such a low rating. It's been a few years since I played, but no serious rpg player should pass this up. The anime feel to this one is apparent and may not be everyone's bag of chips, but the characters are memorable, and the story while not being anything shocking or new, was given lots of love by the developers and it shows throughout the game. What I really liked about this title was how everything in it compliments each other in a way that is surprisingly well executed and cohesive, more so than I've seen in any game I've played. From how the game presents and progresses you through your school years with an eye toward (we hope!) graduation, to the the warm, interesting, and varied locations you get to explore, and also the satisfying combat system that starts with fairly standard features and by the end of the game has added plenty of mechanics to keep your choices fresh and your options open, it's all very good. I have many warm memories of this game and would recommend it as a star in Atlas and Nippon Ichi's many titles. Really a superb game!
