Sega has, historically, made some of the best lighthearted JRPGs. While growing up I was a huge fan of the Phantasy Star series of games, and have always lamented the fact that that specific portion of the genre seems to have disappeared after the creation of PS IV. This game is, by my estimation, the closest thing to a true SMS/Genesis Phantasy Star game that we're going to get in this console generation, in the best way possible. This game tells the tale **** of normal folks, thrust into a world conflict, and their struggle to overcome an invasion of their peaceful country. It is well written, the combat is well paced, and overall it is one of the best games I've played on PS3. After completing it the first time I started it over again, with the new game + option, and went through the effort of obtaining all of the hidden weapons, and companions possible. When you add in the DLC and all of the optional missions and challenges this game can easily occupy you for a few months. All in all it is an amazing effort from the Sega team, and is personally one of my favorite PS3 games. It's just a shame that the sequels were all PSP games, aimed at a less mature audience.
It's kind of funny; after checking out a few of my favorite games on this site I was compelled to create an account in order to write positive reviews about them. This game won numerous game of the year awards, and was honestly the best game from Rockstar I've played since San Andreas. Yet somehow there are folks that actually gave this a negative rating. I'm not sure how this is possible. When I first purchased this game I was not looking forward to it very much. I thought "Gee, this is going to be Grand Theft Horse, oh well, hope its fun". I'm not a fan of westerns, as that genre doesn't really interest me much. However this game won me over 100%. The gameplay is quite compelling, the main storyline is compelling in the way a good novel, or great movie is compelling. I personally put in a lot of late nights finishing portions of the content just to see what happened next. I was so enthralled by the game that, immediately after completing it, I started a new game over again. As I mentioned before this won numerous game of the year awards for 2010 and all of them were well deserved. I personally can't wait for the rumored sequel.
So, there's this theory that A Normal Person + An Audience + Anonymity = Total ****. I think the majority of the negative reviews for this game support that. This game is a major step forward for the MMO genre, period. It combines the compelling story based gameplay of other Bioware games like Kotor and Mass Effect with the basics of the best in breed MMOs. I personally have tried every "wow killer" MMO that's come out since 2007, including Warhammer, Age of Conan, Aion, and Star Trek Online (tbh the only one I didn't play was Rift.) This game is really the only one, out of all of them, that has not only lived up to my expectations, but has surpassed them. I wasn't really looking forward to this game initially; then I got into the beta. Once I actually played the game, I started counting the days until release. Each class has class only quests that tell a compelling story about that particular class. Additionally, unlike pretty much every other major MMO, you are presented with choices during these quests lines, much like the aforementioned Kotor and Mass Effect games. All in all this is a first rate, top notch game, both from the MMO and single player perspectives. I'm honestly not really sure what the trolls are complaining **** you like WoW and don't HATE Star Wars you'll enjoy this game, period.
