Blueskied's Japanese game reviews

[blueskied]

Here is my personal game review thread. I will only
review Japanese games in this thread, particularly those which will not
be released in English, and some lesser known ones as well. I also try to stick to games for which there has been no review written in English, but this will not be an exclusive policy. So far I have (in order):

Galaxy Angel (JP XBOX)
Tenerezza (JP XBOX)
Popolocrois (JP PSONE)
Tales of Rebirth (JP PS2) Added 13-January-2004
Galaxy Angel: Moonlit Lovers (JP PS2) Added 16-October-2005
Raiden III (JP PS2) Added 16-October-2005

My first 4 reviews used the old Gamefan rating system based on a percentage out of 100%. However, as of 15-October-2005, all of my reviews have been converted into a new grading system from 1-10, with pluses and minuses added to the top tier. I like this system better than the old percentage system. Here is how the new system works:

10 : perfect
10- :excellent
9+, 9: a great game
9-: a very good game
---ANYTHING BELOW 9- is rated without pluses and minuses---
8: a good, slightly above-average game. noticable flaws, but still fun
7: an average game that could have been better. it may have some nice qualities, but it has just as many detractors
6: A very average to below average game. Many glaring flaws; an overall lackluster gaming experience
5: This is where we enter the realm of a bad game. Not worth your time or money
4 and below: Really a load of crap. Don't even consider games like this

[Joust Williams]

I hope they're more detailed than "Galaxy Angel", "Tenerezza" and "Popolocrois" ;p

Seriously, the links aren't there.

[blueskied]

Galaxy Angel (Japanese XBOX)
Released 23-January-2003 (XBOX), 17-April-2003 (PS2). Originally
released on the JP PC in 23-August-2002.
-----------------------------

This is an excellent game, brought to us by the small Japanese software company Broccoli. For fans of the Sakura Taisen games on the Saturn and Dreamcast (and soon to be on the PS2), this is an essential purchase. Imagine a Sakura Taisen in outer space, centered on the world of the Anime series “Galaxy Angel" and that’s what we have here. You play as the young commander Takuto, and soon you find yourself in charge of the 5 beautiful Galaxy Angels in a quest to uncover the secret behind the “lost technology" hidden somewhere in outer space.

The game is split into two parts: the battle parts, and the simulation parts (just like ST). The 3D space battles are most impressive: silky smooth, nicely detailed space ships and objects such as asteroids. Realistic light streams, starlight “blur" effects, and very good lighting effects. It usually runs at 60fps but dips to 30/25 or so when the action heats up, though it doesn’t distract at all and you’ll probably never notice. You basically have a grid and you point (in real time) where you want any of the 5 girls to go, and whether you want them to attack or whatever. It’s all played out in real time, so things can get intense. It's somewhat similar to the battles in the PC game Homeworld. You control the camera with the L and R buttons and the analog sticks, and you can easily find and follow the action at any place on the map very quickly. All the girls constantly talk to you through the comm. system and in addition the voices of other characters (like the enemies) are picked up by your comm., so this is a game that really makes good use of the Xbox’s superb multi-voicing abilities (the finest of any home console currently on the market). The attacks and explosions in space are top-notch as well. The battles require strategy and they are loads of fun.

Now, back on the ship, in between battles, there are the 5 galaxy angels. From the blond bombshell Ronfa to the mysterious Vanilla, each is unique and has their own charm. You’re given prompts to respond when talking to them, and depending on what you say it influences their mood. The goal of the game, like ST, is to win over one of the girls by the end of your space journey. Apparently each girl has their own fully animated “anime ending movie" which gives this game extensive replay value. After you beat the game that girl’s movies become viewable from a special “movie theatre" option, which is a very nice addition. One of the coolest features is when you want to see the status of each girl’s feelings for you, you have to talk to the ship’s “space whale" Yes, the ship has a humongous whale that apparently can read people’s emotions. You go there and the whale keeper (a little boy) translates for you (as the whale speaks a different, “Space whale" language, of course!). It’s incredibly cool and a nice departure from the usual chart you get from games like ST. Also just like ST, you have an incentive to keep all the girls happy, as the happier they are on the ship, the better they’ll perform in battle.

There are so many similarities to ST, it’s really amazing. But that is a very good thing, and I really couldn’t be happier. This game does have a few advantages over ST though: it allows you to save the game any time when on the ship map, something ST needed but annoyingly didn’t have (you had to play through the whole next 30min to 1hour+ segment before they let you go to a save screen again), there is FULL voice (every line by every character is voiced, and the voice acting is superb. There are over 15 hours of recorded voice in this game!), and there are GENEROUS amounts of full screen DVD quality anime cinemas, far more than in any ST game, and they really give you the feeling of being inside an anime. While I still think Sakura Taisen (esp. part 3) had slightly better art overall, Galaxy Angel is still a very beautiful game. The music is good but nothing spectacular. It’s similar to the anime and it fits the game perfectly. The story is great and you’ll really get caught up in it.

I wish there were more games like this, and I’m so happy this was released on the Xbox in Japan. There isn’t going to be a release of this game outside of Japan, so you’ll have to import it if you want to play it. It was also released on the Japanese PS2 in April 2003 with a bonus DVD. I have not played the PS2 version, but I have heard it's essentially the same. I wouldn’t recommend this game to anyone without intermediate Japanese reading ability though, as you’ll be horribly lost when trying to answer questions the girls ask, and you generally won’t know what’s going on. Also this game is just generally text heavy, so those who don’t know Japanese shouldn’t bother importing this (unless you’re so sick of the US xbox scene you’re desperate for something new and refreshing, even if it’s in another language). Though if you’re a fan of the Galaxy Angel anime, I would recommend purchasing it and stumbling your way through it, as it has great gameplay, and you’ll love to see all the anime cinemas. There is a charming comedic aspect to this game that makes it a joy to play. Bottom line: if you have an xbox that can play Japanese software, decent Japanese reading ability, a few Japanese dictionaries, and a love for games like Sakura Taisen, you absolutely must buy this game right now. You’ll be in heaven, trust me. If you’re a fan of the Galaxy angel series, that’s just icing on the cake. If you’re not, after you play this game I think you just might become one. For its genre, this game is really exceptional, and hence my rating below reflects how highly I regard this game (for reference/comparison, I'd rate the dreamcast games Sakura Taisen 3 a 10-, and Sakura Taisen 4 a 9).

RATING: 9-




Tenerezza (Japanese XBOX)
Released 27-January-2003. Also available on the JP PC, released 23-March-2003.
-----------------------------

Tenerezza is a rare game; it is as flawed as it is charming. One can’t help but see the endless potential oozing out of this game, the faint hints at brilliant ideas that somehow never quite made it to fruition. It comes to us from Aquaplus, a small Japanese developer/publisher that most people have probably never heard of.

Perhaps the best part about Tenerezza is the comical dialog and situations you find in the game. The interplay between Tenerezza and her companion fairy Lolo is classic, and it really feels like you’re playing through a comedic anime. The story is fairly basic, but it’s nice. In the town of Esperanza, there is “the world’s greatest magic user" who is none other than the young and cute Tenerezza. She has her own house on the very top of the town, complete with a kitchen where she can cook food (you need to find recipes and ingredients to cook (such as tomatoes, rice, apples, eggs, fish, etc.), and these foods help you in battles, such as replenishing your health or healing poison. A very cool and innovative twist on the usual “healing" items found in RPGs!). The president of the town (yes, he’s the president, there’s no mayor, just a president. Don’t ask me why) asks Tene (as she likes to be called for short, and as I will henceforth refer to her) to investigate the Magic Forest to see where all the monsters have been coming from lately. So she embarks on her quest, soon meeting the magic fairy Lolo in the forest, and together their journey begins. It’s fairly typical stuff, involving a quest to retrieve 4 magic crystals, a crazy witch as a villian, and various other characters along the way. But what saves it from falling into the depths of derivative doldrums (how’s that for an alliteration!) are the superb character designs, great dialog, and humorous situations that are abundant in the game.

The graphics are fairly average and the game looks like a nice Dreamcast title, as far as the 3D graphics go. The framerate is usually 30fps but sometimes dips to 25 or so. While Esperanza is very detailed, and all the characters and interiors of the houses are very well done, the battle areas are rather drab and sparse, with not a whole lot of detail. The character models are great though, and the anime expressions that pop up when the characters are talking are simply beautiful. The enemies are fairly boring and frankly rather strange--especially the hopping teddy bears. I don't really understand why they're in this game! Also worth mention is the anime intro, which is nicely done.

The music is pretty standard fare, though some pieces really stand out, like the Volcano mountain and Green Plains theme music. The sound effects are very good, there is a generous amount of voice acting in the game, and all of the key scenes feature full character voicing. As a point of interest, when Tene changes magic, for whatever reason, she yells out the magic name in ENGLISH (i.e. “earth!" “fire!" “water!" “wind!". I’ve no idea why, though it’s a curious oddity, one of many in this game.

The control is less than perfect and sometimes it can be slightly frustrating. This is one of the major downfalls of the game. You change magic by using the L and R buttons, you charge up and release a magic blast using the A button, and you can use a weapon with the B button. The X button calls up the item screen and the Y button unleashes Lolo’s attack (sort of a last ditch “kill all the enemies on the screen?attack that you can only use sparingly). What this game is lacking-- SEVERELY lacking--is the ability to move the camera. Yes, this is a 3D action-rpg, but no, you CANNOT move the camera. At all. There is absolutely no ability to move the camera in this game, which I found completely shocking, as this is a fairly standard aspect of any 3D rpg or action-rpg (or most any 3D game, actually). The first 5 minutes I had the game, I was frantically trying to use the second analog stick and the L and R buttons, horrified to see that nothing was happening. Thankfully the camera moves automatically fairly well (most of the time), though there is a huge, huge problem with this when you enter a boss battle. First of all, all the bosses I’ve seen thus far are horribly designed, unimaginative, and just not fun to fight. The camera in these scenes is so terrible, you’ll find yourself dying over and over again ONLY because you can’t always see where the stupid boss is on the screen due to the horrible camera! It’s totally cheap and it will annoy you to no end. Also, there is a problem with calling up the item menu sometimes, I’ve noticed I’ll press the X button in battle and nothing will happen, then I press it again one or two times quickly and it will finally come up. There’s really no excuse for that. One time this happened to me, and when I finally opened the item screen, it happened as I was getting hit. I used a few healing items on the item screen, and returned to the action only to find the healing items didn’t register, the hit killed me, and I had to start again with the healing items out of my inventory!! It registered them “used?and gone, though it didn’t register their effect in the actual game. Again, there is no excuse for such sloppy programming as this.

The gameplay is nothing stellar and in fact it is just barely adequate. You mainly use magic, which involves charging up and releasing one of the elementals (earth, wind, fire, water) with the A button. Pretty boring and bland in the beginning, but it gets better as you level up (more on the level up system later, that’s one of the good parts of this game). I’ve found the weapons you can buy have such a short range, are so slow, and take off so little damage from enemies, they’re fairly useless. What’s strange though, is the weapons are insanely expensive, and require not only lots of money but a certain amount of different jewels and items in the game-- some of which are quite rare! Actually, the whole money system in this game is WAY off. You earn squat from enemies, all the items are priced way too high, when you die you start again with HALF of the money you had (extremely annoying if you had $2000 and you start again with $1000, as $2000 takes a LONG time to accumulate—though you can choose to just reload from your last save and try that area over again, which lets you keep all your money, but the tradeoff is you don’t keep all the items you found right before you died), and if you want to save out in the fighting areas, you have to find this traveling girl who charges a crazy $500 for one save, and each save after that increases by $500, so the next is $1000, the third save is $1500!! It’s unbelievable! Whoever designed this part of the game obviously takes cruel pleasure in annoying the gamer.

Yet another problem is the item system. Similar to Resident Evil, you can only carry a limited amount of items at one time. In this game, it’s 20. Considering 4 of those items will always be your weapons and equiptment, you’re left with a measly 16 available items you can pickup and carry at one time. This becomes very annoying when you’re in a dungeon and characters are leaving good items behind when you kill them. You’ll find yourself constantly having to go to the item screen and delete the least valuable item on your list. Over and over again. Of course you can go back to your house in Esperanza and store your items in a chest, which holds a maximum of 500 items. But the whole process is repetitive and unnecessary.

The level up system is one of the nice parts about this game. When you level up, you get 1 or 2 “bonus points" which you can then use to level up whatever area you choose, whether it’s attack or defense power, or any of the specific elemental magics (water, fire, earth, wind). This makes the game fun to play, as you can create the character you choose. If you want Tene to be a super powered fire magic user, you can focus on that area, if you want her to have strong general attack power, you can focus on that, or if you just want her a well-rounded character in all areas, you can distribute the points evenly as you level up. At certain levels, you gain new magic attacks, and the magics gradually become more powerful as you level up.

In addition, Tene will be busy due to all the “requests" she gets in Esperanza. By frequenting the bar, or sometimes just walking out her front door, the townspeople will request her to do things for them, like find 5 garnet stones, or defeat a monster to retrieve a lost brooch, etc. By doing these, Tene gets paid much needed money, and sometimes gets rare items. It adds lots of little side quests to the game, and you always have the option of choosing whether or not you want to do them (which is nice). Also, in Tene’s bedroom, on her desk, is a diary where you can read up on the details of all of your current “requests? in case you should forget what you’re supposed to get for whom.

Despite all it’s flaws, Tenerezza is still a fairly enjoyable game if you give it time. While it’s not in the same league as an action-rpg like Zelda: Kaze no Takuto for the Gamecube or Magic Knight Rayearth for the Saturn, Xbox owners starved for some Japanese action-rpg action should consider importing it. After all, there aren’t any other games like this on the xbox to choose from! Japanese reading ability isn’t absolutely necessary to play this game, if you’ve played through a Japanese action-rpg before you should know what to expect here. Though it might get pretty difficult at parts when you have to mix ingredients or items, or when doing the requests. Anyway, if this game had a movable camera, tighter controls, not such a strict limit on the amount of items you can carry at once, a more balanced money system, more interesting boss battles, and a better weapon system, it would score much higher than the rating I gave it below. I hope they make a sequel and incorporate some of these improvements! As I said in the beginning, this game does have a certain charm to it, and I think it will appeal to fans of a game like Napple Tale on the Dreamcast. The character art is absolutely gorgeous, and the story is comical and very entertaining. And that’s this game’s saving grace.

RATING: 6

[Revoltor]

Screenshots would be nice.

[blueskied]

Screenshots would be nice.

I may take some screenshots and put them in future reviews. In the meantime you could just go to www.google.com and enter in the title of each game. Doing that gives you, for example, the company website for Tenerezza, full of screens:

http://www.aquaplus.co.jp/tene/

Also, you can download a 39MB preview video of Tenerezza from this link:

http://www.aquaplus.co.jp/_mirror/tene_pr1.avi

Also, here's the Galaxy Angel company website with some pics (click on the different links (story, character, etc.) for different pics):

http://www.broccoli.co.jp/ga/game/intro/index.html

Hope that helps.

[Revoltor]

Don't be a smartass. Nobody likes a smartass.

[blueskied]

Don't be a smartass. Nobody likes a smartass.

Huh? You asked for screenshots. I informed you of how to get them, as
you obviously didn't know (i.e. go to google, type in game name).
I then proceeded to provide you links. Either you're retarded or an arse. Or perhaps both?

[Revoltor]

Well, you're the one who decided to make a thread about a bunch of games nobody gives a shit about.

Have fun anyway.

[blueskied]

Popolocrois Monogatari (Japanese Playstation)
Released 12-July-1996
-----------------------------

Ah, Popolocrois. A charming land few who enter fail to fall in love with.
A land with an absent-minded king, a young prince whose mother is in a mysterious coma, a crazy guy named Gami-Gami who lives in a fortress in the mountains, a white knight in search of his sword, a young witch in training, and an ice demon. These characters and more cross paths in a unique and beautiful RPG game which is a joy from start to finish. You play as the young prince Pietro, on a variety of quests aimed to rid Popolocrois from evil and awaken his sleeping mother the queen.

Released in 1996 and only in Japan, Popolocrois is a traditional 2D rpg with anime sequences and quality hand-drawn graphics. The graphics as a whole will not blow you away (remember, we're talking first gen ps1 from 1996), but those who enjoy the early 32-bit/late 16-bit style of hand-drawn graphics will be very pleased. The sprite animation is of particular note, much better than most games of its time. This whole game almost reminds me of a high-end Neo-Geo game, in terms of graphics and animation quality. The music is good but overall nothing spectacular.

The battle system is quick and efficient and rarely gets tiresome, essentially you walk around and then randomly enter battles. The battles are carried out quasi-real-time on a grid, echoing the system of Treasure Hunter G on the Super Famicom (lovely game that was!). Magic is minimal but effective, and there are plenty of ways to power up your magic and customize your characters. In addition, characters have special skills and a 'guts' system which influences their special attacks, hit ratio, and dodge ratio, among other things. Certain skills can only be used when all characters have max 'guts'. Weapons are also very plentiful, and the player is given a great variety to choose from, adding to the individualistic nature of the gaming experience.

The story is at times comical, other times warm-hearted, still other times rather bizarre, and sometimes cliche, but it's always entertaining and it kept me happily playing until the end. The game is quite non-linear and is divided into 4 separate chapters, along with an epilogue in which you can explore the world after you've finished the game, and see how all the characters are doing! There are so many side quests, hidden items, side-stories, and other goodies to find in this game, you may never see it all but I guarantee you'll love trying.

The difficulty is moderate. Nothing easy, but nothing overly hard either. Leveling up is set at a very realistic pace. There were some battles I found quite difficult, however, and most battles require a good deal of strategy and thinking, something I love in an RPG! In other words, you can't just mindlessly attack a boss with your sword and fireballs or whatever and expect to win.

It's not a perfect game, but no game is. Some of the dungeons are subpar and have too many battles, and some of the side quests are too obscure or pointless to spend much time with. In addition the music could have been better (with more variety), and the CGI castle cinemas are fairly horrid (shown at the start of each chapter). Many of the characters are quite cliche, and have been done a million times before, in other words the character design is nothing to praise with they exception of Kai, who is a really neat character. Particularly glaring are Pietro, who looks too much like Link from Zelda, and Gami Gami who looks and acts like a cross between Dr. Wily from Mega Man/Rockman and Dr. Robotnik from Sonic the Hedgehog (I'm not kidding). But the story itself is charming enough to make you not notice that too much. The art style is unique and quite appealing, the whole game has a storybook-type feel to it. Overall it took me about 20 hours to complete (just like its sequel).

I recommend this game whole-heartedly. There is a complete FAQ available on gamefaqs which lets anyone play through and enjoy the game from start to finish, regardless of Japanese language ability. If you passed up this gem before (or you've simply never heard of it), and you're looking for something to suck you in in an age of so many disappointing games, hunt around for a used copy (they can be found on ebay for less than $10) and enjoy! In addition, a PSP port featured a remake of Popo I&II will be released in Japan on February 10th.

RATING: 9-

[blueskied]

Tales of Rebirth (Japanese PS2)
released 16-December-2004
------------------------

I’ll admit I was not a big fan of the Tales games before. I played Tales of Phantasia on the Super Famicom back in the day and thought it rather average with an annoyingly high encounter rate. Not owning a PS2 (or PS) until recently, I never had a chance to play the PS1 Tales games nor the PS2 games Destiny 2 & Symphonia (the latter first released on the GC). However, this past Christmas Tales of Rebirth caught my eye as a promising RPG release with its lush "lovechild of a Sega Saturn & Neo-Geo on steroids" 2D graphics, full voice, compelling real-time trilinear battle engine, and intriguing story. So passing up Dragon Quest VIII for the time being, I instead picked up a copy of Rebirth a day after its Japanese release date of December 16th as the game I would wile away my spare Christmas vacation hours with.

I am happy to report I think I made a very good decision. While I’m sure DQVIII is a lovely game, and I plan to play it some day soon, Rebirth is a beautiful epic the likes of which makes me wax nostalgic of classic role-playing masterpieces like Lunar, Seiken Densetsu 3, and Eternal Arcadia. The main character in Rebirth is a lad named Veigue. Well, he’s older and more mature than a mere lad, and he talks in a very manly Japanese sort of way to boot. Veigue’s childhood “friend" (ahem) Claire gets kidnapped early on, and thus sets in motion the storyline leading to a complex, intricate tale focusing on themes of the “Force" (not in the Star Wars sense but rather referring to X-men-ish powers certain people have which have been awakened), race relations (the two races in the game are the Huma and the Gajuma), bigotry, discrimination, and love that is more than skin deep. It is a fairly well written storyline, albeit with its fare share of clich?and Saturday-morning cartoon plot twists, but this is complemented by hours and hours of spoken dialogue and plenty of well-done anime and CGI intermissions. Regardless, the story effectively pulls the player along throughout the game, and I often found it hard to put down the game due to the storyline, despite its occasional silly and “been there, done that" moments.

The graphics, as I alluded to earlier, are just gorgeous. The hand-drawn 2D towns and environs shimmer on the screen like some Neo-Geo programmer’s wet dream, and the 3D battlefields are as smooth as butter and twice as sweet. The animation is fluid, the frame-rate stable, and slowdown only occurs for a split second in those rare moments in a battle when two or three ougis (an ougi is a special technique a character can use at the end of a combo, there are also hiougis, which are rare two person combo attacks done with much eye-dazzling flare) are firing off simultaneously on multiple enemies, and in fact it’s rather welcome at times as it breaks up the often insanely hectic battles (which I’ll talk about more a bit later).

The music and sound effects are of similar quality to the graphics, and further heighten the gaming experience. I particularly enjoy some of the town themes; the themes for the snow towns in particular echo of some of the brilliant music in Seiken Densetsu 3, and fit the game just perfectly. I really have nothing bad to say about any of the music in the game. The overall soundtrack is varied and rich, with some really beautiful town themes, and a sweeping overworld theme. Very good stuff. The voice acting is really superb as well, and the sound effects in the battles are crisp and clear.

The gameplay comprises two main modes, the 2D town and dungeon navigation, and the 3D battles (trilinear motion on 3D environs, similar to Guardian Heroes). The sprite movement in the 2D segments is a bit floaty, and doesn’t feel as “tight" as in other games, but you get used to it rather quickly. Similarly in the dungeons there are times when you have to hit a button to jump over a cavern, and the control could be a bit tighter in these situations. In the 3D battles, however, the control is nearly as tight as Street Fighter II and the combos are lots of fun to pull out. It reminds me a lot of Samurai Showdown, actually, complete with Neo-Geo-esque scaling in and out during battles. Basically, you combo in the sequence Normal hits (usually up to 3)>Jutsuwaza (translation “special technique" ) >ougi>hiougi (rather rare to put in a combo). Depending on the character (without giving too much away, there are 6 total characters you can play as, and you can have any combination of 4 of these you choose in your fight party), a chained combo of Normal hits>jutsuwaza>ougi will usually net between 10-15 hits. However, if you’re comboing while one or more other characters in your party are comboing, you can net some crazy combos between 25-50 hits! There are tons of jutsuwaza and ougi for each character (you learn more and more as you progress through the game and level up), making the combo possibilities rivaling that of a top fighting game. In addition, there are a variety of Normal hit combinations, and you can even jump in battle, and use jumping attacks within your combos. Each of the 4 members of your fight party can be customized as being Manual (you control everything), Semi-Auto, or Auto (the computer controls the character based on your set fight parameters). Suffice it to say, I think this is an extraordinary fighting engine which works surprisingly well in an RPG. Overall it feels a lot like a hybrid of Samurai Showdown 1/2 and Guardian Heroes, which I think most people would agree is a very good thing.

And then there is the cooking (ryouri)! Since you cannot use the healing jutsuwaza of characters like Annie outside of the battles, you learn recipes in the towns, gather a stock of ingredients, and when you need an HP boost for the party you can cook up some grub. There are lots of recipes, and “Fresh Farm Groceries?shops strewn about the land.

The weapon system in this game is ridiculously complex and very, very fun. After each battle you get “enhance" points, which you can use to upgrade different parameters of one of your weapons or armor. Every time you enhance a weapon it gains an internal level, finally maxing out after a certain number of upgrades. However, the true depth comes in the fact you can “inherit" this upgraded weapon to a new, more powerful weapon you buy at a shop or get in a dungeon, transferring the upgraded parameters to the new weapon, effectively allowing you to further upgrade the new “fused?weapon! The inherit/fuse combinations in the game are nearly endless, and there are even rare “miracle" fusions, where you get a rare blend resulting in an ultra powerful weapon or piece of armor, totally by random chance! I only had this happen once in my first play through, with Mao’s attack weapon. I’ve heard the chances of this happening are 1/60,000, and some people have played through the game 3 times and still have not had it happen yet.

This is a long game with lots of replay value (my first play through was about 50 hours), and in addition you get “Graded" after each battle. Accumulate a certain level of grade in your first play through, and in the subsequent play through the game you can start with certain bonuses, like 2X experience, 2X grade, start with all the characters in the beginning, etc. There also opens up a Mania difficulty mode after the first play (you set the difficulty of the battles from Easy>Hard, the higher the difficulty the higher the grade you get if you perform well), and if you beat Mania you get the “Unknown" difficulty. Agh! I doubt I’ll ever play through Unknown (or even Mania), but the option is there, and I respect and thank the developers for giving gamers incentive to play through again.

Overall, I love this game. It’s the best RPG I played in 2004 (and I played most on the PS2 released in 2004 in Japan, except DQVIII of course), and with a complete walkthrough FAQ available on gamefaqs, I really recommend all Japanese-RPG loving PS2 owners to buy this game NOW, regardless of Japanese language ability. If you love the fighting of Samurai Showdown and Guardian Heroes, the epic exploration and adventure of Eternal Arcadia and Seiken Densetsu 3, and just a damn good gaming experience, you must play this game. All indications are this won’t be translated into English, which is a shame. But that shouldn’t stop you from playing one of the best RPG experiences of this generation.

RATING: 10-