A few minor spoilers and repeating of what some people already said are below...
Alan- Actually, I think that Lin (one of the 3 main charas) is a Woren. The fact that she's a Woren doesn't seem to play a big part, but maybe I'm just missing something. I don't know if there are any other Worens besides her (I'll keep my eyes open), and I've only seen one Grass Runner (I think that's what they're called, the dogs), and at least two characters are whatever race Ursula from BoF IV is supposed to be. I haven't seen Deis yet either, but... Maybe something happened to her at the end of BoF III that I'm forgetting, or maybe she does make an appearance that I haven't seen. (angry... too much homework to play BoF and get stuff done...)
I'll fill you in when I'm done with it.
Rating- I'd give it a low 9. It's one of the four games for PS2 that I consider worth the money I spent. The game battles are insteresting, more like a strategy rpg than anything. I would have liked to see two more playable characters, just to see how they would affect the strategy. After saying that, I think it would affect the sense of loneliness that you get when traveling. Also, I think allowing player-cast offensive spells to hurt playable characters would have added a little... Or maybe it'd just make an already difficult game obnoxiously so. The D-Meter plays a huge part in the game. I'm constantly worrying about what will happen when it gets to %100. (I've read in a few places that the game indeed does end, no save, no restart with party exp and equipment, that whenever you try to reload the save, you're already at %100. To add to that, you can't copy your save so no cheating)
The graphics have a few minor problems, like jaggies, clipping, and stiff movements at times, but it's all forgivable and the style is beautiful. The caverns, labs, etc. should be monotonous, but they're not. Exploring is slightly reminiscent of Metroid Prime. If you're not good at reading maps, you might get lost a lot.
The Ryu and Nina characters are my favorite yet and Rin is up there with Scias, Momo, and Ershin. Don't that beat all... The story is simple, but well done. It goes up in complexity once you begin unlocking new seens, but so far there's only been one thing that I haven't expected. The bosses are really cool. Towns are few and far, but that adds to the sense of being alone even more.
I dunno, I fell in love with the game from the beginning. I can see where people would hate it, but it's good for me.
