The game had a excellent plot that I got into and keep me entertained until the very end. A interesting cast that entertained me through the entire series until the last volume. In the last volume, it got crowd and time spent with characters doing missions and interacting with them decreased by the time I reached volume three. Outside the fact I wish they add more background coverage of the cast and added more missions with characters to get to know them better, I'm pleased how they handle the cast through the majority of the game.
The battle system was a upgrade from the original series. I had a ton of fun with the battle system and since dungeon crawling wasn't force upon you as much as the original, I did not get tired of the battle system. I wished they did allow you to control other characters during battles instead of just using Haseo, a feature games like Rogue Galaxy had that help keep things fresh since it can get boring fighting with the same character all the time. Who doesn't want to use Alkaid or Kite?
The main thing I liked what they did with this game was the fact you weren't required to go into random dungeons and travel to lowest level while looking at the generic background of that dungeon. Missions and plot related dungeons were there, but they were not that bad, not like the original where it felt like I was in a dungeon for hours. I beat this game in two weeks, with a couple of random dungeons used for PK hunting. Obviously, the strong plot kept me into this game, too!
A couple of annoyance with the game, but nothing major. I mainly had annoyance with missions assigned to you. Like Bikman's Flier quest, how annoying this quest was during the first game without the radar! Not to mention the lackluster award received for completing such a terrible quest. Next up is the PK hunting! This quest isn't too difficult in terms of finding the chaotic PK's, I ran into them early enough. It's trying to kill another 42-43 PK's while trying to find blue battle circles and hope you run into a PK instead of a bunch of monsters. Lucky Animals was bad, too. I don't want to go hunting for silly animals that randomly appear. The radar is helpful, but Lucky Animals appear in fields based on average level and the level of the field. Yeah, I want to calculate that to find a Lucky Animal! Mecha Grunty is the less annoying of the bunch, it's just repetitive if you do it using the fast method. Of course, I did not complete a number of these quests during the first two volumes, missed out on items and can't complete the Book Ryu.
I missed out on Doppleganger quest, too. I never killed one during the first game. No real hint about killing a Doppleganger during the first game. I receive a email regarding the Doppleganger in volume two after getting out of the AIDA server. It would have been nice to know that at the start!
If I had one problem with the game, it would be the boss fights were not that difficult outside Ovan and Azure Knights. Cubia sucked, I destroyed it without breaking a sweat. I'm disappointed by the fact the game didn't feel that challenging. I tried keeping my level just below the recommended level to keep a form challenge around. I'm fine with the regular battles in the game, but bosses should have been harder and differ from regular enemies.
Oh yeah, I find the lack of skills to be disappointing, too. In volume three, you just use one skill for each weapon and all other skills become obsolete. I wish you had more skills to pick from instead of just one level three skill. The magic was varied enough to my liking, but not the attack skills. Also, why did I get like 10 Blade Brandier, but no Edge Punisher and one of each other class for the regular game. Matsu being an Adept Rogue, but using only one weapon?
I just wanted to post a couple of random thoughts I had regarding the series. In short, very fun game and I loved the story that ended with nothing left to be desire. I'm just finishing up a couple of things at the end. I have to finish up the Forest of Pain and recruit Tabby. I believe that's about it. Oh, I need to fight that team in the arena, I should be able to handle them when I'm around level 144-148. I want to keep it challenging! Also, choose who to have a wedding with, I'll just have with every character possible. Just going to save and reload after I receive the greeting card.
