Its a good game no doubt, and it is very easy to look at it with tinted eyes when compared to bloated worlds Ubisoft has been giving us lately in AC titles. This game has an open world yet compact, has many good things going, quite sufficiently mentioned in the other reviews. It also has a charming and wholesome vibe which is a fresh break from paranoid excitement and violence. However I will like to address some of the points which I found not that great. - The Story: Really? Is it that good? I don't think so. Enough to keep you hooked, but hardly anything novel or ingenuous here. Plus the ending is sort of left hanging probably because they thought they will make a sequel. Instead they are making a prequel for the last 19 years. For a game that takes lot of inspiration from JRPGs particularly like Ys for example, the story is not that good. Not much effort to build up the lore and communicate it whereas there seemed to be plenty opportunity for that. Like who are the DomZ? Where they came from? What other planets are there? What is the history of Hillys? None of these questions are addressed. - Controls and Camera: Gets quite wonky in many segments leading to quite a bit of frustration, and also there is no separate inversion option for the space-ship, so I had to manually change it every time I went in and out of the space ship. In fact, because I had forgotten to change the inverted controls during the excitement of the final mission, I kept dying at the final boss for quite a few times before I realized what was going on! The hovercraft handling also is not excellent. Overall, its a decent idea, decently executed but could have been much better even compared to itself. From my research it seems the makers were over ambitious in their goals, coming from the Rayman games, and then had to settle for lot of cut ideas, content, and features. The story also was changed in response to real world developments. All of this reflects on the game in very obvious manner.
The first JRPGs I have tried and finished!!! (Previously tried and failed to finish DQXI twice, and could not continue Trails in the Sky either for too long) Probably the faster real-time combat has something to do with it. The best aspect of these games is the storytelling. While technologically upgraded, they are still old games with their set of quirks. Boss battles are tough, often it is not clear what to do next, no automap feature but labyrinthine dungeons.. all make it necessary to heavily depend upon internet help, unless you have humongous amount of hours to go around in circles till you figure things out. I played these games so that I could follow the story of Adol Christin from the very beginnings, and it was worth it. Figuring out the mystery of the Ys was on its own a rewarding experience. All in all a great purchase.
This game is okay as a breather between other heavy weight games, but on its own it does not motivate me to play it or to finish it. It does not keep me interested till the end. It is just too repetitive to put it simply. Initially it looked promising, as some kind of evil mischief simulator; but eventually it revealed itself as just an extremely unrealistic and artificial, time based puzzler. The worst part of the game design is that you can't even enjoy looking at the neighbor suffering your traps if you want to aim for the highest scores. Near the end it becomes a chore and a bore.
It is evident that this game had a lot going for it, especially during its day 30 years ago... However, the action segments have simply not aged well and for me they are unplayable. Both the swordplay and the jousting elements are simply not okay for me and I did not even reach the castle siege portions. So in short, unless you played this before in the 80's and want to experience it again for the sake of nostalgia, stay away from this. The concept is very romantic and tempting, but the gameplay is just impossible to get into.
