The battle system is very good. The story is very very good. I loathe the puzzles. For the first 20 hours the puzzles are okay. At around the 30 hour mark I turned the puzzle timer down to 50%, the minimum setting. At the 40 hour mark I had had enough, I began using Youtube for all puzzles. The worst part of the puzzles is you always feel like an idiot. The puzzles introduce the most basic of concepts to you, ie this block does that, this power does this to that block, then in the next room proceeds to completely catch you off guard by shuffling the deck. What I'm trying to say is that the puzzles do not build off of each other making you feel like you're learning, getting smarter, and are in control. It's more like aceing a physics exam, then being immediately thrown into an english literature exam. Or perhaps...going from playing Tetris, to playing Bejewelled, to playing Myst. Even worse...if you're an acheivement hunter, the puzzles are timed. There are also puzzles to defeating the bosses, especially the final boss. These puzzles are not difficult as long as you have the stats to survive the battle to figure them out. If your stats are high you will not need a second try or Youtube to figure it out. I like those kinds of puzzles. There is one other bad facet of the puzzle system that extends to the rest of the game. Frequently you do not know if you have the ability to do something. Can you get that chest on this screen with your current power set? No way...it's too far away. However, in actuality you could, you just needed to enter the screen from 3 screens ago. Can you find and talk to an NPC and his NPC friend in the city in order to further the plot? Well I went all over every inch of that city exploring and I never saw him or his friend. Oh...I got the bad ending...so...he and his friend WERE there!?!? DAMNIT!!! I'm giving it a 4/5 because the battle system, world, and story are good enough to make me power through the 500 obtuse puzzles.
This game reminds me of Shadowrun for the Sega Genesis/Megadrive from 1994. If you like that style of game you should like this a lot too. It's a 2D side scroller/Action-RPG with "hacking" and dialogue trees. There are a couple WIKI articles out there to help you make it through the game but I am happy to say that most actions you take and things you say have predictable outcomes so the online guide _probably_ won't be necessary. I did experience some minor animation bugs like the character not moving when she was in her DLC costume and crouch walking and sometimes the stealth kill animation was glitched but it still worked. p.s.: I just spend my weekend playing this game. After 21 hours I finally beat it and can go to bed. p.p.s.: The voice acting is done well.
