If you are reading this and haven't played through the first two games in this series already, STOP. This game contains many spoilers for those games. They are meant to be played in order. This review is written for people who have played the first two and are on the fence about this one. This is still the dialogue-heavy JRPG you know and love, with some rather bad design choices. The main two characters in this game are not the same as the previous entries. One is a new character, the other was a playable character for only a portion of the second game. The main draw for the first two was always the semi open world. There was plenty to explore, people to talk to, side quests to do. That is all gone from this game. You are placed into a supernatural spacey area pretty early. Think of it as one continuous dungeon with different floors. At first, I thought this section would've been only a few hours long. It lasts the entire game. The overall level design is quite boring. Some sections are reused from the first two games. Some are straight copies, while others have only minor changes. The other areas are simple paths that offer little puzzle solving or any challenge, with small branches to collect items from chests. In the first two titles, you did side quests to earn the necessary currency to buy armor/weapons from the shops. You could optionally convert some sepith (drops used in upgrading and crafting) into money to buy some gear, but you really only needed it at the beginning of the game. You are usually given enough cash from side quests to support your current party. With fewer "side quests" in this game than in previous entries, you will be starving for money a lot (have fun grinding). The side quests themselves are done through doors that require specific requirements to open, such as having a certain person in your party. Most are just cutscenes, but there are some minigames and even some short gameplay segments. Recommened for fans of the series only.
If you like grinding for hours in JRPGs, feel free to pick this one up. Otherwise, keep reading. Within the first few minutes of the game, I had to open the options menu to change the voice overs because of how (intentionally?) bad the english voice acting was. That was when I noticed how bare-bones the options menu is. At least this port runs fine for me with no issues to speak of. It was made apparent very early that this game was supposed to be a satire of JRPGs, and would constantly poke fun at some of the tropes inherent of the genre. This is mostly done through the writing, character design, and level design. The writing is sort of a mixed bag. There is some great side dialogue that is just the right amount of silly. I would occasionally find myself chuckling during the cutscenes. The main storyline is mostly ignorable and uninteresting. The level design leaves a lot to be desired. It doesn't take long to notice that a lot of areas are reused, sometimes doing so little as to reskin enemies and flip the entrance and exit around. Almost all of the dungeons are linear, with a few branching off to provide some extra pickups and monster encounters. Combat is turn-based with 3D movement. It is probably the greatest thing this game has to offer, but there are still some issues with it. Namely, the level scaling. It is impossible to finish this game without grinding a few levels. The game features quests, but none of them are interesting. Kill X monsters # times. Find # of X item. That is literally the only types of quests available. Aside from quests, most pickups are used for "Plans", which alter the player or dungeons, or add items to the shop. An interesting mechanic, but I feel it could've been expanded with more variety. I don't have any issues with the art style, music, or graphics, but there really should be more graphical options. As it stands now, there is only resolution. If you have trouble running modern games, I would probably skip this one.
