Ok, so I just got this game yesterday. I'm not big on tactical type combat systems so it never really appealed to me, but the price has come down enough where I decided to assuage my curiosity. I don't wish I hadn't bought it but I am very glad I didn't pay full price (is it just me or are SE DS games way overpriced to begin with?).

I will be honest, the opening FMV, I didn't even recognize Penelo at first. She looks...weird. I wasn't overly impressed with the graphics as I expected it to look more like III or IV. Just didn't seem up to standard.

Then I saw the in-game sprites...what the--? They look terrible to my eyes. Someone was really lazy or something. The old skool sprites look so much better; I don't understand why these ones look so awful.

Graphics don't make the game though, so I'm not totally turned off yet.

The combat system...ugh. Way too cumbersome and inefficient. I'm not good at unit-based combat to begin with, but add in the horrible controls and it's just asking for trouble. It's fine when I was just controlling the main characters but once the espers came into play the shortcomings of the system were painfully apparent.

Selecting units was a pain and I often found myself accidentally pulling the tabs at the top down by accident if I tried selecting anyone near the top of the screen. I eventually learned to just go from the bottom up, but still. Even just using the tabs to select and move groups became frustrating after awhile. It was worse in combat when I'd select a group to attack something and just ended up moving them instead when another character got in the way. Makes the rock-paper-scissors target thing useless; I end up just attacking all in one mob and replacing espers as they die. (Yes, missions without summon gates are very difficult for me lol.)

I had the same problem with abilities; while useful, it's so hard to pull them off in the midst of a big brawl that it's not even worth trying after awhile. The AoE ones tend to work best so Kytes' -agas and Lluyd's Jump are really the only ones I get any use out of.

The music isn't bad but it's all recycled from the main game. They could have at least come up with a different score for the aegyl. Seriously. Plus it's really weird hearing Lowtown music on a floating continent. Not bad just...it doesn't quite fit.

For all that ragging there are a few good points. The missions, while repetitive, are mostly short so it's easy to do a few then take a break and do something else when you get tired of it. The foraging/scavenging points add some interest to the battlefields, which for the most part look good and have some variation to them. The notice board / melee battles add some replay value once you'd done the missions for an area. It's also a nice way to level up between story missions so it's easier to take on the bosses.

I only just unlocked it but I'm hoping the crafting gets some use as I do like things like that. There are some nice details as well, like the history/lore entries for characters and the journal is fun to read through. It reminds me of the FFVIII journal, especially with some of the back-and-forths between characters.

So in closing, it has a lot of faults but it's not a total loss. I'm hoping as I progress I'll find more to like.

Any comments or (*crosses fingers*) tips for making the battles go smoother? I don't plan on giving up just yet but it's really hard getting used to the combat system and if the difficulty ramps up later on I am going to have some problems.

~DragonHeart~