I went to the rental place to look for Beyond Good and Evil, which sadly was nowhere to be found. Of all the "last gen" games they had, I picked up Prince of Persia: Two Thrones, and this, since they were running a 2 game special. Having walked out of the store with them, I realized that I really didn't feel like sitting down to a hardcore JRPG grind session. I put it in the PS2 and said aloud to no one in particular that if there was even a hint of terrible voice acting, I would stop immediately. I was looking for an excuse not to play it.

I was surprised. The voice acting was not only tolerable, but good. The graphics were clean and well done (though a bit bright for my tastes). But it's still not a game I'm willing to devote 40 hours to. I could get over some of the problems if I had time to play more, so let's start with what I didn't like.

The writing is insipid. I suppose that's a bit harsh, but I really wouldn't even classify it as sophomoric. The entire think reeks of JRGP cliches. The main character is a plucky youth who makes a living hunting "beasts" (aka monsters) in a town occupied by generic military overlords. He meets Legendary Monster Hunter Desert Claw who (I shit you not), even jumps down from a building and kills a whole group of "beasts" in a cutscene, anime style. He joins your party and immediately loses the ability to one-shot the very same "beasts".

Why do I keep putting "beasts" in quotes? Because the characters in this town insist on using it like a generic catchall proper noun for anything that's not a domestic animal.

The main character Jaster Rogue ("just a rogue", are you kidding me?) is likeable enough, I suppose. A bit bland, but it's hard to develop a character who's fully fleshed out already, so it gets a pass. The other characters I met, a hyperexcitable robot named Steve and a cyborg ram/dwarf named Simon who speaks in a rather convincing (to my untrained ear) brogue. Again, the voice acting is pretty good, but the voice actors don't really have much to work with. The story is a pastiche of every anime inspired RPG ever for the first two hours. Maybe it gets better, but it doesn't really have a hook. Probably because the main character suffers from Skywalker syndrome - he just can't wait to get off this dump of a planet, so the designers made it so there wouldn't be any real attachment to anyone else there. All the "exciting" characters are from somewhere else.

Now on to what I did like - the gameplay is fun - it's an action RPG, you press a button and Jaster swings his sword or shoots his gun. It's well done, once you realize you're auto-targetting a'la Tales of Symphonia, rather than swinging in the direction you face a'la Devil May Cry. In particular, I like the ability to pick up and throw pots, chunks of rock, etc. You can even strike them with your weapon and send them flying at an enemy.

The skillup system, which I really didn't get much into in the time I played, seems like a straight rip of Final Fantasy X's sphere grid, but what I did see of it looked good. You need certain items to unlock certain skills, and I liked the sphere grid. I don't mind seeing it again.

The game doesn't bog you down with a bunch of healing items - the standard potions restore a straight 50% of your max health, and they seem plentiful, which is good because you'll need them. At one point I got stuck under a boss and I had to use about six of them because I got trampled by his six legs before I could get out of there. Skilled players might need them less.

More good: Cutscenes are pausable and skippable. Battles take place right where you stand. The interface looks good (although is slightly busy, lots of meters). The controls do exactly what you expect them to do. The game's map shows you where you need to go to advance the story. The load times are minimal. The main game loading screen recaps where you are in the story and where you're going - probably the most useful loading screen I've ever seen.