Wraps up the storyline, but it seems to be far better than the rest...
The story finally comes to an end as you have to fight the last of the bosses in order to save the world, but the story stretches beyond that as it pushes on past the main objective of the story and adds a small after-segment that will answer most of the questions you'll have at the end of the story.
The graphics are the same as always, the environments are a little different as most of them are distorted, but other than that, there's nothing new to talk about. The good thing is it manages to keep the same amount of polish on the special effects and all other aspects of the game. The NPCs are all the same as always, but you do have a few new ones, but they're expected and they don't really matter all that much.
The gameplay is the same as always, but it seems to be a bit more manageable than in the previous games. The camera is a little more cooperative with you, or maybe I've gotten used to the controls at this point. The enemies are much harder as they require a decent amount of effort in order to take them down. Most of the enemies are data bugs and this means that the bracelet is used plenty of times, but this means that you'll have to take gambles constantly and risk a game over or other smaller penalties. This makes some of the areas a pain to get through, but it's enjoyable and not all that frustrating. You have the same allies as you did before, but you can now fight with the characters from the anime series as well. They offer up the same amount of help as any of the characters, but they have their own unique abilities to make them a prime choice for your journeys.
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The bosses are significantly harder especially the final boss. You fight the final boss (in the main storyline) in 3 different forms and you can't use the bracelet, which makes this a long and drawn out battle, but its better than the rest of the mediocre bosses.
After you complete the story, you can gather all of the items in the game for a special event, but the reward is very dissapointing as you'll only unlock a few wallpapers, but it will keep you busy long after the game is done. You can also engage in races again, but you get more areas to race around in. The races are ridiculously hard, but its nothing a little patience and practice can't fix.
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Overall, with plenty of things to do after you complete the game, it makes it a little better than the rest of the games. I bet you want to finish the story, and this game delivers. Fans of the series might want a little more, but hey, at least we can all go back to whatever we were doing before the series started.