Why does Sonnori do this?
It started out with Astonishia story in 1994 (as many of you probably know). Astonishia Story is probably not THE best game that Sonnori has made. It was just revolutionary back in the day. They made so many more great RPGs after that. 'Forgotten Saga' came out several years later. You could go ANYWHERE with this game; only bad thing being many bugs. Then later, it came out with 'Arcturus;' probably the best RPG game I have EVER played. It lasts for about 60~70 hours if you complete all the mini quests. You could go anywhere, with no bugs, and it had a really tightly formed, amazing story with great graphics and cool gameplay.
Anyways, I was getting side-tracked there...but my point is that, Astonishia Story was just a 'step' that Sonnori was taking. But I'm kinda dissapointed in this version because there isn't any improvement. I have all of the Astonishia story 'series'(not really a series but... oh I don't have the GP32 version though). The first one was the best... I would say. When Astonishia R came out for PC, there were slight improvements in graphics, but it wasn't worth noting it. When PSP version came out, I thought they would make it with good graphics and stuff, but it was just the same. When games are 're-made,' there should be some improvements, but I didn't see any. They even published the game with bugs still on it - like not being able to take off your equipments.
Because I'm a huge fan of Astonishia Story and Sonnori, I would say the Gameplay and it's value is still high. Sound is still the same and I almost memorized every single song in it, but there wasn't any improvement.
Overall, I would recommend this game to you if you are hungry for a good RPG with short loadings for the PSP. However, if you do not like 2D graphic games with only 20 hours of playing and not much of your free will, then don't buy it. It is like FF10 in a sense that all you can do in the game is just go with the flow (though FF10 is a LOT better), but I'd still say that this is a great game even though it's old, and I hope that Sonnori will publish 'Arcturus' for PSP soon and satisfy all of ya'll hungry for a good RPG game for PSP.