This game is worth buying a 360 for.
The game is rather unique in it's ingredients. The characters (although some pretty bad cliche's) are all fairly surreal in a Shaow Hearts sense. The battle system is a grid turn based system reminiscent of Koudelka. The Golems your party collects during it's travels for battle are quite a reminder of pokemon. And lastly all the environments and character designs smack the words Final Fantasy all over. Yet not once do any of them feel like they clash, they merge together for a real treat.
The game begins in the City of Yokohama. You are soon introduced to three very important characters. You control Atsuma a (hopelessly failing) student at Enchant university. Atsuma is a hot headed moron, with a unique ultra powerful right arm. Soon into the game Atsuma's two best friends are also revealed to you. Toya, the intelligent, good looking, calm, well mannered guy that every one has met and generally despises. And Makoto, a transvestite in love with Toya who makes great "love lunch" specials.
The interaction between these characters and their obviously diverse personalitys makes for some pretty amusing confrontations. From the start it should be clear that while the story is serious, above all the game is here to entertain.
Pretty soon you will learn that over 1000 years ago there was a golem war. During this war, 3 ultra powerful golems were created called "Devil Golems", legend has it that these 3 golems were sealed in each of the 3 largest cities in Atsumas world. Yokohama, London and Kyoto. So of course within an hour or two of playing Atsuma sets one loose in Yokohama city, the seductivly destructive Queen of Ice. From that moment everything goes from bad to worse for Atsuma, continuing for over 50 hours.
Other characters join Atsuma on his non stop entertaining journey, Karin a rather quick to anger, quick to beat up Atsuma, girl from London city. Her companion Raigar, who smashes through walls like thay are made of wet paper. and finally Yuki the obligratory underage female that dresses like a cowgirl.
Though Atsuma's journey you will travel from city, to city by running though dungeuns in a third person perspective, standard for alot of RPG's these days. The game uses random encounters much like the Final Fantasy series have. Although if you are in an area with incredibly weak enemies the encounter rate will decrease thankfully.
The battle system, the core to an RPG as most of the game will be spent using it. The battles in [EA] take place in a 6x4 grid. This is then split into two halves. One half that can only be used by your four character party. And one half for the enemie units to use. The system is turn based in which your party will generally attack first. Each character can equip up to 5 attack skills to use in battle, as well as 5 passive support skills. The diversity of the skills to use is rather large, and alot of time will be spent getting the right balance to use for your party. As elements and range are key to victory, so obviously alot of strategy is involved.
Throughout the game there are over 100 golems to collect to use in battle along with the other four party members. These golems must be constructed from cores using gems found all over the world before they can be used. The golem cores are often found in chests, gained after boss fights, and some are even in golems waiting in dungeuns for you to defeat them. all in all collecting every single golem in the game will take some time.
After each battle is finished the standard exp and money (TP) is granted to your characters. However there is a unique twist to the rewards. As you are also granted Skill Points. SP are used for two things. The first is to buy skills listed to use in battle (note: golems can not learn new skills other then what they start with). And secondly you can individually increase your character statistics for a certain amount, this includes HP, attack, defense, ranged and support. Making it possible to make your characters alot stronger other then by just going up levels.
The visuals in [EA]'s are just breath taking in some areas. Yet bitterly dissapointing in others. The environments and FMV's are up to next gen quality. The water effects are stunning, the detail on marshland, trees and glades is obviously pain staking. Yet the character models (especially in conversations) don't hold up to what the xbox 360 is capable of. With cut off lines, and a lack of detail. It makes the overall outcome of the game feel very rushed. Though at the same time it is only a small point.
The music in [EA] fits it perfectly. Very atmospheric. However none of it stands out, even now I can't remember the battle music after 100 hours of playing through the game. But i have no complaints either.
Ubisoft wisely chose to release [EA] with a dual soundtrack of both the original Japanese vocal track and the English dub. I played through using only the English cast, and although i have heard many complaints about it, i personally loved the dub. Each character fitted perfectly, and the interaction between them felt believable.
Although [EA] is very linear there is still plenty to do. There is a large secret dungeun as well as four mini shrines with some very hard enemies in to finish. As well as the many golems to aquire, the skills to gain, plenty of mini games in the London city casino (including a battle arena. And there is also an online battle mode over Xbox live in which to face off using the golems you have powered up.
I went into this game with high hopes for the first Xbox360 JRPG. And not once through the quest was i dissapointed. The key seller is the great dialoge and character interaction mixed with an entertaining strategic battle system. This one is a keeper.