Perhaps one of the only games I would recommend using a guide for to not only beat properly, but to get the full effect.
If you do well under such conditions, then the games moderately entertaining storyline, fitting characters, and beautifully conducted music may keep you adicted for some time. Well, at the very least until the next big thing you are waiting for finally arrives at the stores. In any case, Ephemeral Fantasia is a pretty interactive game where pretty much nothing is given to you, excluding the first three payments on the first couple time warps, but even then you have to pay attention and know where to go to get those; as the first time you play through it you may get the impression that you never actually get paid.
This game is basically based on what you do, or don't do, and goes through multiple time warps in case you missed something on a specific day or time. What is mildly annoying is the random battles you will be warped into while trying to get to your destination, so you must always leave extra time on your personal schedule (Which you will need if you aren't good at managing your own affairs in your mind), and talking to the said person or doing some action before a certain point of the day is done. All in all, it may be quite repetitive to people who have little to no patience, but the game itself really isn't that bad once you figure out how to do everything.
With some mild humour every now and then to lighten the tone or stress of missing meeting points, the game offers an interactive guitar music system that isn't unlike some of the other guitar or music based games of it's era. Interesting characters are seen throughout the game, each with their own agendas and feelings, and all under the infamous time warp's mischevious influence. It will be your job to free them from the endless warps of time and recruit them in your quest for whatever reason. I wouldn't call this game's story "mediocre" only just by basing it when it was released and how long it was in production by Konami. I'm sure more than a few people are comparing it to some newer games that they've played and saying "been there, done that," but I'd be interested to know what year they've "done it" and see if the game warrants such a description. Ephermeral Fantasia was good for it's time in my opinion, as I was probably one of the few who actually played it in 2001, as it was a gift on my birthday a few days after it's release, and It was actually quite pleasant as I remember it.
Difficulty: Hard? Well, I merely placed "Hard" here mainly because of the whole "get there on time" thing. Sometimes you don't even know where to go or what to do, as the game has been known to not really help you as much as others are known to do. It basically like how your parents would give you $3,000 and tell you that you're on your own from then on to get an apartment, buy food, furniture, pay bills, and get a job to support yourself for the rest of the year while they move away. The game "gives" you some starting money, but you have to figure out that it really exists and where to get it. This game is pretty merciless when it comes to those will little patience as it expects you to do nearly everything.
Graphics: 7.0
At first I put a "6.0" rating, but I looked at the release date once again along with considering how long it was in production before that. So, I bumped it up to around 7.0 just for that reason. Whenever a new system comes out games rarely use it's power to its fullest extent possible. Thus, I'm still, even now, thinking about rising it another notch. But alas, I believe that I'll maintain the 7.0 if only for the fact that I'm now finished writing a paragraph for it. Hehe.
Sound: 8.5
I'm mainly basing this on the interactive music as I remember it. Ephemeral Fantasia's music was rather nice and had some great themes to each song, in my opinion. Back then when the PS2 was still rather new, I recall that I was absolutely enthralled with some of the music that was in the game.
Gameplay: 6.0
Somewhat mediocre game play for my tastes, but the music makes up for it every now and then. The battles were mildy entertaining at first, it being a 2001 game an all, but became repetitive after a while when I just wanted to get to one area on time and not fight meaningless battles. All in all the game play is pretty mediocre and sometimes annoying.
Value: 8.0 (High) 6.0 (Low)
I'm pretty confident in this value rating if you're the type of person who would play this game to the fullest as described above. If not, and I know how many people have little patience when it comes to video games, then I would probably rate it down to around 6.0 just for the music and interaction therein. But, for the sake of the player review, I'll target this rating for those who enjoy these types of games rather than those who will endlessly rant about how much it sucks and try to speak for others about it.
Replay Value: Medium - Low
If you didn't use a strategy guide for this then you might find some nice little easter eggs on a second play through now that you know where everything is and such (Hopefully). It could be entertaining going through it again just to hear all the songs and do everything right this time. Heck, might even be a good idea for those who used a Strategy Guide to do all that again someday; but maybe in a few months or years just to get the sometimes annoying time keeping, appointment missing, head banging agony that some no doubt went through while playing the through the game.