Well, I picked up Resonance of Fate on the 360 yesterday (even though I suspect I was the only one in South Australia who pre-ordered it... *shrug*) and managed to put an hour or two into it. Just thought I'd share my initial impressions with you all before I go back to some more grinding inFFXIII.

One of the first things I managed to do after putting the disc in the 360 and started playing was to get myself into a combat, before I even made it to the tutorial section. Ooopsies. I made it through OK, but didn't know what I was doing (didn't read the manual either. *grin*) After flailing about in combat for a bit, I survived and made it to the tutorial arena section, which would explain to me how combat worked...

Man, I had some trouble with a couple of the tutorials - as in I couldn't do what they wanted me to do. (I had trouble with the Tri-Attack mainly, as it wasn't clear to me how I was supposed to activate that ability). I persevered and played some of the Game proper.

The combat is kinda turn based, and kinda real time. Each character has a certain amount of time to perform actions and move about - once that's used up, your "turn" has ended. During each turn though, you can move about, perform hero actions (read: shoot things a LOT, but in a very stylish way), and generally cause some mayhem. Some of the features of the combat system (such as Bonus Shots) are going to take me a while to master, but I'm looking forward to trying. :)

I don't know anything about the story yet, but it's set in a post-apocalyptic world where mankind survives by living on a huge skyscraper-like machine called Basel. Since it's a JRPG, I'm fully expecting to be caught up in events that will eventually decide the future of Basel and of all mankind - would be "right" otherwise now, would it? *grin*

Graphically, the game is not bad looking, but I wouldn't gush over it the same as some people have over FFXIII. The voice acting so far seems a lil' off to me. Not sure what it is yet, but one of the main characters' voices just doesn't quite seem right to me. Not sure if it's delivered a lil' flat, or just doesn't quite seem to suit the avatar I see running around. Dunno. *shrug*

NEhow, I'm just taking a quick break to write to you all. Hope you're having a good day out there in Game Land, and make sure you...

GAME ON! :)