One of the best original RPG's out there.
While the game overall is great, the very beginning, however, is tedious and gives you a bad first impression. In the beginning of the game, you fly the Little Jack, a small wooden ship belonging to a one-armed man named Drachma. You must pilot this ship for about 1/3 of the game, with the same 4 party members the whole time
But, when you get past this tedium, the rest of the game is nothing but pure fun. You recieve your own ship, the Delphinus, which is much more modern looking than the Little Jack. You can upgrade and customize this ship to your heart's content. Eventually, you'll also recieve your own air base, which is not that customizable, but still very cool. The Sailor's Guild was a good touch, as well as bounties and things like that.
The combat system for ground combat can become a little repetitive, as you choose attacks and your characters simply execute them. Of course enemies can dodge, but they can't block or anything like that. The special abilities for ground battles are cool...the first 3 times you see them. However, this game let's you skip the ability cinematics, which is good. Unfortunatly, you can only skip your OWN cinematics, and if a boss has a particularly long attack he uses over and over again, you're generally outta luck. The item system is ok, nothing special, but nothing bad either. The air battles were alot of fun for me. You choose your ship's attacks based on character, and then watch them execute your commands, along with the enemy ship. The music for ship battles was generally better too, and implemented a bit more strategy than ground battles. The only downside to this kind of battle, is that you can't control your ship's movement, you only get to watch it manuever along with the enemy's ship, though that can be cool to watch at time. Again, the only problem with this is that eventually, the ships begin to manuever in the same pattern over and over....and over again. It can get repetitive depending on how long the battle lasts.
The storyline to this game is rich and easy to follow. There is about 40-50 hours packed into this game, including the side quests which, while not numerous in number, make up for in length and enjoyment. All in all, this game is definitly worth picking up, as it is now only $20.00 at local game stores. If you can make it through the first bit of the game, you're in for a real treat.