A Great Game With Decent Fun, Somehow The Later Parts In The Game Starts To Get Frustating!
Graphics = Nice and clear, there is nothing to point at and say that there is a fault here, everything is decently detailed, atleast i could not find one point of fault in it. its way better then both the golden sun(both of which failed to impress me) on the gba. the character and enemy sprites are superbly detailed and the background could not get better then they already are. nicely detailed portraits and towns are a good addition to the graphics section in the game. when in some areas where there is winter, one can see nice effects of snowfall, as well as the usual footsteps. infact graphic really easies the gameplay and motivates as well. overall i find the graphics to be of top-notch due to its clarity in clearity!
Sound = Good sound effects, nice background music on the stages sets the game right. but there is nothing to be like memorable quality here but nothing bad either. overall there are quite some decent tunes and nice effects while in towns/stages and also while fighting!
Story = Well i must say the story is slightly different but nothing new then the usual save us all theme. but its decent enough to have a fresh feel to it. but everything gets predictable to early and the twists merely matter here. overall the story is like this, the hero's parents are killed and the hero as well the heroine who was residing there at that time with the hero's mother decides to run away and eventuall the hero gets caugth and is kept as a prisoner for years, then one day he breaks through and plans to take revenge for his parents. the heroine was in the hero's house when his parents were killed, so there is little mystery to her story and since i have not choosed her as the character i cannot say much and also since i like my reviews to be spoiler free i will not reveal much in the story.
Gameplay = Hack/N/Slash type is the gameplay here, and all in real time. actually thats the most interesting factor for me in this game. the game is really easy. and its too easy to get around for even new to the series as there is nothing out of the oridinary stuff here. i find the gameplay real fun as i like such action in games, and all the enemies are really easy to beat and since i like having the upper hand at all the time thats what i like most. the gameplay consists of real time action, where there is only one thing to do while fighting, attack, and the only use of the menu is to use items to heal. there is a nice variety of weapons to choose from. i liked the archer way here then the sword way. there is also a blacksmith thing here, however its got a lot of depth and is often confusing as there are two options to choose from, forge and temper and that can applied to weapons and armour, and the armour is not the option here as its equipped as default for the hero. some of the weapons will require certain task such as killing all the enemies in a specific area in order to gain a new weapon. in the game whenever you kill the enemies around within a particular area, after sometime they would re-appear, now this makes leveling a lot easy. and leveling is really not hard in this game also the game is quite easy as i stated before so leveling is not that of a necessity as it mostly depends on the skills. there is also a class system here, but i have always mixed the stats up so i ended up being a fighter. one can decide where to spread the points once they gain a level and the way the points are used one can gain a class in respect to the point spent in their respective areas and its all self-explanatory and quite easy. there is also a magic system, when one gets to use the summon option, but it hardly comes to use as its mostly useful in getting rid of some blocky elemental enemies. however it does have other use such as def-up and power-up and so on, and getting this summon creatures is a must and is completed eventually playing the game. the game gets a smooth run and does not end up getting boring and repetive until the later areas which are really frustating. it was not confusing until much later in the game, where one had to find where to go next by his ownself, i have yet to finish this game due to that factor, but there is always a faq around useful in such situation, but the game does feel being stretched and also some of the areas are really annoying such as lava on the ground and such stuffs. overall the games gets boring only in the ending parts and i have heard that the ending is bad in this game so thats one major fault in my opinion, but its a fun game otherwise.
Overall i find this game enjoyable and i would recommend it to anyone who like hack/n/slash action games, and this games is way better then the older games in the series and also better then the dark alliance on the gba. its definetly a satisfactory and superb title to have.