(Officia) Reviewers concentrate too much on details, not on overall feel or game, look at Time Stalkers!My favorite game
First I should preface this by letting you know where my Bias is, I love Time Stalkers, it's tied with Legend of Zelda: Ocarina (Hope I spelled that right) for my overall favorite game of all time, so when you read this keep that in mind, I am not a pure source I am very much tainted by my partiality to the game.
1. "Official" Reviews Rebuttles
a. In dungeons
Any way, I am very much diapointed by the "official" reviews, true it has some moments where it is not as sophisticated as some games ( a la FFVII) but then again it was trying to do abit more that the average game in some respects, like the enemy moving, let's face reality, if they move your not going to hit them, run through probably not either, but the developers at least tried to make it a bit mnore realistic, such as the enemy moving. Another "Thorn in the side" was the Random map generators, I think this is more comendable than condeming, ups replay value, and makes the game more realistic when looking for more items, besides, there is more than one way up a mountain (First "real" Dungeon), finding different items and such to use like swords knuckes, rare items, and many other things within the dungeons, (just because the item doesn't show up one time doens't mean its not there, you have to go again to find it, talk about real)
b.story
The story is not only entertaining, it's excelent, as one of the other game spot member reviews said it was essentially about these 6 character's lives being written for them. But is much more than that, it asked some very unusual existenlistic questions, if someone was writing your lif4e for you would you go with it or fight it? How much of what they were doing was writen, certain characters had infatuations (never really expressed, but you could tell who liked who) with eachother, how much of that was written and how much was real. how can you fight being a hero? The first character just fell into it, others had their reasons, and others didn't say much one way or another on it. Then of course their were entire side stories involving mad scientists, bounty hunter employers, wannabe heros, indians who became real city men, and a liturally a ton of other stories, well over 40 unique character's, each with their own profile summary. the list is enourmous.
c. game play/ interface
True the "battle" interface does ring of pokemon, but it also rings of FFVII, RPG maker games, and just about any other RPG game I have ever played, just like any RPG game there is a fair amount of strategy involved, so you need a interface like this one (And a\every other RPG) also, the game play can get fairly intricate at some times, I found myself pauseing it to get a peice of paper at some points to plan out what I was going to do, it was fun but there were times where you are really tested on your ability.
My overall Conclusion, the game is awesome, kick ass, and I really wish that my dog had not scratched the disc beyond use, now I need to find another copy. I am sad now off to cry