This RPG meets Adventure game is almost likable, but is a little too clunky and bland to really pull you in
This budget JRPG-meets-Western-adventure game mixes up the genre by taking a pretty basic turn-based JRPG and plopping it into a modern world filled with vampires and witches with adventure game style conversations and questing. In concept, it's somewhat fresh and new. Unfortunately, the game has some clunky technical issues and a generally bland feel.
Combat is straight turn-based JRPG style, with magic, melee, item use for buffs and healing, etc. Nothing new there. Monsters and your party take turns based on speed, spell affects, etc.
Character building is quite strategic, as you literally spend your experience points like currency -- use some on new spells, some on leveling-up current spells, some on stats, or any combo of those things, until you run out. It's a nice mechanic that works well. It offers more customization than many JRPGs.
You solve "quests", which can vary from multi-step quests involving talking to people and collecting objects, to very simple ones involving a single fight. Each completed quest nets you another few dozen experience points to spend.
There is an adventure feel to the questing, but make no mistake -- despite Gamespot's categorization of this as an Adventure, it's an RPG.
The Good:
+ Pretty nice 3d visuals, though the 3d models are repeated a lot (e.g. you'll see the same bushes, building components, scenery, etc. over and over)
+ The adventure-game style questing is an interesting approach that somehow feels fresher than some RPGs' questing approaches. I can't put my finger on what makes it feel more "adventure game like" than "RPG like", but it does have some subtle difference.
+ The customization of your characters as they level up is quite flexible. There are a lot of spells to learn (and spell crafting as well), objects to collect (and make from ingredients), and skills to play with in battle.
The not-so-good:
- Dialog, while abundant (not spoken -- typed only), is very dull and can get tedious as many conversations really just go on too long.
- You'll fight the same monsters over and over a lot, because there just isn't a large variety.
- Strange pacing due to technical issues? -- when the game shows people talking then transitions to showing them walking up to something as part of an in-game cut scene, everything on screen blanks, redraws, then continues. This wouldn't be bad, but there are longer cut scenes where this will happen 5-10 times, and it just feels clunky and odd -- there doesn't seem to be an obvious reason why these hiccups are happening as the visuals don't change themselves, just what subtle action is going on (e.g. talking versus walking) is changing.
- For some reason, despite a potentially cool concept at the highest level (witches and vampires in a modern setting), everything just sort of moves along in a very bland way. Quests are bland, dialog is awkward and kind of silly without being funny, etc.
- Slow paced combat -- battles take a long time because of slow camera transitions, repetitive and non-skippable spell animations that don't vary at all so you'll see the same ones over and over, and somewhat clunky menuing.
Overall, it's not a _bad_ game, but just feels like it was 2 experienced software developers and 4 months from being a much better game.