Cattle Call Inc, formed by ex-Metal Max developers, debuted with a partial inversion of SMRPG's combat titled Tsugunai: Atonement, whose active inputs are designed almost exclusively for defense. Guarding is no longer a simple response to the occasional charged, 2-turn attacks of bosses, but a timing-driven system split into four types, each of which varies in difficulty (e.g. strictly-timed counterrattacks that anticipated Paper Mario: TTYD), effects (building or spending super meter) and/or application (namely backstep, intended for unblockable moves). Reaction training aside - though, combat is as slow, sterile, passive and brainless as the common JRPG. And it's not a particularly creative or well-implemented idea, either: Vagrant Story achieved a much more robust, customizable version of this very system the year before. Luckily, side quests (a remnant of their open-world beginnings, featuring a player-controlled spirit forced to help villagers out via possession) keep battling to a minimum to focus on adventure, while the Amulet system (in which magic is set by rotating and fitting crafted shapes onto emblems) is at least imaginative. But the rest feel like half-baked interpretations of their publisher's (i.e. Atlus') trappings, whether the general brooding vibe or their chronic obsession with gods, angels, demons, religious concepts (hence the name), etc.

Another early PS2 RPG that feels like it really wants to be an adventure game instead. It's an interesting attempt but ultimately a failure. They researched a lot of Irish and Celtic folklore for the world-building, which is cool, but the end result still feels incredibly bland. The graphics are competent, but lack personality and style.

This game is also incredibly stingy with save points, and the battle system is unnecessarily painful. I briefly compared the Japanese and English versions, and the translation is way too literal and tone-deaf. Atlus USA usually has better localizations than this.

The one bright spot is the music by Yasunori Mitsuda, whose Celtic-inspired melodies fit with the world the game was attempting to portray. The soundtrack at least is up there with Chrono Cross and Xenogears.

I rented this game when I was maybe 7 years old, and despite the kind of blah visuals (for its time and now), and its quest based structure not providing much grand motivation compared to the sweeping stories of RPGs like FF that I was used to, it's stuck with me.

Played it recently, and it's still very interesting and very charming despite being janky, slow, and not telling you a whole lot. Maybe it's Mitsuda's soundtrack, maybe it's the Legend of Dragoon-ish combat, maybe it's that the game is about helping people: I'm not sure, but there's something here.