I did not expect to like this game so much! I enjoyed playing so much that I even got all achievements on steam.
I think that the strongest suit of the game goes to Gameplay, what seems to be an extremely simple combat system (Press Circle to attack and Square to dodge) ends up being extremely addictive when combined with all your secondary actionable skills, Warping, switching weapons, Arminger and switching to other characters with their own mechanics. I really liked how they managed to make long battles not feel like you are just hitting a meat wall with way too much HP, thanks to all the battle mechanics and how it actually depends on how you use of all your tools to progressively take down the enemies faster.
The cycle of doing the side quests, hunts, getting gear and fighting big monsters was really enjoyable to me, switching weapons, characters and other characters to face battles in different ways really got me hooked on playing it to completion.
I did enjoy the characters, their personalities, the story and those big cinematic moments. Although I think they are really good, I would not say they are as good as they could have been.
After playing the game, I researched all that Versus XIII situation I kept hearing about and I think that the troubled development of the game does show in a lot of places. I definitively don't think it ruins the game or anything, but it just feels odd. For example, the game feels like it has so many stories of characters, world building and a message that is wants to tell, but for some reason it is all scattered around on movies, animations and 4 DLCs that, despite deepening the main characters of the game, are meant to be played AFTER finishing the main story, essentially trowing all that character development into nowhere.
I really think that the story would have been much more impactful if those scattered resources were focused on the main game to deepen your relationship and understanding of the other characters.
I also think that the game has some really bad design decisions that end-up being a huge time waster for no good reason. For example, not fast travelling and actually going for the manual/automatic road trip is terribly boring, you do nothing on the car but wast time. I do realize they wanted to go for a "Road Trip with friends" vibe, but it just does not work.
In conclusion, I think it's a pretty solid game and deserving of your time!
I think that the strongest suit of the game goes to Gameplay, what seems to be an extremely simple combat system (Press Circle to attack and Square to dodge) ends up being extremely addictive when combined with all your secondary actionable skills, Warping, switching weapons, Arminger and switching to other characters with their own mechanics. I really liked how they managed to make long battles not feel like you are just hitting a meat wall with way too much HP, thanks to all the battle mechanics and how it actually depends on how you use of all your tools to progressively take down the enemies faster.
The cycle of doing the side quests, hunts, getting gear and fighting big monsters was really enjoyable to me, switching weapons, characters and other characters to face battles in different ways really got me hooked on playing it to completion.
I did enjoy the characters, their personalities, the story and those big cinematic moments. Although I think they are really good, I would not say they are as good as they could have been.
After playing the game, I researched all that Versus XIII situation I kept hearing about and I think that the troubled development of the game does show in a lot of places. I definitively don't think it ruins the game or anything, but it just feels odd. For example, the game feels like it has so many stories of characters, world building and a message that is wants to tell, but for some reason it is all scattered around on movies, animations and 4 DLCs that, despite deepening the main characters of the game, are meant to be played AFTER finishing the main story, essentially trowing all that character development into nowhere.
I really think that the story would have been much more impactful if those scattered resources were focused on the main game to deepen your relationship and understanding of the other characters.
I also think that the game has some really bad design decisions that end-up being a huge time waster for no good reason. For example, not fast travelling and actually going for the manual/automatic road trip is terribly boring, you do nothing on the car but wast time. I do realize they wanted to go for a "Road Trip with friends" vibe, but it just does not work.
In conclusion, I think it's a pretty solid game and deserving of your time!