absolute gem on the DS. extremely unique at almost everything it does. great capture of Japanese youth in the mid-2000s. godlike ost and very pleasant pacing.

The combat was pretty good and the controls were surprisingly tight. I just never got to really make use of my teammate on the upper screen. 90% of the time I just spammed in one direction hoping for the best.
The lower half on the other hand worked like a charm and made me really appreciate this game's approach to the touchscreen on the DS.
Great variety of pins with a lot of different move-sets and effects.
Sadly a lot of this game's features never went to use in my playthrough because they either are way too complicated and useless to even bother or the age of time killed them. Another thing dragging it down is the semi-well-written story. The setting is amazing and exciting but over the course of those 21 days you get to know almost nothing about this interesting world. Even the postgame extra files don't explain a lot and rather infused the confusion I had. Maybe the second game answers all my questions.
I can definitely see its potential in its Era and still can't grasp how I missed this in my early teens.
Absolute must play for everyone who owns a DS and is into JRPGS.