Conceptually, this franchise was on borrowed time from the moment this game was released. A promising (?) start to a bloated multimedia disaster who's main selling points were "the music is really good" and "the card game tie in was underrated".
In a way, this game is more interesting as a time capsule of what people who vaguely knew what Ultima/Everquest/FFXI looked and played like. There isn't a large open world to explore. Getting to different locations in this game requires that you go to an accessible spot in a hub area, and select through menus to get to your destination, which sadly is more in line with where the MMO genre would go years later. The gimmick being that your location is based off of a combination of three words that determine the parameters of where you wind up. Outside of plot relevant/gimmick boss fight locations, these locations are barebones and come off as filler that at best could be used for grinding or gathering resources to trade to NPCs for equipment/consumables, which you will need to do. Unlike Disgaea's Item World, these pseudo-randomized grinding locations aren't engaging because the core combat of the game isn't engaging. You press X to swing, you sometimes cast a spell or two, spank and tank until the fight's over. The Data Drain system doesn't spice up combat enough to break up the monotony, and mostly acts as an execution attack when your opponent's health is low enough.
The three MMOs I listed above aren't fun solo RPGs, the genre was (and still is) propped up by the social interactions they encourage. Marriages have been formed through "we were grinding in a level 20 cave area for a couple of days and kept talking". The party banter in dungeons does not even attempt to emulate this outside of a few quips during combat specific events. The characters that join your party are fun to have around, the dynamic of "this is a game, and people either put on an online persona or talk like someone using AIM" has high points throughout the series, but the script isn't large enough to take advantage of this. There's an out of game forum system, which adds a bit of flavor to the experience, but it's hard not to feel like it's analogous to older RPGs where progress would be gated unless you talked to every NPC (or, in this case, checked every thread).
All that being said, the presentation for a 2002 PS2 game was pretty decent, with the final boss and its introduction being a high point. The only major audio issue I have other than lack of variety was piss poor implementation and direction (the voice actors themselves have done great work in other media, Steve Blum voices an eight year old in these games). The game was light on story, but this is the first game in the series, most of it was probably establishing characters and The World for people who weren't familiar with //Sign. If they flesh out the combat for the sequels and add on to the length, these games could be something neat.
In a way, this game is more interesting as a time capsule of what people who vaguely knew what Ultima/Everquest/FFXI looked and played like. There isn't a large open world to explore. Getting to different locations in this game requires that you go to an accessible spot in a hub area, and select through menus to get to your destination, which sadly is more in line with where the MMO genre would go years later. The gimmick being that your location is based off of a combination of three words that determine the parameters of where you wind up. Outside of plot relevant/gimmick boss fight locations, these locations are barebones and come off as filler that at best could be used for grinding or gathering resources to trade to NPCs for equipment/consumables, which you will need to do. Unlike Disgaea's Item World, these pseudo-randomized grinding locations aren't engaging because the core combat of the game isn't engaging. You press X to swing, you sometimes cast a spell or two, spank and tank until the fight's over. The Data Drain system doesn't spice up combat enough to break up the monotony, and mostly acts as an execution attack when your opponent's health is low enough.
The three MMOs I listed above aren't fun solo RPGs, the genre was (and still is) propped up by the social interactions they encourage. Marriages have been formed through "we were grinding in a level 20 cave area for a couple of days and kept talking". The party banter in dungeons does not even attempt to emulate this outside of a few quips during combat specific events. The characters that join your party are fun to have around, the dynamic of "this is a game, and people either put on an online persona or talk like someone using AIM" has high points throughout the series, but the script isn't large enough to take advantage of this. There's an out of game forum system, which adds a bit of flavor to the experience, but it's hard not to feel like it's analogous to older RPGs where progress would be gated unless you talked to every NPC (or, in this case, checked every thread).
All that being said, the presentation for a 2002 PS2 game was pretty decent, with the final boss and its introduction being a high point. The only major audio issue I have other than lack of variety was piss poor implementation and direction (the voice actors themselves have done great work in other media, Steve Blum voices an eight year old in these games). The game was light on story, but this is the first game in the series, most of it was probably establishing characters and The World for people who weren't familiar with //Sign. If they flesh out the combat for the sequels and add on to the length, these games could be something neat.