i liked this game quite a bit when it came out. not sure why now, but it was probably the collecting of town pieces and rebuilding of towns. scratches a similar itch to soul blazer, one of my all time faves.

that said, that's about the best aspect. this is very clearly an early ps2 title. battles are beyond jank, bosses are borderline nightmare battles of attrition, they kinda just said "yeah this is good enough i guess" and left them all semi-broken. how many "survival" mechanics did we really need here because they thought the base game wasn't challenging enough? thirst and weapon durability are honestly mostly just annoying. i feel like these mechanics only really work in actual survival games because you know what you're signing on for when you play those.

also every character has like one base attack and maybe a powerful attack and that's pretty much it. switching out characters for the simple reason of traversing a puddle or hammering a peg, also a tad annoying and just there to be there, much like the survival stuff. please make sure you use this meh character for two seconds then immediately switch back!! please!

i wish i could say the nature of finding new town pieces and placing them makes everything worth it, but not really. the sequel is a huge improvement and also added a camera mini-game feature which makes it a lot more fun. get that one, maybe try this out as a curiosity if you havent yet.