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Finished the game a few hours ago. Simple bullet point 'review' like I did for Ratatosk:
Pro:
- A fantastic artstyle and really beautiful graphics. The battle backgrounds had more detail than the first trailer suggested, and the towns and most of the area maps looked simply fantastic.
- Day, night and weather systems were a really welcome addition that more games need.
- Most solid incarnation of the battle system to date. Fatal Strikes weren't cheap like I expected and were fun and exciting to pull off, overlimit is more useful than in any previous instalment, and there is plenty of variety in the available characters, partly thanks to the addition of subweapons.
- Memorable, likeable characters. Yuri stands alongside Estelle from Sora no Kiseki as one of my favourite protagonists ever with his mature, confident yet approachable personality, Raven is hilarious, Rita is intelligent yet adorable and the only tsundere-type I've ever really liked, and Estelle and Karol were a lot more endearing than I originally expected.
- Character relations, too, were well done - Yuri and Flynn's relationship was given quite a bit of focus, and the party themselves felt like an extended family constantly looking out for one another no matter what.
- Jaeger is certainly one of the more memorable series villains. The incompetent knights, Deco and Boko, were a lot more funny than I expected them to be, although whether they will be in the English version is going to depend heavily on the localisation.
- Longest Team Symphonia game yet - most people will get a solid 60 hours out of it without extras, and the time will fly.
- On the same note, plenty of extras, which was something sorely missing in Ratatosk. New costumes and accessories, extra scenes to see, unlockable new artes, cameo characters, the battle arena... there's plenty there for those who want to seek it out.
- Solid battle music - 5 regular battle tracks and numerous boss themes. A handful of other tracks were memorable as well. The final boss music was significantly better than Abyss's feeble attempt as well.
- Interesting, twist-filled plot. Although it feels slower paced than Symphonia and Abyss there are plenty of interesting developments and it's easy to get drawn into the world and lore.
- Plenty of high definition anime cutscenes, definitely more than any previous game. The visual quality was overall very high, as well, although the character art did suffer at times.
Con:
- The most disappointing soundtrack of Team Symphonia's games overall. Most of the area music was very ambient, and most of the event music was too weak to really add anything to their respective scenes.
- Much like Symphonia and Abyss the villains lacked depth and memorability on the whole and didn't really get a huge amount of development. Zagi's lack of development especially was almost funny - for a recurring boss you fight so many times he really didn't have a lot to him.
- There were a few sections of the game where the atmosphere felt a bit lacking - you were told the world was in grave danger, but you couldn't really feel it.
In conclusion then, an extremely worthy addition to the series that anyone who's enjoyed a previous installment and has a 360 should pick up. I can't wait for the team's next game and really hope they continue their winning streak.
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