Overall, this Adventure / Role Playing Game (RPG) is interesting and enjoyable. Both mythology and technology blend well in the game, keeping the player engrossed in the game as the story unfolds. The story is pretty linear, although at certain points in the game, there are a few options on what to do first. Each quest contributes to the progression of the story and there are some quests which, unless you are at a certain point in the game and story, the quest is likely to be partially completed. These quests are not too difficult and information is usually given via conversations with the NPCs, either to tell you what to do or what you’ll need, though there are times when you might need to rack your brains a bit. Sometimes, you’ll have to find a certain item to complete the quest though and if you miss them, it could be quite difficult to find out where you could obtain the item unless you look up the walkthroughs on the net, not to mention a waste of time. But on the other hand, you’ll get extra experience points to help level up your characters. There are also a couple of side quests in the game that may be interesting, although not crucial to the game and one may ignore them. The game can be completed without doing the side quests. In fact, very little is mentioned about these side quests and certainly nothing to tell you what to do or what you will get for doing it. You’ll probably have to stumble upon these side quests as you explore the world shells.

The Characters:

The characters are well designed, bearing similarity to the design of Japanese anime characters or those of the final fantasy series, and each character that you may control has his or her own unique background story. The story development also gives suitable reason as to why these characters wish to join Maya on her adventure. Each character has their own unique abilities, which either appear after they have leveled up to a certain extent or as the story progresses, I’m not too sure which. Some of these abilities are useful, however, personally, I feel most are not because I just use their basic attacks or cast spells. For the most part, you can choose which two players to take along, except for Maya, who is fixed for the entire story. Interestingly, the game provides for animosity among the characters. Due to their background stories, certain characters harbour ill feelings towards others, even though they are on the same side, and may attack each other during battles with enemies. The story has also been developed such that each new character that joins the party has to be chosen at least once for the game. In other words, each character is responsible for moving the game along. Without that particular character, you wouldn’t be able to proceed or complete the quest. Apart from that, you’ll most likely stick with a particular group of party members to use unless the situation calls for otherwise. A plus point for the game is that the programmers have also included various facial expressions to indicate their moods, whether they are happy, angry, sad, etc. And there are voice dialogues in the game as well, both in conversations and in movie scenes, as opposed to just reading the text that appears. These voices are also a good match for the characters and give a good and accurate impression as to what the characters are feeling.

The Battles:

The battles are also not too hard to fight. It may take a little while though before you get the hang of it. You have to build up your energy first before you can select your move. That means if your energy is not enough, you wouldn’t be able to do anything. If you have not selected which of your three characters to attack, the enemy may attack at any time they wish, provided they have the energy to do so. Once you select your character, the battle will not proceed unless you make your move or deselect the character. Each character has three levels of attacks and the higher the level, the more damage is caused for both attacks and spells. However, waiting for level three attacks may allow your enemies to attack you more than once, depending on their speeds. As you proceed with the game, the enemies have higher hit points and get harder to defeat with attacks that cause more damage to your characters. Spells are cast using Fate cards, which you’ll acquire throughout the game. Combinations of the fate cards can be used to create varied effects, and they have their own animations as well, which are quite nice, even if they aren’t as stunning as those of Final Fantasy 8. Unfortunately, the game is full of combat with your characters meeting enemies at every turn. While the combat animations and spell effects may be interesting to see for the first 100 or so battles, you’ll eventually get tired of the battles and find yourself wanting to end them as soon as possible and some battles, especially those with bosses, can take an extremely long time to finish. It doesn’t help that the enemies regenerate after you exit the location, so if you re-enter the place again, you’ll have to fight the same battles all over again. Fortunately, battles with bosses are only a one-time thing. As you level up and become more powerful, the battles won’t seem challenging anymore and you might have the tendency to want to avoid them so that you can continue the game uninterrupted.

As you roam around talking to NPCs, engaging in battles with the enemies or just exploring the locations, you’ll be able to pick up items, some of which are key items essential for quests and most are healing items that you can buy in shops. You may also be able to pick up weaponry, but that happens very seldom, and the only way to get armour is to buy them from shops. Of course, with certain characters, you can attempt to steal them, but I would advise you to save your game first, since it doesn’t work very well (for the few times that I tried it) and usually cause the NPCs to either not do business with you or increase the prices. In any case, you’ll have collected a lot of money to spend on these things, so why take the chance? There is nothing else to spend your money on anyway. With each new development in the game, new weaponry and armour is usually available for you to upgrade your characters. Most are able to increase your characters’ statistics, but body armour usually compromises speed, while increasing their defense to attacks.