slash, slash, dodge, slash, magic, magic, guard, dodge, slash and........ magic. (not necessarily in that order)
Nier (you can change his name) gets the vote for being the most athletic since a high level Oblivion character. When I can jump backwards and forwards all in the same leap what is left in this crazy world.
The combat system is simplistic but very welcoming at the same time. Nothing to memorize and no combos to perform. One button to swing the sword and another for magic. There are several magics to perform though and you do have 3 buttons you can use (removing Guard or evade) for your magic. The magic is fun to use though since your mana (not sure what they call it in the game) regenerates very fast. I actually think the magic comes from the book. Yeah that's right.
The characters are cool but very odd. The girl doesn't swear as much as I thought she would but the book is sarcastic as they come (love it). The dialogue can't be button mashed fast enough. I do have to say some of the dialogue is good just not most of it.
You can ride a boar among other animals (I've heard) but it is ridiculous. You can farm and fish which is pretty fun. No knock on those activities at all.
The story seems to be moving along well but I still don't really care what is going on. The game is absurd as ever though. The Sand town with the crazy hat people made me want to jump through the roof. I mean it was seriously odd and didn't make any sense at all.
Levelling up is kind of hit and miss. You can level up your magic, weapons, evasive moves (dodge) and your Guard (block). I like that idea and it is very refreshing. You don't level up your character at all though so forget about that all together. Finding items is boring as you see a random light on the fields or beside buildings somewhere and dig it up. There is also wood crates to smash and loot.
Side questing is mainly a fetch and deliver process and can get quite annoying as I don't know how many times I sold something off only to find I needed it for a quest. It is easily remedied because everything can be bought as well.
If you do decide to try this game you may like it although it does remind me of a child trying to act mature. It's not a bad game at all but it is nothing special either. It starts off slow and underwhelming, starts to get good and than goes flat. The bosses are fun but have the typical boss routines so they get easy to figure out fast.
I think I just talked myself out of this one. Guess I will have to go to back to a staple game and wait until Red Dead Redemption, Alan Wake, Alpha Protocol etc etc...
There in lies my point. Way too many good games coming out to shell out your money and time on this game. Uncharted 2 deserves another playthrough I'm thinking.
I understand some people are going to love this game and I wanted to love it. I'm a huge fan of non hyped games that come out of left field. A few tweaks and it could have been an easy 8 - 8.5
In the end too much backtracking through boring level designs and the questing is abysmal.