Well, it's been a long time coming, but I have finally managed to finish this awesome game.  Now, don't get me wrong, as with many released games, this has its flaws, but to be honest, there aren't many that I can think of.

To begin with, we are taken to an extraordinary world full of beauty, and introduced to our characters and the first inklings of a story.  Now, as I have mentioned previously, this game is beautiful...not in the same way as Bioshock is, where you don’t know where the cut scene ends and where the games begin, but in an "oh my God, I think I may cry" kind of way.

Not only are the characters textured to look truly as though you are watching an anime, but they are in there is all their HD glory, with cell shading to boot, however, the jaw droopingly gorgeous scenery is the thing that impressed me the most.  Now I’m an animator and a concept artist, but these are possibly the most impressive thing I have ever seen in my life.

But a game can't rely on graphics alone, and this one surely doesn't.  When I initiated my first battle, and was introduced to this weird 'real-time' and turn-based battle system, I couldn't help but look back at Final Fantasy XII and think that this wasn't going to be fun (don't get me wrong, I love FFXII, but why mess with perfection?" however, I was pleasantly surprised.  The game relies on you moving around the enemies and attacking, however the best thing is that depending on the lighting you are in whilst commencing your attack, the attack changes.  For example, if in the light and you use a special ability, you may heal yourself and your party, but when in dark you unleash a ridiculously powerful magic attack.

Then there is the engrossing story, and the weird, yet interesting pieces of history, real history we are told about the character Chopin...and in fact the actual guy.  I actually watched all these scenes simply as found them compelling, and I guess it developed the character in the game too...interesting style, not even one that would work with most games, and it barely works with this, but somehow I believe it has succeeded in achieving its goal.

Now for the bad parts...what were they?  Probably the worst thing about this game is the near to last level...it’s just too long.  In fact, it was so long I gave up after a while and decided to play Lost Odyssey instead...hence why I have only just completed the game now.  But don't let this bother you, the only reason I quit was because I had to go to work and couldn't play for 2 hours in one row.  And the proof is that I actually went back to play it ^_^ - it's a positive thing.

But that’s about the only negative thing I can actually think to say about this game, other than, for me, a hardcore RPG gamer, it was a tad easy in places, but I didn't care.  In fact, I can’t even complain about the voice acting, as in actual fact it was good...even had the person who voiced Izzy in Digimon doing one of the characters.

So if you have some money spare, I suggest you try and pick this game up, a lot of places are selling this for around £25 now, which is a bargain for such an awesome game!

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