Original Title: 英雄伝説 閃の軌跡
Before I start, for international readers residing outside Japan, if you're looking for a place to purchase this game, you can either do it through Nihon Falcom's official mail order service (instructions for international orders), or go to either Amazon.co.jp (or check your local Amazon, I know the US store does stock a few Japan Import ones), PlayAsia, CDjapan or Yesasia. I preordered through Falcom's mail service and they gave me a random 1000 yen discount :) (maybe because I shopped there too much lol)
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System:
Apparently the loading problem was quite controversial in Japan, which was directly reflected in its user ratings on Amazon JP and various other game sites. Personally I didn't find that much of a problem at all, probably only once in the final chapter. But that's probably because of my horrendously short attention span so I always have to do something else even when I was playing this game. The loading time actually gave me a chance to glimpse either my twitter feed or random news sites. (like I honestly could not believe that everyone was ranting about this on the web)
There are several major changes to the system. Full on 3D, Orbment system and Link (like an upgrade of the kizuna system in Zero/Ao), that's all I can think of now.
The 3D ain't as bad as I thought it would be to be honest, thought you need to know that I don't really care that much about game visual, I don't think any kiseki fans do. The removal of the 2D anime portrait/profile is a bit of a shame but the 3D ones look quite fine to me. It is true that it does stink if you compare it with most of the games that we see in game stores nowadays but oh well, what can you expect from a teeny company's full 3D debut? Plus I have to praise the plateau scenes in Chapter 3, absolute thumbs up!
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| I spent at least 3 hours just running around here. Stunning plateau + jdk's awesome soundtrack+ horse riding (that doesn't harm real horses) + our nomad character Gaius, how perfect is that! |
Orbment system is greatly simplified. It's much clearer to make up Arts (アーツ, magic spell in the Kiseki games) now because they are stuck to individual quartz. However it makes the gameplay harder as you now have to pick between Arts quartz and quartz that increase your character power (str etc). Whilst it doesn't really matter for melee characters since they don't normally need to cast spells anyway it does weaken mages quite a lot. I gameover-ed a few times during my first playthrough but I'm not complaining (oddly enough I quite like gameovers in boss fights, feels more realistic? lol). I do miss spending hours before strong Arts finally appeared in the current Arts list thought, hope it'll come back one day in future installments.
Link system does make the battle more interesting but together with the orbment change i feel like the mages are too depressed in this Kiseki (Zero-arts is a nice new AT award but how often does it happen right there on our mage characters?). So much so that my mages are pretty much plain healers. But I guess this melee-mage broken balance somehow suits Erebonian, with its whole heavy industry and military thingy. (it does actually feel like Russia, or Soviet rather, with a tint of the US, though I'm guessing Calvard would be more US like, the president, multicultural and Republic thing. Or you can say Germany/France).
Music:
You just can not fault jdk. I don't know what else to say really, the final boss track is AH-MAI-ZINN and I'm loving the ending theme (it did surprise me at first but now after listening to it a few more times I can see the reason they put it there). Falcomclassics on Youtube has uploaded many of the sound tracks but there could be spoilers in the titles or background images, or in the comments so think twice before you search.
The opening is quite nice, musically I prefer it to the ones of Ao/Zero's. Kotekana's vocal suits this type better.
Story:
Spoiler Warning (of the entire Kiseki series) and some screencaps. Continue for more raves.
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| Finally DOGS in Kiseki! Thought the entire team were cat people :b ( |
