Lizard_King wrote:

FABIO wrote:

Is it fun if you're not really into the tinkering aspects of RPG's? I dug Disgaea mostly for the plot and humor (thought the combat got monotanous about halfway through), which is why I didn't bother with Phantom Brave. I pretty much go for....I dunno, exciting? Good plot/dialogue (Bloodlines' main strength)? Fast moving? That dungeon crawling doesn't sound promising.

Look, I'm not going to badmouth a game that gave me a solid 40 hours of play thus far, and I'm not even close to finishing yet. Just got interrupted by Halo 2, KOTOR II, etc etc. The plot is quite entertaining. I love how it ties in modern obsessions with apocalypse and occultism, and I also love how unintrusive and random it can be. It is also Japanese in a good way, which is rare these days.

However...
It is not fast moving. The dialogue is very sound, but wholly textual. It is all about the tinkering. It is all about creating rare mythic creatures from a wide variety of cultures, using lesser rare mythic creatures for spare parts. It is all about a fantastic rock-paper-scissors methodology that defies convention by providing many paths to success, with many options, without being easy at all.
Am I going to start playing it before I am done with KOTOR? No. Has it probably permanently displaced Star Ocean as my fallback game to fuck with when I'm bored? Absolutely. Especially with the bonus that it requires no strategy guide nor complex, inventoried lists for success.
So I dunno, Fabs. I always loathed Pokemon and its variations, until this game made it fun, mature, and violent.

Did I mention Japan (and the world) gets nuked at the beginning?