The Shrine

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I could have sworn that in the introduction scene the third character (besides Serge and Kid) was someone else. So far the game reminds me QUITE a bit of a Breath of Fire 2/3 cross (The story so far has played out very similar to Breath of Fire 2, and the graphics could easily be mistaken for BoF 3, I haven't played part 4). Music, Gameplay, and Characters I really like so far, of course, Gameplay has been really easy so far, but I am sure that will change; everything seams to be really old school so far.

The one major flaw of this game, people talk too much, that annoys the hell out of me, it's what kind of made me stop playing Dragon Warrior VII (very untypical of Enix, normally they keep things simple where they should be simple keeping the game relatively fun). Though that was mainly in the first town, it's not nearly as bad as the City I'm in now.

Overall from my first impressions, I'd have to say that this is a good game, but it's not on par to Final Fantasy 8 and 9 that both came out around the same time if I remember correctly. Of course, this will likely change, I've played games that have started off fairly slow and picked right up, mostly Enix games though, even the all mighty Skies of Arcadia has that annoying jungle part and the South Ocean (well, it's not nearly as bad as people make it out to be on the net, but you definetly won't forget your half hour sailing accross the stormy South Ocean).</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>FF9 came out with CC. Don't forget, you can just walk away from most conversations in CC. The battle system does start off very slow but it really picks up about 12 hours in, same with the story</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '>It's like someone saying about GTA 3, "Oh, it may suck now, but it really gets fun once you pass the 32nd level." And you're like, "Wow! Only the 32nd level?"</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>lol. I'd agree, but in this case, the game starts off pretty damned good then picks up. Even with RPGs, if I don't see something substantial in the first hour or so, I'm out</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>...the third character can be anyone from the entire game (i think).

did you get poshul before you left the first town? rrrruf!</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Yeah, it can be. We've had some strange characters during New Game +, like Leah</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>There are a lot of cool parts throughout the game, AWESOME effects in some area's, but it's not really until the Cresent Island Scene (you'll know what I'm talking about when you get there) which is about 1/3rd through the game that it really begins to pick up.

Terranigma is the same, but the plot of the game doesn't really even begin until you're about 10 hours into the game, and it is an awesome plot.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>About your last question, I don't think I did.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Well, after playing for a while, I'd say the main draw for me to this game is that it's not strait forward, you have to figure things out for yourself, I always loved that aspect in any kind of adventure game/RPG</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>It also has a very strong storyline and an amazing battle system, but you won't get into the intricacies of those until at least 15 hours in. In the beginning, it seems like just a pretty good, standard RPG, but ends up being much, much more</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>The plot twist in this game is pretty much just like, "WHOA, blah was XYZ!"

I'd say the game did a pretty poor job with the plot twist. There is virtually no way to figure them out, because they don't make any real logical sense and there's even less clues alone the way.

An example of good explanation of unlikely plot twist would be Terranigma and Final Fantasy 7. Most people didn't know Cloud pretended to be Zack and made that identity in his head, or that Ark was on a mission to make a world for Dark Gaia to take over, but once you're told that's the case you can see there are hints along the way that you missed.</div>