<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I know there was already a post on it, but mostly it was just a lot of praise for the game, this is a mini-review:
1) Gameplay, it's tactical, you move your party around, the further you move, the more AP you use. The more AP you have, the more attacks you can make, it's similar to Xenogears in the way that it has combo's, weak, medium, and powerful attacks, but the BoF system is WAY more mature and solid. The Gameplay might remind you a bit of Vagrant Story meets RPG's in general. It's not a typical RPG, it feels more like an Adventure game than an RPG. The Gameplay is excellent among the best I have ever seen in an RPG.
2) The Adventure and Setting, it has New Game + options similar to Chrono Trigger, you can restart the game with Party experience points (which are experience points that you can divide among your party members at will), half your Gold unless you have it in storage (then you get), all skills you acquired throughout the game, and any weapons and items you have in storage. The setting is simple, you are about 1 kilometer under ground, all human society lives under ground now (well, all the races present in previous BoF games are here too) because the upper world is no longer habitable (Remember BoF 3 when most of the world was uninhabitable?). Society is like a typical post-apocalypse dystopia, you have different sorts of groups, and people are ranked by birthright and ability (Your character is ranked D/8132 and a Ranger).
3) Saving, you can only have one save per game, one permanent save and one temporary save. The Permanent saves requuire tokens, like Resident Evil, and can only be made at certain save points; permanent save points are just like traditional RPG's and games. temporary save points are similar to Ogre battle, you can save at any point during the game, but as soon as you save the game quits, and as soon as you load that save, the temporary save dissappears (so if you hit reset or something, you begin at the last permanent save point). If you die, you have the options of reseting the game and retaining all the stats, items, etc.. you had at the last save point, or restarting from the beginning of the game (New Game+ from Chrono Trigger), restarting from the last save point with all abilities and I think half the Gold and all party experience points gained since (Though I am not sure on this, I have never used this option before). It's complicated, and I haven't read up completely on it.
4) Plot and characters, the plot is excellent, if you are expecting something similar to the latest FF games, Xenosaga, Fire Emblem, and stuff like that where you can have literally hour long sequences with only plot, prepare to be surprised. The game still has a relatively complex story, but the amount of Dialogue and such in the game is on the level of most SNES RPG titles. the characters aren't anything extraordinary when compared to other RPG's. One cool feature is that when you use the New Game + options, you can unlock many additional cut scenes each time, so you learn more about the characters and the general plot. It is not a very long game, you can finish it in under 15 hours if you know exactly what you are doing (I've never finished it before, I just started really playing it seriously fairly recently, but I know it can be finished in that time because people have done it). This sort of system makes for great replayability mainly because if you learned that sort of stuff early on without knowing what happens later, it would just make little-no sense, so playing it again later and seeing those additional scenes will make the game much more interesting. It's also not incredibly long, and it's fun, so replaying it won't seem like a chore as it does for the most part with mostly all other RPG's.
5) graphics, sound, and music: The music reminds me a lot of other games that have been out before, it reminds me a lot of Vagrant Story, and even a bit of Secret of Evermore. The graphics are below the level of some N64 games I have seen, but they seem fairly reasonable for this type of game, and do not take away from it at all. The sound, well, it's quite clear that the voice for Ryu (the characters have the same names as some previous BoF games) is the same as the one used for adult Link in Ocarina of Time, Soul Calibur, and Super Smash Brothers.
All in all, it's already been said here before, this game is nice breath of fresh air to the RPG scene. It's worth your money.</div>
1) Gameplay, it's tactical, you move your party around, the further you move, the more AP you use. The more AP you have, the more attacks you can make, it's similar to Xenogears in the way that it has combo's, weak, medium, and powerful attacks, but the BoF system is WAY more mature and solid. The Gameplay might remind you a bit of Vagrant Story meets RPG's in general. It's not a typical RPG, it feels more like an Adventure game than an RPG. The Gameplay is excellent among the best I have ever seen in an RPG.
2) The Adventure and Setting, it has New Game + options similar to Chrono Trigger, you can restart the game with Party experience points (which are experience points that you can divide among your party members at will), half your Gold unless you have it in storage (then you get), all skills you acquired throughout the game, and any weapons and items you have in storage. The setting is simple, you are about 1 kilometer under ground, all human society lives under ground now (well, all the races present in previous BoF games are here too) because the upper world is no longer habitable (Remember BoF 3 when most of the world was uninhabitable?). Society is like a typical post-apocalypse dystopia, you have different sorts of groups, and people are ranked by birthright and ability (Your character is ranked D/8132 and a Ranger).
3) Saving, you can only have one save per game, one permanent save and one temporary save. The Permanent saves requuire tokens, like Resident Evil, and can only be made at certain save points; permanent save points are just like traditional RPG's and games. temporary save points are similar to Ogre battle, you can save at any point during the game, but as soon as you save the game quits, and as soon as you load that save, the temporary save dissappears (so if you hit reset or something, you begin at the last permanent save point). If you die, you have the options of reseting the game and retaining all the stats, items, etc.. you had at the last save point, or restarting from the beginning of the game (New Game+ from Chrono Trigger), restarting from the last save point with all abilities and I think half the Gold and all party experience points gained since (Though I am not sure on this, I have never used this option before). It's complicated, and I haven't read up completely on it.
4) Plot and characters, the plot is excellent, if you are expecting something similar to the latest FF games, Xenosaga, Fire Emblem, and stuff like that where you can have literally hour long sequences with only plot, prepare to be surprised. The game still has a relatively complex story, but the amount of Dialogue and such in the game is on the level of most SNES RPG titles. the characters aren't anything extraordinary when compared to other RPG's. One cool feature is that when you use the New Game + options, you can unlock many additional cut scenes each time, so you learn more about the characters and the general plot. It is not a very long game, you can finish it in under 15 hours if you know exactly what you are doing (I've never finished it before, I just started really playing it seriously fairly recently, but I know it can be finished in that time because people have done it). This sort of system makes for great replayability mainly because if you learned that sort of stuff early on without knowing what happens later, it would just make little-no sense, so playing it again later and seeing those additional scenes will make the game much more interesting. It's also not incredibly long, and it's fun, so replaying it won't seem like a chore as it does for the most part with mostly all other RPG's.
5) graphics, sound, and music: The music reminds me a lot of other games that have been out before, it reminds me a lot of Vagrant Story, and even a bit of Secret of Evermore. The graphics are below the level of some N64 games I have seen, but they seem fairly reasonable for this type of game, and do not take away from it at all. The sound, well, it's quite clear that the voice for Ryu (the characters have the same names as some previous BoF games) is the same as the one used for adult Link in Ocarina of Time, Soul Calibur, and Super Smash Brothers.
All in all, it's already been said here before, this game is nice breath of fresh air to the RPG scene. It's worth your money.</div>
-Insert Inspiring Quote-
