I’ve heard nothing but good things about this game, so when I saw it available on GOG it was pretty much an instant buy. At the moment I’m just past the Flying Waters area after having gone back to kill the optional Abbest Cave boss (at level 11).
So, mechanically speaking it’s got a nice mix of attributes. Equipment-wise you have both weapon and… I guess you could say enchantment selection, with the ability to permanently learn the passive skills attached to those enchantments by winning battles while they’re equipped (much like the skills in FFIX or Vandal Hearts II). Development-wise there’s both attributes and unique active skill trees for each character, which provide a decent amount of freedom in regards to how they can be built, while respec items fortunately seem to be fairly common.
Combat is a mix of turn-based and real time in that each character/enemy gets their own turn, but you can react to attacks as they occur by using the dodge, parry (a more restrictive dodge that can counterattack), and jump functions. Like Ys: Lacrimosa of Dana this means that with enough skill you can completely nullify any damaging attack (certain enemies have non-damaging attacks that can’t be avoided), which interestingly makes Vitality and Defense kind of lackluster as attributes.
As far as story and dialog goes, at this point I certainly have no complaints; the world is interesting and the characters act and interact believably. Nor do I have any issue with the two major themes that look like they’ll be a through-line from the Prologue all the way to the ending choice: ‘Dealing with Grief’ and ‘Personal Agency’. There’s both a lot of death and variously expressed coping mechanisms, along with assorted examples of children/individuals/created rejecting the expectations of their parents/society/god.