Anyway i played for a fair while last night and i must say i'm still very impressed. The cutscenes themselves are very "Shadow Hearts" in their direction and i've enjoyed the character interaction, the story does have a very....sobre/bitter feel to it so far (characters with long forgotten pain and all that) yet you're not weighed down by it and there is some great humour in it (i've actually been laughing out loud at some parts).
Tecnhically speaking the game still holds up, frame rate dips during the in-game cut scenes aside.
I've managed to hit more of the battle system and i'm really liking it so far, it's not overly complicated but the linking system is a good idea and i'm looking forward to seeing how it develops as the game goes on and i have more skills to play with.
The text-based memories of Kaim are very nicely done, even though you're essentially just reading they make it feel like more like a memory by adding backgrounds, and haunting, music to accompany it (kinda hard to explain!).
The game isn't reinventing the wheel as far as JRPG's go, so i doubt anti-JRPG people will be won over by the game. Enemies so far have been of your standard "weird mutated plant/animal/bird" variety, you kick pots to discover items etc etc
But the game does provide an great story and polished gameplay, it's a JRPG through and through but there are enough nice touches to make it feel exciting rather than "been there done that".
I like JRPG's and normally i'm bored senseless by the first few hours since they have to go through the typical "this is how you play the game" sections that are mostly tutorials and easy battles. Those elements exist here, but the upside of the (now infamous) 20-hours of cutscenes in this game is that those few hours are spent enjoying great intereactive story so you feel less like you're going nowhere (which is how most beginning sections in JRPG's feel to me).
I'm not trying to fight for any side here, i'm just trying to give honest impressions from a guy who is a fan (but not a blind devotee) of JRPG's. When it comes down to it i can only summarise by saying i've enjoyed every minute i've been playing LO so far, the production quality is sky high, the score is superb, the dialogue is great (for the most part!) and the pace of the game is faster than your average JRPG.
Sure the framerate dips during cutscenes, loading is short-but-frequent and the graphics, whilst the best of any JRPG to date, will not cause your eyes to melt in the light of their glory BUT the flaws that do exist in the game are ones that can be easily lived with (at least for this gamer).
Right well it's saturday morning here and i've finally got a day off work, time to get playing!
In fact, the triple-disk Blue Dragon was actually a good thing in my case. I'm on the third disk, but my brother wanted to try the game, so I was able to lend him the first two disks while I finish off the third. I look forward to some impressions after he got pretty far in the game.
