Well, I beat the game the other day (30 hours without ever knowing you could speed up battles by holding the A button, yeesh) and unlike just about everyone I basically loved it the whole way through. Normally I'm good at recognizing the flaws in games I like but everyone kept on talking about how miserably repetitive the game loop was and I honestly don't know what to say. Yes there's a stretch around the Mesas where everything looks the same, and yes all you do in the game is fill out maps and return to town, but most of the maps are dense with environmental variation, small gimmicks like spikes, poison trees, freezing ice, mirages, burning torches, F.O.E.s to avoid or engage, and even some late game endurance trials that reminded me of Shin Megami Tensei dungeons when it comes to resource depletion (those dang spikes!). And with each map sold, the changing townsfolk dialogue was something I looked forward to, with all these neat little details on warring kingdoms, trade federations, churches, elementals and god-people to fill your imagination and expand the world scope.
I loved the game resonance of randomly but steadily unlocking skills, equipment, maps, story. I loved the lack of yammering dialogue portraits. I loved the pop up aesthetics, the gorgeous music, the impeccable localization, and the challenge. I loved the frog. It's too bad everyone hated this game, and maybe I was helped by rock bottom expectations, but this is a great little RPG and it's nice that along with Oreshika on the Vita I've been able to find nostalgic but fresh RPGs to play in 2015.
