I haven’t replied in a while because I thought the thread was dead. But I’ll give my input so far.
I’ve clocked about 22 hours (not counting dying) on Laura’s quest, and my opinion still remains the same. I’ve been a huge fan of the series, so after a few hours the game felt natural to me. I’ve got control of almost everything, except I don’t have any cure spells but I still manage to make it through the quests pretty well. The game is all about strategy, simply enough. In the battle system, even the simplest battles you have to have strategy so you don’t lose life points. The game is pretty challenging but it’s nothing too great to handle, but I do think people who are virgins of the series will have a harder time than I did.
To the guy that said something about how right at the beginning you have some of the hardest side quests in the game…yes. and I tried one and got my ass kicked. But I moved on because I realized I wasn’t at that level yet, and I hoped that there would be easier ones, and there were. You just have to be smart about what you do in this game.
I think the game is very addicting, even though it may seem to get repetitive if you play it straight through (you’re pretty much doing the same thing over and over) but all the side quests are unique in their own way so it still seems fresh. And I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of the battle system, which is probably one of my favorites.
One thing I noticed about this game is that the setup is a lot like SaGa Frontier than any other in the series if you think about it. You go on the main quest, finish it and then do as many side quests as you can until you are strong enough to face the boss.
EDIT: This is great, I finally get to see an intelligent discussion about this game instead of immediate bashing. I didn’t think it was possible.