Anyways, I'm at the final dungeon in it. Played it a little more than I intended (such as while slacking off at work *cough*) and made it this far. I can say the game is anywhere from 20 hours if you're quick and skip side stuff or upwards of 40 if you plan to do everything. There is an optional bonus dungeon and around 100 or so quests you can complete for items and such. Plus there's a mini-game called Birdbrawling that's pretty fun. Although you can just wait until you gain access to the optional dungeon and make the birdbrawls pretty much easy mode by getting access to the secret Bird Catching Grounds.
My impressions are, it's basically a standard turn-based RPG when it comes down to gameplay. You can have up to three characters in your party at any one time with no ability to change them out mid battle. Each character will get bravura skills which are your basic attack skills that are mostly learned via leveling. Then you have team attacks that are called Unity Attacks and involve multiple characters. These are learned via character relationships in battle, which is pretty much just having those specific characters in battle together. Plus on top of that each character gets one special "Brave Soul" which is unique to that character. Most are useful but not all. Also, instead of MP you get BP, which is only regained when sleeping via items, inn, or storyline. The other way is to deal damage with that character which is obviously only doable in battle and thus allows you to use an attack skill that uses BP and have a chance to regain all BP used if you manage to do enough damage. And no, healing and other non-damaging spells/abilities will not regen your BP.
Equipment wise each character is limited to a weapon, armor, and three accessories. Unfortunetly you will not be able to change out your main characters weapon but that doesn't mean it will stay the game through the entire game. He will aquire upgrades which change it visually, among other things. As for accessories, you will aquire many diagrams throughout the game to craft them for yourself. You will not be able to buy any accessories or diagrams, but for the most part they're pretty easy to find via chests in dungeons and the such. The only other way to get them is through quests, which gives many very good accessories you can make but will require some difficult items you need to obtain. Not nessicarily difficult in the sense of 'I'm going to die' always unless you plan to make everything as soon as you possibly can. Which leads into the next section.
Monsters aren't entirely your run of the mill RPG enemies. This game seems to like to spice things up a bit from your generic RPG by doing a few things. One of said things is that in battle you will notice enemies of different sizes and colors. These will determine how high and low its stats are. So larger ones will have a higher strength and such compared to smaller ones. The colors I'm not too sure about but they may determine if the enemy uses specific status inflicting effects on your characters or not. Now the second said thing about enemies is that most can become "crazed" in battle. It is triggered by a specific action such as anything from it getting to low health, you casting a buff on yourself, using speicific skills, etc. What this does is ad in a specific item to the drop table with 100% chance to drop as well as far buff up the enemy than basic enemy sizes. Plus it can give them some new skills to use on your now puny party, in which case can hurt very much if you're not properly equipped and leveled.
Outside of the gameplay, the story is pretty basic. Your friend collapses and the only way to save her is to go into a fantasy world and collect five gems to gain a wish from the goddess. However there is a twist to this but such things I will not speak of for obvious reasons. So it's not entirely a straight of the mill RPG story about saving the world or some such so to speak. Plus through the story you will encounter various guest NPC's who will temporarily replace your party members for various storyline reasons. They will leave the party once the event is over but after you beat the game you are able to create a save and continue to play. This save will allow you to use the guest characters in your party once again if you so desire.
Overall I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys RPG's and owns a PSP. While it's a fairly basic RPG, it's still very fun and enthralling. Though don't let the 11-year-old protagonist turn you off as I can assure you it's not that bad. More so since he's a silent protagonist. This doesn't mean there won't be various older jokes/insults in the game and such as I've encountered a couple but mostly through optional quests. I'm generally not one to do basic side quests and I did quite a few and it's turned me off a little bit by not having finished the game already but it will definitely keep perfectionists occupied. Some are really interesting and/or funny and as thus I recommend you buy and/or rent the game (Pun! Not that you'd know unless you played the game).
too much back log![/QUOTE]
