シャイニング・フォース フェザー (日02)

So, day two (granted, it hasn't even been a full twenty-four hours, yet) and most of the initial hype's worn off. Just finished up Miriam's chapter completely and still definitely wishing for more Force members - it's kind of annoying when the old games START you off with, like, ~five, but you're only limited to three in Feather, as of the first few chapters.

The movement in the battle system annoys me more than ever - especially RIGHT after playing through Devil Survivor, the lack of tiles can get pretty annoying, especially when they don't let allied characters move through one another; a high-movement centaur getting trapped in by his own mates? LOLWAT.

Actual battles though, are as much eye-candy as ever, especially once you really get the combo/tag system rolling. Aside from that, overall pacing is a bit slow, at least until you get higher Force regeneration rates; at the initial default of 30/turn, it's far too restricting, especially when that only allows for, like, one or two attacks. In the grander scheme of things, it's a bit more strategic and understandable, as it prevents constant attacking.

As far as actual characters go, Jin is pretty standard and Miriam suffers from bad initial stats (like most other Shining Force archers), but Beiru's an utter tank - crank a few bonus points into his strength and he easily plows through enemies; couple it with his naturally high movement and, well, yeah, you get the idea.

Also, in addition to including a training room (THANK YOU), Flight-Plan was awesome enough to throw in a battle viewer right off the bat. It's essentially like an exhibition mode where you can see how your new formations/attacks fare against enemies you've already felled, but more importantly, it's all the eye candy you could ever want, again and again and again. This is definitely something hand-held SRW games need to pick up on. <3