Day three, err, yeahhh~
Finally recruited both Teida and Yurias last night, but haven't really gotten anywhere past that, on accounts of abusing the existence of the training room (side quests, as well). By this point, a number of things are unlocked, ranging from weapon upgrades (which operates in an eerily similar fashion to the system in Tales of Hearts) to training room boosts, and so on.
Anyhow, Teida's actually a valuable asset to the Force, right off the bat; she plays like a wolf man (well, she's a cat girl, so, yeah) in past Shining Force games, meaning she comes prepackaged with high strength and agility, much like my build of Jin. Additionally, her movement rate's also pretty high, coming around second only to Beiru; not only that though, her Force MAX ability plays out like Jin's, too, being a standard area-damaging attack, making her even MORE valuable than normal. Overall, her strength is slightly lower than both Jin's and Beiru's, but her agility certainly compensates for it; the only major downside so far is how hard she tends to get hit, even with decent equipment.
Yurias, on the other hand, doesn't really strike me as anything stellar. He's your standard magician with your standard map-based spells, complete with ridiculously low defense; however, the main drawback is that boosting up his spells (in-battle, that is) don't really increase its power, rather its range, meaning that he won't really be hitting hard anytime soon. As of now, he's only dealing out ~200 per spell, as opposed to, say, Beiru's 800/combo.
As far as older characters go, both Jin and Beiru become surprisingly more handy with a weapons boost or two. Boasting well over 120 attack, Beiru really serves well as a sweeper unit, cleaning up any enemies that don't die from Jin and Teida's assaults. The one drag about the game, though, is how easily it can be manipulated - even against higher level enemies, if you keep away, wait until your Force gauge is maxed out, and charge in with Force MAX strikes from Jin/Teida (as of now, Jin's is dealing a solid ~1400 per strike), very few enemies wind up surviving; of the ones that do, you can just have Beiru or Miriam pick 'em off easily. Speaking of Miriam, her personality and voice makes a certain raptor's heart melt, even though it's really nothing new.
The story itself is picking up slightly, with the focus on the villains becoming more and more apparent. Again, it's nothing terribly new - Shuuhou was apparently a great leader, until the mysterious Ravinia changed him (A MAN CHANGING BECAUSE OF A WOMAN? UNHEARD OF!); Shizuma and Jin are friends (complete with the whole "oh, we're just acquaintances" deal) on opposite sides of the battle lines; Rongan's honor is tested against the new Shuuhou's questionable policies; and so on. Like mentioned, it's not particularly unique, but it DOES tackle the plot from a great many perspectives; coupled with voice acting (which has gotten pretty enjoyable by this point, heavily thanks to Rush and Miriam), it's actually pretty enjoyable, to say the least.
In relation to the actual game play, Gyaon's antics are hilarious to say the least, and Barbazon's first appearance (and subsequent fight) is definitely an early dose of epic, David and Goliath style. It's really a shame, though, since on that particular story mission, the whole herd of Minotauros at full health was annihilated by Jin's Force MAX (Barbazan was left at, like, ~50 health). Never mind that, though, the presentation's all where it's at! ;;>_>Oh, and you remember that laser cannon in Shining Force 2? It's not back, but miniaturized as an enemy~ XD
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