| Shortly after I was given my first PS2, the American one, I went on a bit of an RPG-buying spree. It just seemed like there were so many good PS1/PS2 RPGs out there that one really couldn't go wrong. I remember reading the not-so-great reviews of Ephemeral Fantasia and deciding that I should at least pass on that one, but I kept seeing it at really low prices in the stores, and eventually couldn't resist any longer and snapped one up. Well, that was a mistake, and suffice it to say that the game earned the dubious distinction of being one of the very few games that I have actually returned to the store. No wait it was used, so I just had to liquidate it--but it was bad enough that I didn't care about getting almost no money back, I just didn't want it cluttering up my place any more. Okay, that doesn't really suffice after all, does it? And I can't claim to have given the game a fair shake--I probably played it for a few hours at most. I don't even remember what I didn't like all that well, but I think it had something to do with poor framerate, clumsily modelled characters, bad voice-acting, colorless and boxy environments, an uninspiring story, an annoying talking lute sidekick, and a frustrating game system that wanted to seem free-roaming but required you to be at certain spots in the city at certain times of the day/night cycle and couldn't overcome the hackneyed "wander around town and talk to everyone and steal all their valuables" thing. Some of all of those impressions could be completely baseless, but that's what I've got. I don't even remember the battle system at all, except that I think I fought a sort of training battle on a beach or something. |
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