I’m not that far in. Well, I’m many hours in, but I haven’t even gotten a party with 6 members yet which puts me in probably the first third of the game. Either way, so far I can certainly see where the “friendship-driven plot” may have come from so far. It could easily change (and if it does, I expect it to revolve around Sophie and/or Richard), but everything major that happens either happens to or happens because of a PC. It definitely feels different from Abyss and Vesperia where a “something” beyond our character’s control is driving the events. Yes, there’s still an element of “outside force” that hits, but it hits directly due to the character’s actions. It’s not like Vesperia where the driving force is that something just HAPPENS to get stolen from the lower quarter and Alexei just so HAPPENS to be evil. It’s not like Abyss where a Seventh Fon Hyperresonance just HAPPENS to occur and Replicas just HAPPEN to screw with everything.
Yeah, you could probably phrase Graces’ plot that way, but the thing that just HAPPENS happened very much as a reaction to, not a precursor to, the main character’s actions. Sure, the other plots grew into that later, but Graces starts off with your characters responsible for everything.
(Prologue and Act I (pre-Strahta arc) Spoilers)
Well, okay, if you want to be fair… The thingy that presumably possessed Richard isn’t exactly a REACTION to their actions, but the point I’m making is that their actions are the reasons it happened in the first place. If they had never snuck out to meed each other, it never would have happened. Compare that to Abyss where the whole Tear/Van/Luke (and even earlier Luke engineering) thing was more random happenstance, or compare it to the Aque Blastia being stolen.
Currently, I’m really liking it. I like all of the characters, even at their most annoying I don’t dislike the characters, I feel like I’m reacting to them as people who are acting that way. The combat is interesting, it seems rather complex, but at the same time, you can get a feel for a new character rather easily. That said, I eventually settled on Pascal who has some really bizarre mechanics (her no cast time artes are ranged, her cast time arts are basically touch range), but it’s really fun to play as.
That said, the combat has a few flaws, everything has five or six weaknesses and every attack has two or three attributes. This leads to it being, well, perhaps not necessary, but prudent to go into the menu several times and try and remember wtf attributes your spells have. There are a ton of attributes, many of my artes have attributes I haven’t even encountered yet. The attributes are bizarre, like “reptile.”
In addition, characters gain titles by the truckloads, it’s begun to slow down, but it gets rather tedious after the end of almost every battle (in the beginning) down to about three or four times an area (later on) to look through your titles for the new one and weigh your options. In addition, the descriptions aren’t really that great, until you learn an arte, you really don’t know what it does. Sure, some you can guess, “Heal” and “Rejuvinate” are kind of self explanatory, but if you’re working towards a new arte with Pascal, all I really know is whether it’s Beta, Mystic, or Alpha. I can’t even sort out whether it’s a buff or an offensive spell. What are its attributes? Is it a forward cast spell like Wind Needle or a glyph like my fire spell? Are its attributes going to be useful in this area? Who knows!?
That said, it’s a very, very fun game and my complains above are only minor, I love the characters and story. I feel bad when the characters feel bad, and happy when they’re happy, the skits are much improved from Vesperia, the end of battle character banter is much improved (seriously, some of them are amazing), and the combat is very fun once you iron out the battle system for your particular character. I’d recommend it, with the caveat that you’ll probably hate it if you dread the idea of going into menus unless you absolutely have to.
