Is this out on N. America? I've had my eye on it, but was waiting for reviews.

Yeah it's out tomorrow. Amazon just delivered my copy today so I've been playing it this afternoon. It's pretty awesome so far... and probably a ton of fun online once the harder missions are available. It's really easy at first but the Eidolon battles are quite challenging alone (been playing as a Black Mage!) and that's only one so far that I've done. I'm sure some will require a well balanced team and good strategies. Plus you can also increase the difficulty by adding extra challenges on top of missions but it also increases the rewards at the end. Fun

Howz the graphics and music? Any kind of story or dialogue? What's the combat like? I know there is a job system. Full review! OK not really, just looking for impressions. :)

@WrathOfSamus777

It's not visually impressive at all. It's not awful... passable I guess. And there's no 3D which is odd cause you'd think it would at least get a bump there!

Music is pretty good. Some areas have nice music!

Story... well nothing much there. Go and hunt a giant crystal or something and kill stuff

I've only played a Black Mage so far so I'll comment on that. You can set up to 8 skills total. Skills are assigned to ABXY and you hold down L or R to alternate between the 8 skills. Spells have casting delays so you gotta make sure you have time to cast it and not get hit. What's interesting is that you have this "Crystal Surge" mode where after using your skills (reminds me of a Limit Break if you will) a lot in the battle field, it lets you add various status effects or other bonuses to some of your current skills. So if you have a Fire spell equipped and unleash a Crystal Surge that adds dark to your attacks, your Fire spell, for the duration of the Crystal Surge, will have dark added to it. If you use the skill in battle, it temporarily unlocks this skill back in town so you can go and purchase it and then permanently equip it to your skill slots. You can keep stacking these effects too but the cost will increase the more you stack effects onto it I imagine. Sorry if this is a bit confusing but I'm still working it out myself It does seem like skills can be strengthened this way or cancel your way out of a casting delay to strengthen the next skill by creating a chain effect of sorts. I don't have enough skills to test this out yet though!

If you are playing alone though, enemies will once in a while drop a certain item which will let you recruit that enemy back in town. They'll level up and get better stats so it's worth using them as they can help out quite a bit. Online is probably recommended though but from what I've played so far (one whole mission), it does seem like there's quite a bit of slowdown. I'll have to try it out some more. It was still fun though!

I am still waiting for my delivery from Square-Enix Hopefully I will get it by tomorrow.

@gtarrant

Yeah I hate when they deal with their online store for deliveries. I've heard plenty of horror stories so I never bothered with the collector's edition. Plus apparently they charge something like 30$ for Canadian shipping so screw that.

That would be crazy, 30 bones for shipping. I am excited for it, a bit disappointed that it does not have 3D.

@VofEscaflowne
Thanks. I'm a little torn between getting this game or Monster Hunter.

Downloaded it today. I'll post some impressions....when I have them!

Reviews are coming in. They're mostly middling. I'm gonna need a demo to convince me.

I'm interested in the game, but I'm still tied up from the holidays and other things so it'll probably be a couple of weeks. I would hope that people would still be interested in playing then... but with Tri Force Heroes, it seemed like everyone threw it in the trash after a couple of weeks, so I'll probably miss the boat on this one too.

@WrathOfSamus777

Yeah I can see where the reviews are coming from. Weapons definitely don't handle differently like Monster Hunter but many skills are still tied down to weapons so it's just a matter of preference there. Not much of a learning curve which may turn down some people with Monster Hunter. Depends what you're looking for. Explorers is easy to get into right from the start.

Many reviews have mentioned the repetition as a negative but anyone who's played Monster Hunter is probably used to it anyway so if you like that game, it's probably hardly an issue to be bothered about in Explorers

I'm having a lot of fun with it though and I'm looking forward to play it with a few friends who are getting their copies this week. Should be a lot of fun to organize a group online to take on missions!

So I've played through the first tutorial stuff, and took on the first mission they offer. So far, so good. Not MIND BLOWING, but...it's good.

At this point, I'm mostly just really elated with all the old-school Final Fantasy stuff they have in there. Cid, Moogles, etc.

That's right, I said elated.

@GameDadGrant

Yeah the tutorial is a bit slow but not too long. And of course it's much more fun online.

@VofEscaflowne

Did you jump online right away? Or did you play offline for a bit first? Get some better weapons, armor, abilities, etc?

@GameDadGrant

I played up to the first Eidolon battle and then hopped online but mostly stuck with quests I had already done since I wanted to play with friends instead. My "EL" is 28, whatever that means, so it's kinda high... but still not very far haha.

If anyone needs a white mage in their party I'm at your service

Just started playing like 2 hours ago. LOVE IT! That's my early impression. I'll probably try hopping online with some of you folks tomorrow night. NinTemple site chat: 8PM EST on Wednesdays and Saturdays! Great way to organize online co-op and communicate w/o voice chat or canned text!

@GameDadGrant

I also love the old school FF goodness! It's just what I was looking for! This will be a great game for us to play while we're trying to get that PKMN League off the ground! .... still workin' on that, btw. It WILL happen someday! Everything is in place, we just need people to start challenging us =\ I have an idea though. Gonna put that into effect tomorrow. I'll keep you posted. Keep an eye on your NinTemple PMs.

@Mop it up

I thought you were gonna get it for sure? I'm gonna be there for ya!

kgtennispro said:

If anyone needs a white mage in their party I'm at your service

whoa, whoa, whoa. That's my line! But I guess we can have 2 white mages. After all, that was the secret to my success way back on FF1.

Game has shipped. Maybe I'll have it tonight.

@VofEscaflowne

Have you tried messing around with the 'Monster Lab' at all yet?

@NinSage

Cool, sounds good. I'll be sure to check in.