The Reviews Are Over-Critical - This Game is Very Satisfying So Far!
First off, let's talk about the graphics and environments. The game makes excellent use of the Unreal 3 engine, and for the most part the graphics are excellent with absolutely gorgeous cutscenes. Occasionally you will see some jaggies or rough textures that look like they could have been polished a bit more, but overall the graphics are very nice. Visual effects such as special attacks and spell effects look nice and seem to be well varied so far.
The chief complaint from most of the reviews I have seen is the excessively long load times and poor framerate. Let me set the record on this now for those of you that are like me and were kind of on the fence after reading these critiques: I am 5 hours into the game, and I have not seen ANY framerate drops that deserve the berating that this game got from the reviewers.... there have been only a couple times I have noticed it at all, and that was because I was looking for them so that I could write a fair review for you all. Since this is a turn-based RPG to begin with, the framerate issues shouldn't have been a major detriment at all, but as I said - most players will likely not even notice them. They are VERY few and far between and last a split second or 2 at the most. This game has no where near the framerate issues the reviewers have claimed.
Admittedly, there are a TON of "Loading..." screens within this game. Every new room/shop you enter in the cities or while exploring generates one of these loading screens. With that said, I have not had a SINGLE loading screen that has exceeded 8 seconds. The vast majority of them have been 3-4 seconds or less, and it certainly does not detract from the game experience at all. The battle introductions do suffer from delusions of grandeur and take a few seconds to complete, but they are no where near as agonizing and disruptive as many of the reviews claimed.
The musical score is very nice and very Final Fantasy-ish, as I would have expected from this developer. The voice acting is very good so far, and there are actually a few characters that add some comedy into the dialogue. The turn based combat will definitely be a turn off for some that are used to the run and gun mechanics of some recent RPGs, but so far I have found it engaging, easy to pick up, and the game unfolds at a nice pace. It doesn't seem overly difficult as of yet, but the Save Points do seem to be spaced a lengthy distance apart.
Overall, I would recommend this game to anyone who was intrigued by the trailers or gameplay videos. The bottom line: The critics were over-critical on this one. While it doesn't make RPG history, or is a jaw-dropping 10.0 in every aspect; those looking for a great RPG on the 360 will find this one very enjoyable. If the next 4-5 hours of the game are as enjoyable as the first 4-5 hours, I will likely be purchasing this game Monday. Thanks for reading and hope this clears the air for some!