Well I got the game on release... and as a quick aside.... you know the state of JRPG's is in critical condition when the ONLY copy at your local gamestore is the one you pre-orderred.... literally not one shelf copy or one other pre-order aside from mine... quite sad.... anyhow... onto my brief first impressions...
I was quite skeptical going into this one for a number of reasons but, to my surprise, Gungnir has proven satisfying in a number of ways. The writing and plot (although I am not far in at all) is really decent. Not exactly original by any stretch, but well done. The mood and tone is very FFTactics to me which is a good thing. The art style is simply awesome if you like the sprite-based fare..... absolutely pays homage to the visual sprite based style of yesteryear whilst being polished enough to feel very modern. But these are all things everyone knew already/expected I am sure... What I really want to touch upon is the gameplay....
Because of how "out there" the dept. heaven games are known to be and how complex some people were making this sound in reviews I really thought I was going to be overwhelmed with a very "difficult to balance and play-but really pretty to look at" game. This is not the case. While yes there is quite a bit going on in terms of how to manage the various gameplay elements, I didn't find it in any sense overwhelming once you get your feet wet. Characters and new recruits are far more balanced than I expected, and ultimately the experience is a very familiar one gameplay-wise to your standard SRPG with enough "sting-pizazz" to feel very refreshing. One thing I do not like however is how I sort of feel "forced" to play a certain way due to the games strange time-flow/ restrictions.
Lastly, my biggest concern was the lack of any other gameplay interface aside from battles. I like being about to travel, grind, et cetera.... in my SRPGs and there is none of that here. However the narrative and degree of attention micromanagement requires in between battles feels plenty satisfying enough to be all but more then happy and satisfied to move on to the next new confrontation.
I am totally giving this title the time of day for a full play-through, though not immediately as my backlog coupled with the fact that Agarest 2 is coming out demands my attention... but I'll tell you what, I'm really fighting a strong desire to say "screw the other playthroughs" I've got going on and pour my time into this one, which is saying something...... But something tells me if I turn this back on and then agarest 2 comes out, the resolve I've found to pick up atelier rorona and move on with the arland trilogy will fizzle out entirely.....