*very rough, opinionated first impressions*
I only got in like an hour or so last night. Just enough to get past the first half of the first story dungeon. Impressions are...eh. So far Z.H.P was better. The plot's really hokey and only one of the characters has any sort of hook on me (Kuroriel I think her name is). Mechanically the game seems solid enough but dang if the character's aren't a level of cliche beyond cliche. Not even spoilers really but I'm going to code it anyway.
I half-jokingly said to my wife, upon seeing how Red Angel behaved, "She's a demon!"
...guess what?
Main Character comes off as a super doormat; in the bad-writing sort of way. Not really anything endearing about him to make me give a crap about his story. Sure Z.H.P's MC was a pushover too at first but at least we didn't have to endure 10 minutes of him whining about it...following by "insert obligatory boob staring joke here".
I dunno; the whole thing just kinda reeks of the Japanese version of "Michael Bay-ism". It's going to hit every low hanging fruit on the way down trying to appeal to as much of the 'general audience fanbase' as possible.
And I've discovered a new pet peeve. Hearing someone say "Lord!" 5 times a minute, in cutscene dialog, is piss-ant annoying.
Plot aside; the game feels a LOT easier compared to its predecessor. Not even a single risk of death at all yet. Equipment is plentiful, skills are strong, having two characters makes battles easier, and because of the "Burst" system I see farming for chips is going to be a lot simpler. But then again it's only chapter one. I'll give it until 3/4 to drop the other shoe and actually become challenging.
