Quote Originally Posted by Del Murder View Post
Well, it will have to try really hard (or not try) to be as mundane as Crisis Core, which was basically running behind the enemy (on a very small battle map) constantly hitting the attack command. The addition of party members should already make it more varied. I just hope it requires a bit more tactics than 'run up and attack the enemy with your sword until it's dead'.
I've been playing the Japanese Demo and I can tell you its got alot more variety. Dodge roll is no longer some broken "get out of damage free" card that it was in Crisis Core and KH. Magic takes on many different effects and create a bit more variety, similar to magic in 358/2 for instance, in the demo Queen has what appears to be a regen spell that creates an area around her that only restores health to allies within in, when she tries to use her blizzard spell, it changes to an over the shoulder targeting view and you get a target crosshair to use as you aim the spell, she fires off an ice shard that explodes into a huge spiky glacier when it hits the target. The Lightning spell worked similar to Crisis Core but you can actually give it a shot gun effect that increases its area of effect and damage output based on proximity to target. The only thing I can't tell yet is if magic is unique to each character, by which I mean that only one character can use one elemental type or if the special effects of the spell are unique as well. Not being good at reading Japanese makes dealing with the menus very tricky...

The real break from monotony is that it appears you can play as all of the characters at any time. You can choose to play as Ace and then switch with Queen who is in your party, then send Ace away and put Machina in your team and switch to him if you want. In the demo you can play as eight different character on the same mission and each character plays very differently to each other. King is slow but uses powerful pistols to hit from a distance, Nine is like a dragoon, Machina has two drill swords, Ace summons cards that work a little bit like Virgil's energy swords in DMC3, bu the color of the card can change the effect of the attack. The characters also get unique melee attacks as well.

Summons are quite potent and completely controllable and only dismiss the summoner (finally!) they are playable for a limited time after summon but they come at the cost of sacrificing a character. Their hp goes to zero when they summon them and they won't be useable again until the mission is over. So there is a tactical compromise with them.

Seriously, if the camera wasn't so fidgety and the controls for the camera weren't so stupid, it would be a pretty damn slick action-rpg. Luckily the delay for the game was to fix all of this so hopefully they got the kinks worked out. Also, the opening is going to make BoB cry.