While it is certainly not the epitome of greatness in every category, I feel the game is pretty damn solid and awesome all around. I love the story and cast, Lea Monde is just perfect as a dungeon and a place of atmosphere and the game really in my mind combined the best parts of horror, rpg, dungeon crawling and even had a plot that gives MGS a run for its money.

I actually like the item building system, its simple enough to where you can get some solid benefits with just the basics of the system but its deep enough to where you can spend hours just tinkering away to build the highest grade material and optimize your effectiveness to kill things.

Risk can be annoying but it keeps the game balanced and prevents Ashely from just destroying everything he comes across and it actually makes magic useful so as I play through the game later, I've come to appreciate it much more. It had challenging puzzles and the different combo moves you could chain together combined with some of the Break Arts kept combat fresh long into later NG+.

Overall, its the story that sets this game across with constant backstabs, horrific revelations and general mind-smurf to keep you guessing what will happen next. I don't think a single game except maybe MGS1 has ever empowered a player as much as VS did/ Yeah, I love the game.