After finishing the game, here are my thoughts:

The people who have given insight on it(Marcus, Fire Mage) all make very valid points. IMO, the game has flaws, and it's definitely nothing new. It doesn't break the mold, but it does take the old mold to a new level. It's not perfect(is any game ever?) but I think that it certainly does more things right than wrong, and I think that for almost anybody who enjoyed the RPGs of "old"(not necessarily all "old" per se, but I'm especially thinking FF6-9, a lot of Snes Square RPGs, the Shadow Hearts series, etc) will find themselves at home with this one. I can only hope that this is the beginning of great things for Mistwalker. There's certainly a lot for them to improve on for their future efforts(technical issues, pacing, also some budget and management related stuff, according to interviews with Sakaguchi), but they've still managed to make something very impressive. It's the first console RPG in a long time where I've said to myself "Now, this was worth my money"

Haha, man, that is pretty awful. x_x Luckily my local gameshop is selling both the Japanese AND the PAL version (Japanese is region free + in English), so I might just be tempted to go for the Japanese version seeing that. The cover art is pretty awful, though. As gay and faggy as it is, I love the PAL cover art.

My understanding is that the japanese version is region locked and doesn't have english text, only english vas. Did you mean the asian version? The Asian version is PAL compatible, but doesn't work in North America, and has english text as well as english VAs available.

Looks like a good game to me. I'll be picking it up in the morning for sure.

All the reviewers are being stupid, IMO. They're like "it's a great game, BUT it's a turn-based RPG." They're refusing to accept that turn-based, menu-driven games are a subgenre of the RPG category, which also includes the game they compare with it, Mass Effect. To me, saying "Turn-based is bad" is the same as saying "Street Racing games are bad" You can't just deny a whole subset of the genre based on the fact that it doesn't work like the others. It's like saying: "This is a great street racing game, but it sucks because it doesn't professional tracks and Formula One cars!"

Sometimes, it's almost the same as saying that RPGs are bad because they aren't first-person shooters, and god knows some reviewers came pretty close.