3.5/5 ★ – Lancey's review of 7th Dragon III Code: VFD.

FINALLY! An actual game. From atlus. That doesnt ****. Thats really rare, and I blame all you guys that think your death count is a measure of how good a game is. (What is WRONG with you people?) The battle system feels like Persona, minus the demon influences. The exploration feels like free-form etrian and persona. The registration/party system is straight from etrian. (create someone, throw em in a party) The skill system is from Xenoblade (Too many choices, too few points to max out everything, focus on your preferred skills) The dragons are.. obnoxious. It isnt that they're overwhelming, per se. Or that you'd be hard-pressed to defeat them. The mobs level you up reasonably. (Again, you etrian players who have time to spam 2,000 battles for 20 experience points ruin it for the rest of us. Constantly asking the devs to make the game HARDER, MORE PUNISHING!) They're obnoxious because they are EVERYWHERE. And you have to grind a bit to get a leg-up on them, but if you take a turn or three too long, they'll invade your battle. Running away only gets you so far. (Like XATM92 from ff8, you cant run far.) Their placement is obnoxious. They are on standard patrol routes. For some reason. Like metal gear solid 1. Just... walking on really obvious routes. THERE IS A SAVEPOINT EVERY 2 MINUTES! If you think pokemon games spam free healing at pokemon centers too much, this game places healing points far more generously than pokemon. I've had the game crash 1 time out of every.. about 8? times when I flip the lid closed and set it aside. So I use save points every time. :( Dont get me wrong, all these things make it feel like a 'classic' game with a few modern features. Y button is shortcut to healz, more sound options than stereo/mono, quirky snes-era characters, a soundtrack that is actually memorable and catchy instead of 'barebones ~ it conveys a feeling while remaining nondescript' like some games. But it still has that 'atlus' feel to it. You know the feeling, they bring out a new RPG every 5 minutes. No matter how good their games are, they just arent.. polished. Arrested character development, or cookiecutter atlus battle systems, or just that 'feeling' that this is some amalgamation of 50 other games they've made. Square feels like square, atlus feels like atlus, capcom feels like a breath of fire. heh heh. Not a bad game, but not great. Play it when you have some free time. DONT FORGET TO SAVE! :)