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Mikey and I both have this, it's really effin good. The fighting is a mix of power stone, smash brothers, and kingdom hearts 2 with this really cool chase mechanic thrown in for when the enemy gets knocked back. The menus can be a bit rough in japanese but for the most part you can figure it out either by trial and error or just by recognizing the things you've done in videogames for the past 20 years.
The battles are a sort of tug-of-war to gain power which leads to a final strike. There's some strategy involved in how much bravery you will accrue before going for the life attack. It's very interesting. The circle button damages the enemy's bravery and boosts your own, which directly affects your life attack power (your life attack damage is the same as your bravery). So the battle will roll along with bravery shifting back and forth, of course you can go for a life attack at any time but with more bravery you will deal more damage. Once you land a life attack your current bravery is reduced to 0.
As hits (of any kind) are scored, energy which can be absorbed floats up. Going near this draws it into your character, increasing your EX gauge. Once maxed you can go into EX mode, where your character hits harder in general and can unleash their killer attack or EX Burst. EX Burst is activated by simply scoring a successful life attack then quickly hitting the square button afterwards, which brings you to a special button input mode. This mode varies character to character. For example Squall's EX Burst is LionHeart, his ultimate limit break and you successfully pull it off by pulling the trigger correctly 8 times (much like in FF8). For Cloud you simply mash the O button to fill his Limit gauge. Tidus' Burst works just like his limit breaks in FFX, Cecil's is a series of direction+Action button combos, and so on and so forth. This attack regularly breaks the enemy's bravery entirely and usually kills them.
The battlegrounds are fully interactive. Most can be demolished, fighters can be smashed into walls, and all surfaces can be run on. When you are near a wall, or near the edge of a platform, or near a slide point a yellow arrow will appear. Hitting triangle allows you to interact. This makes you run on walls, fly from platform to platform, or slide along rail-like parts of the level. This really turns the whole thing into a high speed experience, and battles end up more like something out of Advent Children than a regular FF game. All characters can double jump off the bat while Zidane can triple jump, and other aerial abilities can be bought with achievement points gained as you battle.
Chase Mode is entered when you or the enemy gets knocked back. Once an enemy is knocked back the X button will flash on the screen for a moment, hitting this makes your character leap through the air to follow the enemy, once you reach them the game briefly enters a slow motion state where you can unleash a followup bravery attack (which more than likely will further knock the enemy back, lengthening the chase) or a life attack which generally ends the chase. However you aren't just allowed free attacks in this mode, what's cool is you can enter a dodge chase match which is essentially a crazy aerial duel in which you must hit the X button with perfect timing to dodge the enemy's chase attack, then retaliate with one of your own. This can go on for quite a while and gets pretty tense.
Each character's story mode has a sturdy length; five stages with 3-8 battles per. Most battles take place against drones, essentially just weird metallic versions of the various characters in the game, while special fights and stage boss fights take place against the real deals. Exploration elements on the board include chests, medicines, hidden items, etc. As you move along the board you spend Destiny Points which are allocated at the start of the stage. DP can be regained by achieveing certain requirements in fights, whether it's breaking the enemy's bravery within 10 seconds, winning in 10 seconds, smashing the enemy into a wall, etc. The board where you overlook the path to be taken is themed for the character and has a refined form of his game's world map theme.
All the battle music is rearranged from the originals. Most games include two themes, including the regular battle theme and a boss theme, however this is not a rule. All the music is great.
There's the story mode, a quick battle mode (choose player, enemy, set all parameters), and an online mode. WInning battles in any mode gains your character exp, gil, AP, and PP which can each be used for various things. With gil you can buy or upgrade equipment which, while not visiible on your character, boosts their stats and growth bonuses in various manners. PP can be used to buy all sorts of things from the general area of the menu. Such available items include alternate costumes, playable villains, boosts to your weekly rewards from the mognet (some crazy shit you set up when you start the game initially), character icons for ad-hoc play, and other random crazy shit I can't really understand.
Overall it's really effin good, and the experience will be dramatically increased when I have an english version in my hands. Great game.
_________________  Some stories can't be told with words, some legends are meant to die
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PS3 Friend list name: Pantherxx Wii code 1629-0463-4657-0263 (revised 9/28/07) Steam ID - Pantherxx010 62BLU 75PLD Reactived 7/5/10 
