STORY
The good:
I thought I would loathe the decision to go back to school and to start over again. But Rean as a teacher worked better than I thought. I'm not sure I would go as far as to say that he has "grown as a character," but I think that the student/teacher relationship aspect made him a more interesting character than he already was. He does seem to have "grown up" a bit.
I enjoyed the new nana-kumi more than I thought I would. I also liked the way that they interacted with the plot. Particularly on the train, when Kurt says "oh well, I guess Rean is right," Yuuna is there to say "that's bullshit" and they end up being involved in Rean and co's encounter with "the society." Yuuna is a fun character and it'll be interesting to see her take a role in the rest of the series.
The questionable:
First of all, a few pages back I referred reviews that complained the game fell into singular patterns and a lack of plot movement. There were disagreements with what I posted, but I decided to save a response to this post, because I too hold similar feelings about the game and the series. First of all, "tests" are not plot movement. "Tests" are useless. We don't need the society to test its "magic." It's magic. We'll believe it works when it comes into play. The only thing the tests serve, is to set up meaningless conflict between the protagonists and the villains. In SC this was largely bullshit, but the game still came together in the end and delivered. These chapters are less forgivable when you have something like Sen III. It's not really apparent that the major conflict of the first three chapters will lead anywhere at all. They certainly don't set up the final chapter of the game. Maybe they will make more sense in Sen IV. Or Sen V. This is Falcom's weakpoint. Falcom spends games setting up all the pieces, hinting at future developments, and showing off said game pieces that will be put into play. Sometimes this works brilliantly. But not all of the staging is justified. Sometimes it's just a lot of posturing and Falcom doesn't really have a need for things to happen between A and C.
I was bracing myself for a title that didn't really move the plot forward or answer the characters' questions prior to Sen IV. I was enjoying the set up with Calvard's special units, the characters realizing that they were largely information gathering, only to have them be a clever scapegoat to justify a move towards war. And then the plot gushed out of the mouths of Rose and Thomas - only to make a sharp left turn. Suddenly the actions of the characters are playing into some prophecy that brings about some sort of "dawn" that signifies the end of the world. And the society is taking part. What happened to the 幻焔計画? I thought that Osborne had "taken" it from the society? Suddenly the society is aiding the black workshop - and the members of the society don't seem to know why. It's "the will of the master." Later on Campanella reveals that the master is pursuing the "dawn" plan in place of the phantom blaze plan. It looks like the series might be dropping what it's been foreshadowing for several games now, even in Sen III itself. This is where the interactions with the society and the story make even less sense. What happened in Sen III? Who can say for sure. The society appeared to be "testing" of of Eidos' treasures, but it doesn't look like it's either of the empire's ones. Then there's Osborne's motives. What? Maybe it's a lapse in my Japanese comprehension, but what he said didn't seem to make any sense to me. He wants to fill the world with conflict in order to elevate humanity, what?
PRESENTATION
At a first glance the graphics appear to have made a major improvement. I've mentioned in this thread before that the character models, at least at a glance, appear to be one of the better transitions of anime to 3D, and often I found myself impressed by how great the game's cities looked. Not only do s-crafts look great, there are dozens of them. But outside of battle, combat scenes don't really work. The bigger ones sometimes look something akin to PS1 era Final Fantasy combat on a large scale. They were actually much more capable when they were relying on sprites. While cities look great, fields sometimes look like they were lifted from a previous incarnation intended as another PS3/Vita title. Then there are the female characters. Falcom may have awkward animations, but they made damn sure to have Sara's boobs move as she walks or runs. It's ridiculous - the 3D rendering equivalent of clown paint that is ever present during the cutscenes Falcom expects us to take seriously. Then there's the matter of spectacle. This game has its own 煌魔城, but instead of a grand introduction like Sen II, Sen III includes what is essentially a flash of light and then it just appears. Having just watched Sen II, it feels like the presentation is actually on a downward trajectory. I was left wondering if Falcom would be able to portray the phantom blaze plan that I expected to make an appearance in Sen IV. Now it doesn't appear that it will, so I guess that's not really relevant? Maybe a war with Calvard and more black smoke flying all over the place?
Then there's a matter of the music. There has been a noticeable drop in quality. Despite the fact that the games themselves aren't incredible, the music of Sen I & II is. Sen III? Not so much. Cheap trick plays over and over again, when it's probably one of the weakest tracks in the series. The name seems to suggest it was intended for the mercenaries, but it's used for everything. I found it grating. Then there was the track that plays around the black grail, like when the Courageous blows up. It's just not good. I know it's supposed to evoke "chaos," but it's just not good. Better music would go a long way in selling the scenes that the character animation wasn't able to.
GAMEPLAY
I don't want to go into depth about the gameplay, but I will say that I largely enjoyed it and considered it to be the best in the series until the end. Then it became apparent that either the enemy was too powerful or you were. I was breaking enemies and absolutely destroying them on hard mode, before most of them really got a chance to move. There were some exceptions to this, but I found the final boss to be one of the easier battles in the game. It's probably just a balancing issue. Overall I think it was good, however.
Having completed Sen I & II I wasn't exactly inspired, but I didn't feel as if I couldn't expect great things from the series' future. Now I'm not so sure.
