Recently finished the game, here's my thoughts on it:
Its a great game, as expected of Vanillaware. There are some flaws and things that could have been better of course, largely to do with the writing more than anything else, but I highly recommend it to anyone who even slightly enjoys this kind of game.
>Gameplay
Outstandingly fun, though I can't help but wonder if part of it ended up sacrificing story aspects for its incredible freedom to approach the game.
Somehow, exploring the overworld and doing shit like mining and treasure-hunting was actually fun and enjoyable, which I did not expect at all.
The level of customization for combat is shocking for a game like this, though I wish there was a tactics option for Rosalinde and Eltolinde with the number of fairies, because its not like you can predict the exact number of actions they will take if they perform actions such as healings.
The game starts out pretty difficult in the early stages (and at the beginning of each arc with a difficulty spike), but you eventually get so many tools, resources, abilities, and customization/freedom to do things the way you want that it eventually starts getting pretty "easy". Though that's a weird way to put it. I played it on Expert, and I pretty much never lost except once or maybe twice by accident when I wasn't paying attention. Doesn't mean it wasn't difficult mind you, but the game gives you a lot to handle everything. I didn't use 90% of my consumable resources and I cleared the game without issue, though I do have a decent amount of experience with tactical/strategy games at this point. So many fun mechanics and stuff.
The colliseum was a good time. I beat Amalia pretty early on, and I beat Gerard at low-level 30s which was nice. There was so much to find and/or unlock in this game, figuring out and fine-tuning combat was generally a blast, especially with all the items and abilities and whatnot. It is interesting to see how much my squads changed over the course of the game (and how much they didn't too)
>Aesthetics and Presentation
Vanillaware is above reproach. Most of the characters in this game are at least A-tier designs by Vanillaware standards.
However, I do wish they had more S-tier character designs in this game, like what you'd see in Dragon's Crown or Muramasa. You could tell they were constrained by the nature of the game (having to make "standard" characters since you had to control and fight whole damn armies), and maybe the fact that Kamitani wasn't at the head of this game also influenced that. Still, Vanillaware made some incredible stuff as they usually do.
The artwork was beautiful as a whole.
Animations were good, though a lot of attack styles were pretty standard. I wish there was more flash to them, akin to GBA Fire Emblem animations if possible.
>Music
Was good. Could have been better but it was fine. I can't complain from what I remember.
>Plot/Story writing
Eh.. could have been a lot better, this is easily the weakest part of the game, which is unfortunate.
Each story arc's "conclusion" generally coincided with a quality spike in terms of writing and storytelling, but it ends abruptly in each arc's conclusion. This basically amounts to the game feeling more like a few scattered events with a lot of gameplay stuff in-between for recruitment purposes rather than a full, cohesive story. It makes sense from a gameplay perspective (in the sense that if you can do many parts of the game out of order or in the way you want) but makes the game's pacing and overall cohesion suffer from an immersion and impact perspective.
Its funny how the plot basically turned into Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood at the end there though, but yeah, minus that part it was pretty... I don't want to call it "standard", but... its more like lacking in meat. Its like a T-bone steak where most of it has already been eaten and you only get enough beef on there to have a few bites of, making you just wish you had more.
>Character writing
There were some flashes of great character writing, and the general characterization for a lot of characters is good. It generally just needs a lot more. A lot of the Rapport conversations felt like they were just the beginnings of something interesting, and then they just as abruptly come to a close. As a result, a lot of them feel rather "standard" because they weren't able to go to more interesting places. Still,there were funny ones, emotional ones, wholesome ones, and interesting ones. The characters themselves are generally likable and interesting right from a surface level, but unfortunately it doesn't progress much farther than that in most cases. Part of me wonders if it has to do with Alain as a character. He is basically built to be a character that everybody likes and as a result, everyone else's problems usually have to do with themselves dealing with Alain rather than Alain himself or anything he's done that's actually wrong. Its hard to have a good character relationship if it feels largely one-sided. The Rapport conversation I enjoyed most from the ones I actually saw was Tatiana's A-rank with Alain, where he's forced to deal with someone who actually feels hostile and frustrated towards him and his actions which have had brutal consequences. Even though Alain is still "in the right", its not as simple as it is with a lot of others, and it forces them both to introspect and express their feelings about this issue (and grow as a result). If more rapports in this game were like this, I think it could've been amazing.
Though I did enjoy most of Alain's romance options that I saw in terms of the scenes, many were hilarious, some were more "generic" but pretty much all were enjoyable.
The epilogue (or lack thereof in my case) was irritating, it was just a long sentence given and nothing else. IMO the conclusion deserved a whole scene dedicated to it (or at least multiple paragraphs or hell, just even 1), but I digress. I can understand if there are issues since they have to write and create a scene for every girl and that doesn't sound fun at all. Still though, it was a bit irritating.
>Closing thoughts
The sum of this game is greater than its parts. Its just so damn fun throughout pretty much the entire game. Overall, by my standards I'd give this game a low 9 out of 10. However, by normal people's standards, this is a 10/10 game and deserves to be played.
As for the translation, it had its issues. It wasn't as bad as I was expecting, but there was still a good amount of places where its easy to notice the blatant changes or the fact that they basically did dubtitle """translation""". Plus some of the word choices they employed were just comical. I never thought I'd see the word "frippery" being used unironically (or at all) but I found it here, and it was as bad as you'd expect. I'd probably give it like a 6/10 or so.
I will say, one major missed opportunity in my eyes was not allowing Alcina to be recruited (as an actual character, not postgame bullshit), maybe as a secret character or something. If you really want to make it difficult, maybe have Alain beat Gerard before fighting her (hell you can even lock it behind other things too like conversations with Alain, and/or a high rapport rank with Yahna) to unlock the ability to recruit her. It could've been great. She was such an interesting-seeming character with a fantastic design.
A lot of other major characters have this issue too, maybe not recruiting them per se but at least having more from them would have been good. Nigel's story is basically finished very quickly after you meet him which is a shame because he both looks and seems very cool. Same for characters like Elgor and, well, basically every major Drakenhold character that I can think of anyways. There needed to be more meat at, before, and after these parts imo.