Yes, it finally arrived. I placed a pre-order at Play-Asia on July 9th, and it started shipping on August 5th. That means it took 10 freaking days (including Sunday) to get here with the lowest grade shipping (though I chose the box instead of the paper sleeve thing). I know I brought it on myself, but in my defense, my other orders usually arrived with that same shipping option in about 5 or 6 days at maximum (or so I remember).
So now that I've gotten the chance to play the game, at a whopping 8 days after release, I'll ramble about my first (and second, if that counts the second session only) impressions of the game (I'm at Chapter 4, by the way):
1. Split screen is kind of difficult to get used to, especially in the introduction, because it just looks weird to see a "large" image spread over both screens. A good example is the shot of Sheeda, where the view scrolls slowly to left...eventually giving you a fairly lengthy shot of the pegasus's butt, because the top screen isn't showing much worth noting at the time.
In-game, the split screen also feels awkward (at this point?). The game is played on the bottom screen, and you can flip between two top screen modes: one is the equivalent to a jazzed up (and quite neat) Start menu from Souen and Megami, and the other is the equivalent to checking a unit's status screen (highlight a unit to view it automatically). A lot of the information is condensed for the latter mode, so there is only one status screen for everybody.
Also of interest is that the status screen mode will leave the unit last highlighted on the top screen, so you can probably use this for some sort of future reference. Pretty neat, at the very least.
2. The touch screen controls seem gimmicky and stupid to me. While it is interesting to select a unit and do things with simple pokes of the stylus, the thing seems much more suited to left-handed people (I'm right-handed). I say this because you can scroll with the stylus by dragging it around an area near the edge of the screen, but the command menu has very small targets to hit if you want to take specific actions (such as using items or changing equipment).
Then again, attacking is possible by poking the enemy, but this leads to a different point I need to explain first (#3):
3. Selecting one of your units and then selecting an enemy in range will automatically generate an arrow path to that enemy and bring up the attack menu as usual. This is pretty cool, because I can see this making things quicker for people with good coordination.
Also, pressing X or Y in the attack menu changes the weapon you are equipped with, which probably works well with what I just mentioned. Personally, I prefer the same old "bring up menu, choose weapon, roast face" approach with the D-pad. Holding Y increases scroll speed once again (it's been gone since Thracia!), so that is great for people like me.
4. Animations are pretty good overall, but the graphics on them suck goat balls in some ways. For example, this new Pirate guy looks just like the enemy Pirates, only in blue instead of orange/red (whatever it is). Obviously, this just makes things look painfully generic.
Another problem is the border around the battle models, which clearly clashes with some of the backgrounds. You get used to it, for the most part, but there really doesn't seem to be a good excuse for such a thing.
One other problem is that some classes don't double smoothly, but others do. Example: Marth gets attacked by an enemy, and then doubles. Instead of hitting once and returning for a second shot, he just does both attacks in one trip (like Megami does in most (if not all) cases). Social Knights, on the other hand, will make two trips. To further add to the "huh?" value, keep in mind that Paladins (Jeigan, in this case) do both attacks in one trip.
5. Let's be honest here, the character art sucks in general. I like a few pieces of the official art, but in-game, most of the characters I've seen so far (up to Chapter 4) are downright ugly. Honestly, it's like they didn't even try.
A while ago, Spineshark basically said something like "finally, Fire Emblem characters don't all look alike", in reference to a page of the Shin Ankoku official art that I linked him to (a view I don't agree with). This is mostly true for the Shin Ankoku official art (at the very least, Marth/Camus seem to be similar), but in-game is a completely different story.
Unless my eyes play tricks on me, a lot of my characters look like semi-clones, just with different expressions or hair color/hairstyle. I wish I were kidding, but it's true.
6. The map graphics and backgrounds are fantastic. Everything looks "grittier" to me, but that could just be because they actually have detail this time. By the way, the thought that the sprites look like Tear Ring knockoffs has kind of died out for now, because it's not really the case when you see them in action.
7. The game has 6 difficulty settings, and I decided against starting on the hardest one (Hard level 5) for my first playthrough....choosing Normal instead (the lowest). At this point, the game seems stupidly easy, but I figure that will change a little as I go on.
8. You are forced to sacrifice a character in the fourth part (I think) of the Prologue, because someone is required to play decoy for this ridiculous ambush. Now, before you say "you suck!", I should repeat that you are required to do this. The door to continue is locked, and you have no keys available (the only one you had was one use, and is used before that).
You can choose any character you want for this, except for Marth (obviously). I had read about this choice earlier, but I don't know Japanese, so I just sent Marth to the designated fort square first. I can only assume that the nagging that followed was basically saying: "You moron! You can't have Marth be a decoy for himself!"
After giving it some thought, I eventually decided to send Kain as my decoy. I probably should've sent Gordon instead, because I've always preferred Kashim as my bow user in Monshou. Oh well, too late now.
9. The music is pretty decent, but some of it comes across as wacked up Pokémon music at times*. Perhaps this is because of the crappy speakers on the DS?
* Trainer: "Jeigan! Use Bubblebeam NOW!"
Jeigan: "JEIGANANANANAN!"
10. Save points are on the map, but I've never used one. I don't plan to either, because save points are for complete morons who lack brainpower and can't handle anything resembling difficulty. I exaggerate, but I hope you understand that I just don't like the idea (or Megami's "Battle Saves" for that matter).
For the record, saving in Seisen is ok in my book (and should be done often).
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