A gem on the 3DS

I had been hoping to play this game for a long time, and I recently made it. I didn't have any expectation for the game, but I can say that I was very pleasantly surprised. The story is based around time travel, and it engages the player in a manner that I don't think I've seen any game do - you, the player, need to think and reason about how certain events influence others and fit together in order to progress - in this you are aided by the ability to travel through time at save points. Nowhere this is more evident than in the branching choices you have - they are very basic binary choices, one of them leads to a fake ending and the other lets you progress, but they still manage to be engaging by virtue of the fact that they call on the player's ability to use their critical thinking and plan ahead in order to obtain the correct outcome, which is done by observing the characters' demeanor and reading through the dialogue. It is a very good instance of taking a well-established video game trope/feature (binary choices that really only allow you one correct answer)  and twisting it into something interesting and engaging.

This also extends to sidequests, which often have the player have to make a decision that can leave a tangible impact on the world, as shown in the many variations on the game's ending montage based on which sidequests were completed and which ones weren't. It is a very good thing that there is the ability to travel back in time to critical story points in order to explore and investigate for sidequests, as it is the fact that after beating the game, you can return to the final save point and go back in time to tie up any loose ends (there is no limit to doing so, either - thus creating a very open setting similar to games like Fallout or Dragon Age). Aside from changing the ending, the sidequests also offer very worthwhile rewards (which is particularly useful early on, considering that money and resources are scarce), thus giving the player a good reason for going off the beaten path, a staple of many RPGs.

The combat is based around positioning and moving, similar to the old Chrono Trigger. Enemies are dislocated on a 3x3 grid and can be knocked around with the player's attacks. There are no restrictions to doing so, in fact the combat mechanics encourage the player to stack enemies on the same tile to hurt more of them at once. The game has a combo system where repeated attacks on enemies stacked together will raise your combo count, and in turn the rewards obtained from battles. While at first the ability to do so is limited, later on you can gain access to AoE attacks that can move around large groups of enemies, making for some pretty interesting fights. Boss battles are a bit more limited in this, especially later on, as many bosses occupy the entire battle area, but there are attacks that ignore enemy positioning, which are an option.

Overall, this game was very enjoyable and fun to play, and the new content added in the 3DS reprint adds replayability into the mix, through the addition of New Game + and a new game mode that allows you to experience a lot of the extra content. It is very difficult to find this game, but if you can, make sure to play it, because it is very, very good.