I have been wanting to play this game since watching the Rev3 review. I usually don’t play turn-based RPGs but I just could not resist the pretty that is Studio Ghibli. And since we had Best Buy gift cards lying around, bringing my actual purchase price to $2, I figured I would give it a try.

You play as Oliver, Ollie for short, who is the “Pure-Hearted One”. After your mother dies, a fairy creature named Mr. Drippy appears and tells Ollie he is the one chosen to save their world from the evil Djinn Shadar. Ollie is hesitant, until Mr. Drippy says that the people in his world are connected to the people in this world so if Ollie can find his mother’s “soul mate” they might be able to resurrect her somehow.

The animated cut scenes look beautiful, which is no surprise. But we played for almost 3 hours yesterday and just finished off the tutorial zone of the game. As far as gameplay goes, from what I know of turn-based RPGs, this seems about normal. You can move around during the battle sequences but you still use a menu to pick your attacks. After attacks, the creatures drop health/magic that you can run over and pick up.

There are spells to learn and creatures to capture and lots of side quests and mini-quests. All the explanations are taking a looooong time. I’m hoping when we pick it up again, the game will let us play for awhile without interruptions. I’ll write more then.