Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

40 to 100 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Worth the wait"

I've been waiting for this game for a year now, and it was well worth the wait. If your a fan of this series you will not be disappointed; they made some great improvements to the gameplay imo (ie no more spamming pies for your chims, more obvious/direct goals with tangible results that affect your gameplay) Its a bit of a challenging game as well, since alchemy is your best shot at winning the harder fights (at least until you craft some pimp weapons with lots of damage mods)

Don't bother with the GS review, they are so biased its nuts. They apparently are uncomfortable playing a cutsey princess main character, and spend half their time bashing the game for being cutesy, when that is essentially the entire point of the series. All the characters have unique qualities to them and are fun an enjoyable (esp totori and mimi). Maybe some of that got lost in the translation (i use the JP settings), i don't know why the reviewers think meruru is spoiled.

If you liked the previous games, you will like this game. If you never tried the previous games, you should give it an unbiased shot (something gamespot routinely fails to do these days). You won't be disappointed.