Beat on loan from my coworker. I pretty much completed everything the game had to offer; all puzzles, side content and optional bosses. I did not bother with newgame+ and finished at level 92. I absolutely loved this game. It is one of the best Jrpgs I have ever played, and I have played a lot. I do intend to buy a copy if I can find a good price, even if I may not play again.

I gave each character spirits appropriate for their elemental themes. Spunky, temperamental and justice seeking Virginia got fire and light. She ended up having the highest speed to go first and often evaded attacks. I used her for everything; attacks, nukes, healing and support. I found her biggest weakness to be defense and hp. Stoic sniper Clive got earth and dark. His terrible magic and speed meant that he was really only good for shooting things, really hard. So I gave him mostly passive spirits that did not have useful magic or at least spells that did not rely on magic stats. I made sure to prioritize his clip size to minimize the amount of turns he had to waste reloading. Aloof Jet got wind and I think lightning. He is naturally the fastest character but ended up as #2 with my set up. He does good physical damage and is not quite as bad as Clive at nuking. Still I mostly gave the similar passive style spirits and rarely found it worthwhile for him to nuke. The wildly emotional Gallows got water and others. I had him set up as a cleric, mostly using healing but also doing quite well with nukes. His ability to make spells target the whole group was very useful for heals. I may have used it for buffs too. Since I don't have the game to look at my save I can't give more details on spirit and skill setups.

This game does pretty much everything that I want from a Jrpg while only having a few minor issues. Fascinating setting, story and characters. It was really cool to play each character's prologue to see how they got to the point where they met and get introduced to all the mechanics. And there are no frivolous characters; 4 characters for a party size of 4. Each character has interesting mechanics both in and out of combat, including the huge variety of environmental puzzle solving abilities. Combat was excellent. I liked how the traditional defend command was replaced by reload and how each character has to manage using that to avoid the useless melee attack. Also how magic does not consume mana, encouraging liberal use. Even better is the ability to swap spirits and skills mid battle so you can apply tactics to counter enemies. The encounter, health restore after battle and saving mechanics were also interesting takes on alleviating the tediousness inherent in rpgs. It was quite cool how there was a chance in any battle for 1 character to have to solo for a few turns before the others show up; an interesting addition to the traditional enemy ambush that keeps things tense and encourges fighting from horseback to avoid it. I do wish there were items to equip though; better guns, bullets, armor and accessories. That is an important part of rpgs. Other than that I did not like the millennium puzzles, especially how easy it was to accidentally fall and felt it was too easy to get multiple element and status immunities.

9.4/10.