Right, where to start.

This is a game that I can safely say I have completed more than any other over the course of the last 15 years.

I have completed all ports of this game released to date so I hope I can elaborate on things specific to this edition of the game.

I found out they were releasing this game on Steam a few months ago and I had been sitting on tenterhooks waiting for the game to finally be purchasable. Thankfully for the first week of release the game had a 25% off sale so I couldn't complain about picking up my favourite RPG of all time for a mere £11.

When I was looking through the achievement list I was overjoyed to see that there was a hard mode incorporated into the game. Now I'm sure other seasoned veterans of the game also saw this as incentive to buy the game on it's own.

So my playthrough was on the hard difficulty.

Graphically the game looks fine, however I won't say there aren't faults. There are some real glaring issues with screen tearing at points. I notably remember it was pretty bad during the development on Ceceille Reef and when you are about to fight the Claws of Valmar. Don't get me wrong, these are small issues that I'm sure will be fixed at a later patch.

The voices are good, I always loved Cam Clarke as Ryudo and especially Jennifer Hale as Elena. The acting is hammy at points but it's a cheesy story, so it's not unwelcome. The music from Noriyuki Iwadare was always one of the selling points of the game, I always had a soft spot for the final boss music. Which leads me onto the next point.

The difficulty on the hard mode, well for 90% of the game, it's quite unlikely you will notice much difference, regular enemies are still one-shottable from AoE spells if you tune your skills for them. Most bosses aren't really too much different.
There are exceptions however which I won't divulge here. I'd like to keep this spoiler free if possible.

The plot of the game was always one of the high-points of the game. It quite literally is good vs evil, perfectly straightforward without feeling convoluted. There is always a goal in mind which you push towards. However that leads me to a slight grievance. The game is very linear, it doesn't allow for much deviation from the story route. Not like it's a bad thing really as the plot is interesting and if it's your first time playing it I reckon it will keep you captivated the whole time anyway.

There are some gameplay issues with FMV's as some of the moves/spells incorporate that and it can cause frame delays. I think it's been fixed for the most part with the last patch but I completed the game on patch 1.01 and it hadn't yet. I remember the last boss fight being notably bad for it with 15 - 20 second delays on ending an animation and returning to the fight.

The developers seem to have a passion for the game which is a good thing as they are actively fixing bugs that are reported on the forums here on Steam. I'm enthusiastic that by the time the game goes on sale again alot of the little problems will have been dealt with. The dream is essentially having this be as good as the original Dreamcast version with the hard mode thrown in for good measure. I have faith that the devs will get this done, it will just take time. Patience while the kinks are worked out is the way to go.

Pros:
Best battle system in any RPG.
Story is really enthralling. If you have never cleared this, buy it for this reason alone
Characters are great, very relatable
Music and Voice acting is really good
Active development team actually listens to the fans and fixes problems
Achievements add a bit more to the game. (I could have thought of a good few more though lol)

Cons:
- Graphical tears and other issues involving FMV's can be aggravating
- Graphics are 15 years old so might be unappealing to some of the newer gamers
- Heard of game crashes, I never experienced them myself but I have heard others complain about it
- For the most part Hard isn't really any harder but when it is, the game lets you know swiftly
- If you don't deviate at all from the story and streamline the game, it only takes about 20 hours to finish

In conclusion the game has had problems on launch but I don't expect any gamebreakers to be around for longer than a month or two. If you haven't played this game before, BUY IT. The story and characters are some of the richest in any RPG ever. If you have played it before, play it if only for the hard mode. Swag points for completing it on hard after all.

Thanks for reading.