General

Few more scattered impressions after a bit more time with the game:  The lack of an easily accessible quick/manual save and only being able to save at inns/dungeon save points feels a bit on the archaic side.  The bosses so far being these 3D models vs your party's 2D sprites is great for providing a sense of scale. I mentioned before that it was pretty snappy, but the game's presentation in battles really turns it up a notch with just how well your party's attacks flow into your opponent's and back again.  I'm not really a fan of the party info placement during battles, especially when attacks start to shoot off and you can only see the chain of events. I think a nice workaround would've been some sort of colour coding of or depleting glass-looking health pool laid over the character circles in the chain – just feels a bit unnatural to look to the right when so much of the battle info is on the left/centred. Heck, could've just stuck some green bars under those there sprites and it would be fine. I'm sure I'll adjust but it's odd in a JRPG to not be fully aware of how your party's doing during attacks  Y'all are going to probably love Francesca.  Mellore is going to be the marmite of these early recruits, I'm sure. I found her charming but I'm sure some will be tearing their hair out!  Big fan of completing the requirements for a recruitable character, such as slaying a certain number of a certain type of enemy, before meeting them and then just being like "oh, you've done that already? Nice, I'm all yours!" That's always a win in my book.   Somehow didn't mention it before, but the sprites!! I highlighted Suikoden II specifically when I played it as having some of my favourite sprites with how many unique ones there are, and that thankfully carries on here. One of my favourites so far is from the opening 5 minutes where you see some village folk picking crops in the background, it's such a small thing but adds so much.  So, Suikoden generally lacked the sound of footsteps when moving around, but it was often because music was blasting, and at the very least small dust clouds often followed your footsteps. Here there's a bit of a lack of connection to the world when the music gets a bit more ambient, there's no dust clouds, and no footsteps to be heard. Just seems an odd choice.  No small jingle for a weapon upgrade - even just a single "da-dun!" - feels kind of criminal.  As with seemingly every HD-2D styled game, the depth of field is cranked up maybe just a little bit too much at times. It's weird walking into a shop which is just a guy and a desk some 5m away from your character and him looking a bit out of focus. Unless maybe that's why so many of these early recruits have Rune of Blind Resistance equipped, because visual impairment is so common in Allraan... Still very much enjoying my time with it!  It's these  I did pass on Rising myself in the end purely because I didn't want it to potentially hinder my desire to play Hundred Heroes after seeing just how mixed reactions to it were getting and how a select few started to worry about HH would turn out because of it, so I'm glad to see it's got some people here who got on with it! 

No idea. @Julius is the man to ask.

I did get more drawn in so I did invest financially. I was thinking more of buying hundred heroes for PS5, so is it confirmed what will pass on from rising? I'm guessing it'll be something along the lines of how built new heaven-spelt-backwards gets? What battle system does it use, turn based? Possibru, I may not mind another RPG to plow through.

Added another party member to the team. Dude clearly wanted to join us. I mean, just look at what happened to him when he ventured off on his own... I'm happy to have him on board though. It's about time I had someone who can heal on my team. 

Put some more time into Star Ocean this morning. Found this area in my current location. It's a statue that heals everyone with unlimited uses. This means for the next hour I'll be walking around in a circle, getting into random battles and farming XP.  I started at level 21 (currently level 24) and will probably stick around until everyone is level 30. I picked up my first extra character. Dude is called Ashlay and he seems decent enough. High attack power and high HP...my kinda team member.  I love the character expression when they get hit during battle. They are hilarious. They give the game a bit of personality. Speaking of the battles, the enemy AI is quite clever. Despite being overlevelled, things can still go south for me quite quickly if the enemy manages to surround me/get me in a pincer attack. I always have to keep an eye on my positioning.