Edit years later. This game continues to be the single greatest story I've experienced. Good gameplay aside, absolutely everyone should, no, needs to play this game. The characters, what the journey represents, the choice of instrumental vs vocals in music and the significance of this design choice...

Please, I beg you, play this beautiful masterpiece— your very soul is lesser having not.







Amazing game, amazing story, awful AI.

Definitely worth full price for the story and characters alone, but the hardest difficulty is far too frustrating.

The story and characters are so well written, and the little tidbits here and there— like the wagon souvenirs or the character objects that tell you what they're up to— show how much care the developers put into the game.
The game is supposed to be some mystic rugby with something like time/resource-management in between matches, which is used to help in said matches via talismans or temporary stat bonuses.

However, the actual Rugby-style game has a few severe problems that really show on True Nightwing mode or with the Yslach star active (harder match for more XP): the UI disappearing during awful slow-mo moments, the camera not panning back to your characters in time after said slow-mo moments, collision detection with the Pyre and Orb and stage objects, the clunky character switching (press Space bar and pray it snaps to the character you want if they're lined up with another) and actions (watch as Tamitha dashes [shift] into flight [w], while you have to dash and THEN fly), and the AI being frame-perfect in everything except jumping over map hazards all make the game unbearable, while Standard is laughably easy and Heightened is just Normal mode.

All-in-all, still a spectacular game that people should play for the story & characters, and stick to Heightened (or Standard with Yslach star active) to experience a great story while going 30-0 (or however many matches there are) throughout the Rites.

Edit years later. This game continues to be the single greatest story I've experienced. Good gameplay aside, absolutely everyone should, no, [b]needs[/b] to play this game. The characters, what the journey represents, the choice of instrumental vs vocals in music and the significance of this design choice... Please, I beg you, play this beautiful masterpiece— your very [i]soul[/i] is lesser having not. Amazing game, amazing story, awful AI. Definitely worth full price for the story and characters alone, but the hardest difficulty is far too frustrating. The story and characters are so well written, and the little tidbits here and there— like the wagon souvenirs or the character objects that tell you what they're up to— show how much care the developers put into the game. The game is supposed to be some mystic rugby with something like time/resource-management in between matches, which is used to help in said matches via talismans or temporary stat bonuses. However, the actual Rugby-style game has a few severe problems that really show on True Nightwing mode or with the Yslach star active (harder match for more XP): the UI disappearing during awful slow-mo moments, the camera not panning back to your characters in time after said slow-mo moments, collision detection with the Pyre and Orb and stage objects, the clunky character switching (press Space bar and pray it snaps to the character you want if they're lined up with another) and actions (watch as Tamitha dashes [shift] into flight [w], while you have to dash and THEN fly), and the AI being frame-perfect in everything except jumping over map hazards all make the game unbearable, while Standard is laughably easy and Heightened is just Normal mode. All-in-all, still a spectacular game that people should play for the story & characters, and stick to Heightened (or Standard with Yslach star active) to experience a great story while going 30-0 (or however many matches there are) throughout the Rites.