How is this game?

[Galandor]

Is it worth a look? I'll probably take a closer look come Christmas sale, the 66 on metacritic gives me pause, but I generally take reviews with a grain of salt as you should.

[PinkPаптҥэя]

Everybody in this forum probably has overcome the negative aspects this game might have, so the opinions here of course will rather have a bias towards the positive.

Having played the game for countless hours (more than 20 playthroughs), I think I have figured out whether a new player might enjoy this game or not.

This game is no cinematic experience like other popular RPGs.
The story is quite good but not outstanding. The main protagonist sometimes seems quite childish and naïve, not everybody's taste.

Its mechanics are quite deep but they are only explained at the surface. Many of the negative reviews are rooted in this fact.
So you need some dedication to find out the missing pieces to make the gameplay really work in your favor by reading the Wikia.
But then it's also highly rewarding if you manage that.
What made me addicted was the battle system with its high learning curve and the depth of unit development. Personally, I found almost endless replay value in that.

First you build your so called unions, consisting of up to 5 individual characters, called units.
First you can only build a single union, as you progress further it becomes more, up to 5 for the second half of the game.
As you enter the different areas of the game, you control your main character in 3rd person view and choose to engage enemies as they come your way.
This initiates a turn based battle, where you command each union by issuing battle commands.
These commands depend on the battle situation as well as on the class of the units in the particular union. This way you are able to build unions which can fulfill the specific purpose you set for them.

Classes are usually obtained by requirements that depend on the usage of that particular unit. In a nutshell:
Use Psionics a lot and the unit will get a class which strengthens that type of mystic arts. Used as a leader, that unit will give his union a preference for mystic arts.
Use Axes a lot and that unit will land in a combat class which boosts combat damage with axes and will give preference for combat commands.

Unfortunately getting decent classes takes time, so in the first ~25% of the game the combat is quite random and you may die sometimes without your fault, because of a lack of appropriate commands. Many players stopped here; another reason behind many of the negative reviews.
After that the game gets a lot better AND a lot harder. The bosses are HUGE and quite hard if tackled for the very first time.
But you are finally able to do something to make your party behave better and really enjoy the game.

TL;DR: An underrated JRPG if you manage to swallow the randomness of the first part of the game and do some research about the mechanics in the Wikia.

This video might give you an insight into typical gameplay (early game):
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=521281721

[Giles]

It's a fairly solid JRPG. When I first played it through I got ahead of myself and hit a progression wall because I avoided doing too many sidequests, so I was way undergeared for the story quests. Be prepared to do lots of quests :P