ok thought id share my impressions so far
I created a party consisting of a protector, war mage, gunner, alchemist and medic
I reallllly like the gunner and the new alchemist. Alchemist no longer has poison but makes up for it with physical magic that hits all enemies AND IT HITS THEM HARD, this is balanced out by a really steep tp cost of said skills, but I'm definitely making a phys alchemist now.
As for the gunner its an interesting class, there are gun attacks that bind and those that do elemental damage, so they are kinda like a ranged dark hunter/alchemist mixed. keeping that one for sure
the war magus however, does about as much damage as a protector so its an ok fighter. My main problem is, most if not all the skills require the enemy to be already effected by a negative status to be effective. Blindslash requires hitting a blinded foe, etc etc. Id pair this with a hexer or something if you are interested.
But they have a really cool passive Regen skill that heals the whole party and a bunch of cure spells too. Might swap this out for something like beast when i unlock it.
protectors seem pretty much the same as before, defender is gone, and there is an anti-all that negates all elemental damage instead of just one. but the single antifire/volt/cold still exist too
medic is medic, their is a new kill-yourself-to-heal-the-party skill called phoenix, that should be interesting. otherwise mostly the same
As for the game itself, it seems like EO1 with improvements here and there. The L and R buttons no longer change the map level, and are used for strafing left and right, in battle L is used for an AUTO MODE, which is basically like rush in P3, physical attack again and again. Good for grinding weaklings.
There is a quicksave function, you save anywhere then turn off the ds until you want to resume. Handy for those on the go.
Hmm. Music is awesome as ever, new enemies, some familiar, no pallete swaps yet though. Game is a bit harder, the first FOE on floor 1 devastated my party in seconds. Just dont fuck with him till lvl 6+.
Speaking of FOE's they don't give exp anymore, just items. That and there are new types, some don't move and Ive heard of flying ones and invisible even (might be a BS rumor). There are skills to stop FOE movement momentarily, the gunner has one. Stuff like that.
New shop is good, you can actually see your equipped weapons and armor when you buy things now, and equip them when bought.
The new inn has a storing function, where you can put extra items I'm guessing, haven't used it yet, but im sure it will be handy.
