Saiyuki: Journey West

"Most enjoyable game in a LOOOONG time"

''Saiyuki: Journey West'' is easily the most enjoyable game I have played in quite some time. Every part of the game was a good time for me, and I would recommend it for any gamer of any age or experience.

**note- these scores are my ''RPG'' set of scores, and not your stock ''gameplay-sound-music-replayability-control'' set.

GRAPHICS: 9/10
What's most important about graphics to me is their continuity- do all the various graphical effects (characters, anime, background, foreground, monsters, etc.) seem like they belong in the same world? A resounding YES for Saiyuki! Wonderful character emotion on both the figures and the up-close faces. Would have been a 10 if there had been more anime cut-scenes...

SOUND: 8/10
Background music- 10. Quite fitting to the oriental setting
Voices- 8. Not much of them, but the girl's is much better than the guys. Sound effects- 9. You just love the sound of a critical hit, trust me! Theme song- 1. WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY THINKING??!?!?!?!??! ''Magic Goku'' is the most God-awful theme song I have ever heard.... oyf...

STORY: 9/10
What a great story to tell! FFT had a good story, but it was massively weighted down by hundreds of names and places that all started to sound the same. This is a very straightforward, but very accurate retelling. It's believable, coherent, interesting, and full of enough side-plots to give you a break.

BATTLE SYSTEM: 10/10
Yes, it's Tactics. But it's a scaled down tactics, which in my opinion makes it much more enjoyable. FFT was a constant struggle to make sure nothing was in your way, your characters weren't too close, etc. Saiyuki concentrates more on positioning than anything else. I LOVE how the deformable battleground objects can only be destroyed by were powers- it makes you choose between using your were(s) to get items, or blow away the enemy. Also the choice between killing all the enemies for the most exp or winning quickly to get the most were exp. Also a HUGE variety of battlefields with some very ingenious traps/tools/formations to use. The weighted platforms were brilliant! For those who complain that the battles are too small, in reality they aren't. Your characters' movement ranges are scaled down along with battlefield size, so they are relatively equal to FFT or similar games.

CHARACTER SYSTEM: 7/10
My lowest score. You will always get the same characters in your party, and there's not much point trying to develop them in different ways than they want to go. Still, they are nicely varied naturally, and you can find many different combinations that work well for most fights.

CHARACTERIZATION: 10/10
Easily one of the best RPG's when it comes to believable, vibrant characters. There isn't a single time when you see them acting outside their personality. You really grow to understand and sympathize with these folks as the game progresses. Wonderful job!

SECRETS: 7/10
A must for a fun RPG. Saiyuki's got them, but they're usually pretty obvious and not too hard to figure out. My first time through I found all but one of them. Could have been more.

SIDE-QUESTS/SIDE-ACTIVITIES: 9/10
Man, did I spend HOURS playing that card game hehe. Job system entertaining. Dojo's not really worth the effort of getting to the master battle (Really, it should have automatically let you fight the master if you could beat the Advanced) but still fun. Half the action is really side-quests: saving villagers, rescuing children an the like. All nice diversions without letting you forget the main plot.

REPLAYABILITY: 4/10
With such easy-to-find secrets and very little choice in how your characters develop, I don't see myself playing this again unless it's several years down the road. Worth playing through as the girl if you played the boy the first time (don't bother playing the guy... the girl has much more personality and is more fun to look at)

AVERAGE SCORE: 73/90 = 81.1%
WEIGHTED SCORE: 109/130 = 83.8%

**in weighted score, battle system, character system, story and characterization are weighted double as per my personal preferences in an RPG

((NON-rating scores))
These are just some characteristics that tell about the game but don't get counted in the scoring (for obvious reasons)

DIFFICULTY: 4/10
Most people who have played this style of game will have little trouble. If you don't do the side quests (especially dojos) you will have a more difficult time due to lower levels. Nice to have a game where you don't have to keep trying different tactics 3 times to beat 1 fight.

LINEARITY: 9/10 (10 being the most linear)
Just about as A-to-B-to-C as you can get. No choices as far as the plot is concerned, but you are presented with different routes on the map (but everyboy winds up going both ways to get everything anyway, right? hehe)

This is pretty much a game you can sit back and enjoy. You don't need to rack your brain trying to figure out THE BEST possible combination, or strategy, or route to take. You can do what the PSX asks of you and enjoy the story and the delightful characters

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/30/01, Updated 08/30/01