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The steep learning curve is frustrating early on, but like Ninja Gaiden Black, the combat is extremely satisfying once you cross that hurdle.
The engine is quite impressive, featuring scores of characters on-screen simultaneously with no noticable slowdown. The story unfolds through cut scenes before and after missions. The missions themselves are long and so far very hectic and exciting. Though the level layouts are linear in nature, the objectives are varied and keep the whole thing fresh and keep you pressing onward.
The bow has a lock-on feature, but I have yet to figure out if it can be controlled. This has proven to be incredibly frustrating, as many times I'll have a fire arrow but I just cannot get the bow to lock on to an exploding barrel that is right in front of me. Sometimes it locks on to nearby enemies, sometimes it locks on to things I cannot see and could not possibly hit, but it never wants to change targets!
The AI in the boss battle with your nemesis blatantly cheats, making the fight one of nearly pure luck. You run around in a room and pick up randomly appearing health and magic energy, then use your powerful magic attacks against each other. The problem is, you are limited by how fast you can spin the camera around and see the energy balls appearing, while the AI knows instantly when they spawn and runs right for them. I lost the battle over and over until one round when I just got lucky and happened to be in the right places to get the energy pickups and turn to blast the boss about four times in a row. It was neither a good fight nor a satisfying victory.
I got stuck on an escort mission, which I started with nearly zero health at a checkpoint, so it was impossible to proceed. Either I kept dying or Aristotle would die, but I could never get through the mission and got sick of trying.
This game started out with lots of potential, but collapsed because of shoddy targeting, poor checkpoint selection, and a frustrating escort mission.
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