"Let's play a video game!" : Class of Heroes

Here are a few questions I'd like to ask you right now:

Do you like Role Playing Games?

Do you like exploring dungeons from a first person view?

Do you enjoy putting points into your strengths, thus maximizing your pros and minimizing your weaknesses?

Are you bored, have a PSP and a PSN account, and have $40 on the PSN account?

If you answered "yes" to any of the above, Class of Heroes just might be the game for you!

Exploring ever-changing dungeons filled with monsters, traps, and, oh boy, treasure called "Labyrinths" with a party capable of carrying six members, three in the front row to do the killing and three in the back to do more stuff, has never been so refreshing. And here's the catch. You can make your own characters. Like, you can make a name for him or her, then select gender, race and alignment.

I'm sure it's understood what name and gender are, but what are races and alignments? Races aren't just the plain old, real world stuff, oh no. Instead, it includes all these other fantastic races. There are your usual Human, Elf and Dwarf races, but here's some more I didn't see coming. Like, for example, there are the Erdgeist, a race where its humans are actually just spirits controlling dolls and therefore have unusually high Wisdom and Faith (Intellect and Spirit respectively in FF terms), and the Halflings, a race in which the people are half the size of Human children resulting in them having extremely high Agility. And alignments, there's the Good, the Neutral and the Evil. The Major being chosen for the character mostly depends upon this alignment and where you throw your Bonus Points. For example, if you want a Ninja, throw your character in the Evil alignment. Because obviously they're evil. Once you create the character, create a party. Once you do that, let's get exploring.

You explore the Labyrinth, as I have mentioned before, from the first person view. That said, all you see is what's in front of you. Just get exploring. But you might want to head back to get a map for this dungeon, oh yes. Just makes exploring a lot more convenient.

… What's that? The goods are too expensive? Don't worry, sell stuff! What do you mean you can't sell the Material or Junk you picked up after beating floating coins and bats to death? You gotta Appraise those first! How do you do that? Press triangle and it opens a menu in which you can do stuff. Go down to Items and, if you have a Level 10 Alchemist or a Level 1 Cleric in your party (I have both Alchemist and Cleric, but I'm not sure why), Appraise the item you want. What's that? You failed? That's supposed to happen. Sometimes. Just keep at it. And if you fail a number of times, your Cleric or Alchemist will just become intimidated and not do anything useful for the next few battles. It's like they're being picked on. But who cares about them?

I did mention Majors once before, yes? Yeah, about that. This game takes place in a school setting. Most likely college or university. Majors are just Jobs if you put it in FF terms. But you don't need to reach some Crystal or do some ridiculous stuff to get them. They're all there from the start. And they all have their own special abilities. Like, while the Warrior can Tri Slash, the Monk can Counter. Stuff like that. It's not like it matters much.

I give this game a 4 out of 5 for the ridiculous costs the items have. Seriously, I can't even buy anything without ending up broke. That and the very abusable Bonus Points. I mean, what's this!? 6 Bonus Points? Argh, O button, reselect Enroll. … Oh man, 30 Bonus Points. I am amused.

… By the way, there's Magic in the game and the MP system is loosely based off of FFIII's.