Once we dropped into our first battle, though, this was the quickest way to cycle through the party members to issue direct orders. Since the AI handles whatever character you're not controlling, and a simple meter that let us pour points into specific actions like healing, attack, support and so on is the only way to dictate how they act on their own, the hands-on route actually came in pretty handy. We mentioned it before, but the d-pad actually allows for shortcuts like casting any spells on hand or using items (you can only use items in battles that characters have equipped into up to six slots) or issuing basic support commands to everyone else in your party.

Holding L in battle lets you attack with a ranged weapon (if you've got one), and holding R targets and locks onto single enemy for circle strafing and your attacks -- melee with X and Circle, special attack (once it's been built up with attacks) with Triangle. The Square button brought up a basic menu for accessing many of the same functions as the d-pad, but there was the additional option to flee a battle if you need to.

The fights themselves are quick to load, and quick to exit. Hell, they're just quick in general, though at least for the first couple hours that we played they seemed to favor melee combat, we could see that with a full party and some of the later classes, things could be rounded out nicely. Machine joins the character types, and a raft of additional job classes like ninja, samurai, anchor and knight all become available later on.

The job system is really quite deep, allowing up to do additional sub-jobs to the main one that offer bonuses when characters level up. At any point, we could change jobs (for a fee, of course), and keep all the stats we'd earned up to that point. Because the lead job earns some points automatically geared toward strengthening that particular job, you can level up a character to, say, a level 10 fighter, pocket all the stats for that kind of job, and then switch things up, starting at a level 1 mage with all of the strength of a fighter. The only catch (beyond the fee), is that equipment like weapons and armor obviously change, so no swords for mages.

The one area we've yet to really dive into is the multiplayer. Both co-op and vs. modes are supported, with 30 levels set aside for just the former, and multiple options like time limits or full KOs and money wagers in the latter. If we can get another copy of the game, we'll update things with a multiplayer preview.

Though we only plugged about five or six hours into the game, never really moving beyond the lower parts of the castle, the game's simple but addictive quest system (doled out by the same guild that let us hire on new party members and change jobs), and the promise of what we hope are more varied areas that serve up the same attention to lighting and detail all combined to make something seriously promising.

If this is a sign of what's to come on the PSP in 2007, maybe it is time to start calling an end to the quality RPG dry spell. Time (and lots more hands-on hours with the game before its March release) will tell. Check back soon for more impressions!