YAMATA NO OROCHI'S PROFILE

Arguably one of The Way's biggest flaws is that you don't start winning plunges until about the second episode. From there on the system becomes a lot more complex and interesting, although admittedly I've never gotten into it.

Anyway, the second episode is where things get really good, so go on and play the next one! Almost everyone I've heard of who doesn't like the first episode likes the second episode onwards (except for maybe the sixth).

I'd say that I disagree with your comments on gameplay balancing in Master of the Wind. It is true that the enemies do have a lot of HP and can dish out a lot of damage, but I always found that Shroud and Stoic had enough MP to use the skills required to deal with them. Battles take strategy at times and can be a little too frequent, but at least they never degenerate into mashing the attack command repeatedly. From my brief experience with the game, it's also pretty generous with recovery pots, fountains, etc., so regenerating your MP isn't that difficult at all.

I actually liked the battle zooms--they capture some of the kinetic energy of an animated side-view battle system while keeping the same scale as a front-view battle system. Anyway I haven't played much of Master of the Wind, but from what I have played I think that it is significantly better than a 2-star game.

This isn't part of The Way series. The Way is completely different from Three the Hard Way. I think...

But yeah, Three the Hard Way is a pretty nifty game, and it's really long.