sprites do look just a little bit iffy when the camera pulls in close, but that's one of the things I've learned to deal with since the death of the Saturn, and as usual, artistic invention goes a long way towards helping overcome the limits of technology. In the age of PS2, these visuals aren't going to knock anybody dead, but they're quite good in a PlayStation context, with suitably momentous effects when the Were forms take effect, or when Sanzo summons a Guardian. A la Xenogears or Grandia, there's a grab bag of different faces that accompanies each window, all of them sharply drawn. His portraits go a long way towards conveying the emotions of the dialogue, too. Saiyuki has a great design sense going for it, too - artist Akihiro Yamada has created some genuinely beautiful interpretations of the mythical cast. The level of sprite quality is similar, even if it doesn't have quite so many impressive 3D constructions as Tactics.
Graphics As mentioned above, Saiyuki looks so much like one of the Tactics games that you'd swear they share the same graphical engine. The same goes for the occasional spot of environmental interaction, which helps mix up the stages. The element system helps add an extra layer to simple positioning and health/time management, since it can give an advantage to an ally in a tight spot, or leave a seemingly well-guarded enemy vulnerable. As in something like Chrono Cross, each character is aligned to an element, making them effective against certain elements and vulnerable to others - thus, using the right characters against the right elements is an important part of your strategy. New characters join as part of the gradual progress of the plot, and each adds their own set of skills and specialties, particularly as they relate to the game's element system.
Generally, the game's balance offers plenty to do during combat, although it's not as complex as some related games when it comes to advancing your party outside battles. Thus, it may be dangerous to overuse it early in a fight, and the transformation sequences may be long enough that it's overkill in an ordinary battle. This ability is limited, though - it's a little like Bloody Roar in the sense that a character can be knocked out of Were form if they take enough damage while transformed. Everyone else, however, has a Were form, a powerful monster that they can transform into to use more powerful abilities. The lead character, Sanzo, is a fighter and spell-caster, with the unique ability to summon powerful guardian spirits. Instead, it focuses on more basic issues of positioning and skill management, especially as that relates to the Were system. Tactics had its massively deep system of party management and character development, issues with which Saiyuki hardly bothers. Gameplay As far as visual presentation goes, this is a dead ringer for Final Fantasy Tactics or Tactics Ogre, but Saiyuki has its own style of play, closer to something like Vandal Hearts or Vanguard Bandits (although it dispenses with VH's guessing-game positioning, and it isn't half as cheap as VB was at times). If more games featured gigantic were-monkeys, maybe we wouldn't have to write so many surly reviews around here. But this is a well-made game of light strategy, and the historical-mythical setting works wonders for improving the potentially tedious atmosphere. You don't have a great deal of control over your fate anywhere save for the battlefield - outside combat, you move around a constrained world map, and you relate to the environment and characters only in cinematic sequences. Saiyuki is, for the most part, a straight skirmish-scale combat game. Questionable business, maybe, but it's great that gamers are getting a chance to play imports like Saiyuki: Journey West, a tactical RPG just recently released by Koei.
Every other genre has deserted the system in the face of an onrushing horde of edutainment, budget, and simply godawful titles, but strategy and role-playing stand firm, and thanks to some of the smallest software publishers on the market right now.
Heaven knows why, but there are still plenty of good RPGs left to play in the final eight or ten months of the PlayStation's lifespan.