LogFAQs > #986812136

Dawn took some of the things Aria did wrong and made them worse. It plays very similarly, but needing to use souls for weapons when soul drop date is so low was a baffling design change.

Portrait is alright. Nothing special. The two character system is more of a gimmick than anything, but I'm not sure how you actually incorporate that into such a genre without feeling like one. It's the shortest of the three and you'll be in the endgame before you even notice it.

Ecclesia is bad. It was bad when it was new. It's bad now. I've never actually finished this game. Getting glyphs at times is even more annoying the souls, and something about the setting never feels right. It also has terrible boss design. Nearly every boss is a giant bag of hp with an obvious pattern that kills you in just 2-3 hits (And the first castle boss OHKOs if you get hit). They're tedious slogs where you just repeat the same motions every 20 seconds, and most take several minutes.

I've replayed both Dawn and Portrait a couple of times, and they both hold up well enough, outside of being insane enough to go for conpletion. Won't touch OOE again. The boss design of that game alone is one of my biggest peeves.