The world with its various factions and systems involved was quite good. The battle system with the many different types of esper abilities was pretty great as well. However, this is a work designed to be a prequel to a game, and hence I have a pretty strong feeling that most of this was taken from that, because while both of these aspects seem like they're really well designed, it doesn't do much with them. For example, EMC and LEAD are shown in a good amount of detail with characters being shown as sympathetic from each side, but it is never made clear the exact difference between the two or why they're in conflict. The battle system is also pretty great, but there was an issue in that the battles were all kinds of strange in that the main character is supposed to be overpowered but is getting beaten constantly and beyond that just all around the battles didn't feel very fleshed out. In terms of the plot, it was fast moving and engrossing but by the time it gets to the end it feels a lot like it never really had much direction. Part of that is that the characters and the relationship set up established at the beginning was interesting, but it never really did anything with them, just hints that never got expounded on, and hence that part of the plot felt completely absent. The other issue is that in the absence of this the plot was rooted around random other issues centered around the zero sample and the conflict between EMC and LEAD, but that just got sort of confusing. Ultimately, it gets to an ending that's all sorts of a mess. I suppose that this was a prologue that was supposed to set things up for another work in a very specific way, but it just sort of goes off the rails at the end, with complete randomness in terms of character relationships and a bunch of sudden deaths, all in all making an ending that I believe was supposed to be bittersweet, but that instead simply felt bitter, and hence not that satisfying at all. The art was solid.
