The story revolves around a young knight named Kairu who lives in a world where everyone can use magic…except him. The thing is years ago there was another man by the name of Vai who could not use magic who terrorized the country and was finally banished by a knight. That knight just happens to be Kairu’s adopted father. The people of their land both hate and fear Kairu and, to be perfectly honest, treat him like crap. Kairu is an expert swordsman who is constantly trying to prove himself to everyone. But needless to say, his father is ordered to banish him just like the evil Vai all those years ago. Kairu is not alone though; his short-tempered sorceress sister, Aurora follows him to the caves he is banished to and they are both teleported to a land where no one uses magic and now Aurora is feared. Hilarity ensues.
All kidding aside, the story is actually well written and quite enjoyable. Granted, you will get a failed joke every once in a while, but for the most part it is a very competent and thought out story. The only thing I’d say is that it crawls a little at the beginning up and eventually starts to ramp up.
The battle system is what helps and hurts the game in my opinion. Once you get two party members you will notice the similarities to Chrono Trigger. I say this because of the fact that you have combo attacks. Aurora uses fire-based magic who can set Kairu’s sword on fire and he, in turn, slashes the bad guys. You know, that kind of stuff. The positions of your party members and enemies play a large part in the battles as well. Most of your special attacks and magic can attack an area rather than one person, so positioning your characters and trying to group up you enemies adds a little more depth to the combat. Seriously though, the battle system works, it’s just hindered with problems. First off, even before you get into a battle, there’s a problem. Random encounters. They happen way too much and feel like they bog down the flow of the game. Honestly, I took two steps in the over world just to get into another battle. This will get on your nerves after three hours of game play. The other problem I had with the battles is that the action bar fills up a little slower than what I would hope for, like five to eight seconds. Another problem is that you have to equip items to your party members. That means you can’t use any and all items during battle. So if you want to use a healing item, you have to equip it to a character for them to use. This can become a big problem later on when you’re fighting stronger enemies. The other problem is that your characters have to move on the screen in order to attack some enemies. I can see what they were trying to do with this, but some battles will have the problem of a character getting stuck and not being able to attack at all. All in all the system works, it’s just you will need to be prepared to be in a battle for a longer time than what other RPG’s would have to do. It feels like they wanted to extend play time by doing this, but in fact the story and storyline battles can last you for a long time.
Getting the rest of the problems out of the way. When in the over world you can only walk in a very short pace. It wouldn’t be too bad if the random encounters wouldn’t happen every two steps. There is a run mechanic in towns and dungeons but not in the over world. It’s just a little frustrating. You can run from battles, but it took me about two hours to finally figure it out as the instruction manual didn’t say a word about it; and just for reference hold down the B button. When in the dungeons, you sometimes don’t know if the walls are walls or passages blocked off by the foreground, and of course the more time you spend checking the walls means the more times you get into battles. One last problem is sometimes the story will tell you where to go but the description is ambiguous on where exactly.
All the problems aside, I found the game quite enjoyable. The presentation is great and the graphics are impressive for a DS game. All of these just scream 16-bit goodness including the music, which is good, but eventually you will begin to hear the same tunes after you put some hours into it. There are tons to do and each quest has it’s own unique feeling that will keep you busy.
If you’re an old-school JRPG fan like I am, you’ll feel right at home. Be prepared to do a little grinding which if you are a fan you’ll already know this. To be honest, I don’t think a newcomer to RPG’s should start with this one. I feel that this title is for bringing back those memories for the hardcore fans. It’s not a perfect game by any means, but I think if you like this type of turn-based battling and don’t mind the hassles of random encounters, this is not a bad game to play.
The Good: Interesting story, Battles play out very well, Great presentation, Thought out dialog, Very good visuals
The Bad: High rate of random encounters, Battles take just a little too long, I want to run in the over world, not walk, Direction is somewhat ambiguous at times, Some grinding is required, Takes a little time to get into both story and game play.
Bottom Line: I said it before, I’ll say it again: If you are a fan of 16-bit JRPG’s there is no reason not to check this game out. It’s not perfect, in fact it has its fair share of problems, but I still found it very enjoyable. The story was good enough to keep me going. It lasts a decent amount of time and I still had fun with it despite its flaws. I say yes, pick it up.
Final Grade: 7.0
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Great review! I grew up on SNES RPGs! They were great back then, but not sure i still have the patience or time. to sit through one these days. Keep writing!
Posted on July 2nd, 2009 at 6:17 pm
I came, I saw, I commented
Nice write up and a nice review. For a handheld game and a feel of that retro goodness I feel that this would be a very good buy.
Posted on July 2nd, 2009 at 6:17 pm
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