Playability

Thankfully all is not grim for the player. Climax did manage to incorporate a few clever ideas into the game, like the ability to capture monsters, give them a name and then turn them into your allies. While commands don't always work with certain creatures such as the stubborn Orc this basic concept gives the game a certain Pokemon style twist. The game also appears to have the largest collection of VMU mini games I have ever seen and believe it or not many of them are actually fun. With that said its time to turn our attention back to the bad, with what is by far the most annoying aspect of the game. You see every time Sword enters a new dungeon all his levels are reset which means that you will spend most of your time trying to rebuild his stats so that he can wield the more powerful weapons he found in other dungeons. Add to this little blunder the fact that at any given time sword can only carry four items, this alone makes for some heavy backtracking.

Longevity

How often you play this depends on your tolerance for the annoying. While the dungeon randomizer adds some much needed replay and the multitude of VMU mini games will entice you to continue on, the flawed graphics and repetitive nature of the game spoil the over all experience.

Final Word

So our RPG prayers remain unanswered, not to fear fine adventurer there is still the promise of Eternal Arcadia or Phantasy Star Online to give us hope and strength in these days of darkness. Who knows maybe one of them will get the formula just right.

Review By: Mark Sciberras

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