The Legend of Alon D'ar

"Good once it warms up"

Alon D'ar can appear to be extremely irritating and stupid at the beginning of the game. Indeed, the battle system definitely could use some improvement. But the game becomes extremely enjoyable after the first few hours

Alon D'ar is an extremely long game, with about 40-50 hours of solid gameplay. In fact, the story is very interesting and never grows tiresome. This is the best part of the game, and deserves a 10.

The graphics of the game are good, but not fantastic. There isn't any polygon break-up, and the game never slows down, but there is little detail in the characters. The scope of exploration is huge, with one of the biggest explorable worlds I have seen to date. The backgrounds are beautifully rendered, and you can actually see a large part of it at one time. The graphics get a 7.

The gameplay is good, and the character progression is excellently done, with your characters able to use Proficiency Points (earned in battle) to improve specific skills with a variety of weapons and types of magic. The one flaw of the game is the somewhat irritating battle system. You must stand and wait while your character is attacked repeatedly for his charge to build up. This can reach levels of idiocy with large weapons with your character unable to move or respond for large periods of time. Overall, the battle system gets a 5, and the gameplay gets a 9.

An interesting feature of the game is the ability to have two players. If anyone remembers, Final Fantasy VI featured a similar system where player 1 took control of the first and third characters, while player 2 took control of the second and fourth players. This makes the gameplay more interesting.

My only major complaint with the game is that all the side quests grow annoying after a while. Wether its frogs, acorns, eggs, or parts of a necklace, all the side quests revolve around finding 30 of something, then receiving a marginal reward. This aspect of gameplay brings the overall score down a notch.

Overall, the game has a lot of fun in it, and promises many hours of gameplay. The game does not play like Final Fantasy X, so I would recommend this game for those with a moderate to high level of patience.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/03/02, Updated 01/03/02