"Good Solid RPG. A rarity on the DS."

As you all should know by now, a good solid RPG for the DS is very rare. Ya, we have RPG's like Tao's Adventure and Mario and Luigi:Partners in Time, but none of them are very solid RPG's. I am an avid fan of RPG's and this game didn't let me down. This faq is about the first chapter because I haven't gotten very far in the Second Chapter yet.

Story 7/10
It has an okay story but nothing to brag about to your friends. A family is driving their car when it suddenly gets a flat tire. When they get out to fix it their dog runs into an abandoned mansion. The mother and the father go in to find the dog and don't come back. After a few minutes of waiting in the car, the son (you) gets tired of waiting and goes to find them. When he opens the door to the mansion however, he gets sucked into a portal to a magical land.

Not exactly the story you'd expect for a fantasy game but it gets the job done.

Graphics 9/10
The graphics are great for a hand-held, beautiful for the DS. Some complain abut the lack of detail. If it had any more detail it would be a dark and smudgy land instead of the bright colorful landscape that we have instead. The graphics are perfect for this type of game.

Sound 9/10
Very good music by Yasunori Mitsuda. Might get a little repetitive but nowhere near as bad as, say, Untold Legends. It has a nice light tune for most of the game save some areas.

Game-play 10/10
The game-play in this game is amazing. While at first, using the stylus to attack seemed daunting, it is definitely fit for this kind of game. Using the stylus to swing your sword gives you so much more control over your sword than just pressing a button. You also use the stylus to cast magic by drawing different runes on a grid map and then pressing an "attack" button on the bottom. While this has been done in countless games in the past, it's fits this game very well. Very fluid game-play all the way through.

Controls 8/10
While you use the stylus for all of the attacking stuff in the game you still need to move around. To move you use the control pad. Press up to go forward, back to go back, and the left and right buttons to turn left or right. Kind of hard to get used to at first but before long it's not bad at all. It's a lot like how you move in Resident Evil 1 and 2. I give it an 8 because they could have made the movement a lot easier.

Replayabilty 9/10
With two stories, massive dungeons full of secrets, and the fun gameplay. Yes, this game has a lot of replayability.

All in all a very good solid RPG. If you like RPG's then this is a must buy. If not, it's still worth a try.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/18/06