Rondo of Swords

"Rondo is Mondo"

First of all, with the lack of decent SRPGs for the Nintendo DS, I have always have been on the lookout every time a new game for the genre is about to be released. Enter Rondo of Swords. I had heard a lot of buzz coming from people who played this game through importing or some "unconventional" means, if you know what I mean. Some say it's the same as Fire Emblem, some say its like Final Fantasy tactics. All this comparison to great SRPGs made the wait unbearable.

And then it happened. April 15, 2008. The big date. I pre-ordered the game and happily grabbed my copy. Couldn't wait to play it really. I just can't drive fast enough before the cops pop me for speeding. I was giddy like a fat kid that just received his bag of chocolates. Got home, and slapped the game onto my DS. And here's what I found out.

Graphics:

When it comes to graphics, a lot of people tend to play the game mostly due to it and not the story line. Others play certain games even with horrendous graphics due to the story line. I'm the latter. Rondo of swords isn't exactly mind blowing. It's actually pretty average. I have a program with me called RPG Maker XP and the sprites that are used on Rondo of Swords on the actual game play can be compared to that of RPGM XP. Now don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with that.

What I'm basically trying to say here is that if you are looking for a game based on what can push your DS engine the most, this isn't it. So graphics fanatics begone.

But I digress. Rondo of Swords, sprites are passable. When you are actually playing the game and not watching the dialogues, you can see the spell animation effects and/or attacks at the top screen while you manage and move your characters at the bottom part screen. The spells and attacks are nothing fancy, personally I find them redundant and usually skip the whole thing. After the umpteenth "Here I go!" sound followed by your selected character dashing towards the enemy it actually gets a little unbearable.

The background for the game is average as well. Not very detailed, a couple of trees here and there, some pavements etcetera etcetera. There are some parts in the game that even uses the same battlefield a couple times. Cut scene-wise, if you can even call it that, was good. Nice vibrant colors on the characters and not all of them have wide, seems-to-be-in-a-state-of-shock-eyes look. because that is really overplayed already.

Overall, you can play throughout and look at the game without making your eyes bleed. And that's always a good thing.

Sound:

The game's musical composition is basically a medieval themed one. Nothing too fancy, but it's quite good. To be perfectly honest, the music actually reminds me of Irish music in the olden days. That and people having a jolly good times square dancing and drinking until they collapse.

And as I have mentioned earlier battle sounds can get repetitive, the characters says the same things over and over again specially your "melee" characters. Spell casters have more of a variety due to different spell names but that's not saying much either. If you find it too repetitive you are not alone. But that's okay since like I have said, you can actually skip the battle animation.

"Hit" sounds are great. Clanging noises make it seem a bit realistic. As well, when one of your character dies they say something which is cool. of course, not that it's advisable to keep dying when you're playing.

Overall, good sound effects that leaving your volume slider a bit more on the "on" side bearable.


Controls:

Controls are very intuitive and are very easy to use. You can use either the stylus or the Directional pad, whichever floats your boat. I personally like using the Directional pad.

Navigating the menus isn't a pain because you can go through them rather easily. This goes the same way in the battlefield. No lags, no pauses or any glitches whatsoever in my experience so I have to say they did a great job on this department. And for the sake of this review, yes I did use the stylus to see if it responds the same way. And the answer is yes.

So if you don't like pressing buttons and like pointing your "stick" to make you look cool, go ahead because there's no repercussions.

Game Play:

My gosh the game play for this game is absolutely horrendous. It's unbearable. April's fool! Sorry had to do that as this thing is released on the month of April. But really now.

The game's strongest suit is it's game play. Now I'm going to run through the comparisons that I've heard. First off is it's comparison to Fire Emblem. No, they are not the same, people. Just because you see the characters on this game having swords and some that is running around on a horse doesn't make it the same. The only thing remotely close to it is the medieval theme and it's a strategy RPG and that's it.

And the Final fantasy Tactics bit, yes this game got the job system. A very, very simplified job system. I'm not going to go into any details on how you do certain things but yes that's as close as Tactics and Rondo can be compared.

Anyway, onto the game play. This game's battle system can be both unbelievably easy to use however unbelievably hard to perfect. I will give an example on how you play it. Like most SRPGs, you can position your characters on the playing field anyway you want as long as it's within their movement range. Some characters have farther Movement range than the others. Normally, you would just place your characters towards a lone enemy or a part of the battlefield with less enemies as to not overwhelm you. Looking back onto other SRPGs, you attack if you are right beside the enemy. In this game, you don't attack, melee wise, by doing that. You have to PASS THROUGH your enemy to attack. And if you have a caster, you can only either move or cast a spell, not do both.

Sounds simple right? Yes and no. The thing with this game is that, you attack the enemies that way, in a nutshell. But if you add in the fact that you can BOOST your attacks or HEAL up by passing through one of your other characters before you attack an enemy adds some twist into the game.

Now with this, another issue comes up. Placement becomes more important. Why? because unlike typical SRPGs, Rondo of Swords gives you more enemies than what you're usually accustomed to, to deal with in different scenarios. You don't even have to venture far into the game to see this. The first battle will automatically show you how much, much more enemies you are going to be dealing with. So basically, you don't just go into a battle to try and rip everyones head off. And then, some mission requires you to "flee" safely. Yes, flee.

And then here's the kicker. On every battle you get, there's is one very, very important thing that you absolutely must do in order to win. and that is to keep one particular character alive at all cost. It doesn't matter how you do it as long as this one stays alive. because it's literally game over for you if this character dies.

This character is melee based character so if you want to get him into the fray you will always have to think twice. The CPU basically swarms him as soon as possible making you think sometimes that why are you even bothering moving him in the first place. Personally I only move this one on "flee" battles or if there are less than three enemies around. Other than that it's quite pointless.

Another thing that is good about this game is the New game Plus. basically you can start a new game after you finish the game and have your initial three characters retain their money and items. There are other things that are carried over but hey, it's up to you to find out.

And as a last tidbit, Area of effect spells can mess up your own team. So aim them wisely. You can't be blasting the battlefield all willy nilly.

Overall, amazing job on the game play, with a smidge of flaw. Just a smidge. But really, it's nothing to lose sleep over at.



Replay Value:

Personally this game have quite a bit of replay value for me due to the fact that it has New Game plus feature. Add to the fact that there are different ways to play each battle and missions as well as unlockable characters, mixing and matching is quite nice and fun. So I have to give a two thumbs up on this game's replay value.


Rent or Buy:

I bought it. For you, it depends. Do you really like another SRPG to add to your collection that you can play again because of the new game plus feature? then yes, go ahead and buy it. But if you are just a casual gamer and new to SRPGs give it a rent first and see how you like it. After all, it is your money.


Summary:

If you think this review is long, which really, it isn't, and you want to say TL:DR (too long, didn't read) here's is a breakdown for it.

Pros:

- Decent Graphics
- Decent Sound
- Amazing Game play
- Intuitive controls
- Quite a bit of replay value
- You need to use your brain while playing

Cons:

- semi-useless character
- You need to use your brain while playing
- You might have to end up buying it after renting it, and you wish you used your rent money as part of your purchase money

Hope you enjoy reading my review. feel free to disagree. If you do, well we can agree to disagree.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/23/08

Game Release: Rondo of Swords (US, 04/15/08)