"Good, but..."

Introduction
Yeah, there is always a but... and in this game, it means that probably most people will never have the chance of really playing this game. This was already released in the japanese console Wonderswan Color (which is totally unknown outside Japan...), and as you may imagine the game isn't very famous or anything. However, it has some quite interesting details, which make him a game quite... different, i shall say!

Gameplay
If you ever saw some images from this game, you should have noticed that it seems to be an rpg. Yeah, that's somehow true, but not completely... Once you start playing, you will easily notice that the operations that are performed in the field can be split up between two types... "Events" and "Moves". The first one lets you interact with the scenario, in order to get new items or activate certain events, which may grant you interesting things. As for the second one, it lets you move into the next screen. What? I mean, this may be kinda like a rpg, but you won't be able to move your characters alone across the scenario. The place where you will be playing is split into areas and screens, being each area a set of some screens joined together. Then, on certain events you may get to play some battles (which even occur quite often, despite this game not having any random battles), in which you will be able to choose which items and weapons you wanna use on that battle (up to a maximum of 4, if I remember correctly), and each character can use all the items we wants. However, you will get better results if you have a character use the weapons he likes the most (for example, having the main character of this game use a sword...) and you will even be able to use better Overdrive attacks (those are special attacks that can only be used when your Overdrive bar reaches certain points, and always seem to cause a good damage on your enemies), which you will surely need if you want to get good results in battles. Despite all this, all weapons (except for the main character's sword) seem to have a maximum amount of times that they can be used, which isn't... how can I say, very logical! Do you imagine yourself in the heat of battle, and... run out of swords? I mean, you would only surely use a sword, and apart from that one you wouldn't need any other sword, since this one isn't destroyed easily, I guess... However, and as in most of this type of games, sometimes you will need to know what to do next and where to go... And perhaps you don't know japanese, which will make you somehow angry, getting to a certain point of the game and not managing to continue, since you can't read the board that has a certain tip, required to come across the area you are just facing.

Story
I cannot be very sure about the story in this game (hey, it has lots and lots of kanji, and unfortunately I can't read most of them...), but as far as I noticed it appears that the main character's friend and himself got split up in a strange battle, and now you were taken to another place... What next? You should play the game, if you wanna know! ;-)

Graphics/Sound
If comparing the ones in this console with the Wonderswan Color ones, you should see that, despite the graphics in this one are still great (like what happened in the old Wonderswan Color console...), they are somehow above the best rpg games released for gameboy advance. However, they still have lots of nice things, like lots and lots of CG images, all of them drawn in a way that would remind you of japanese anime. As for the sound, it is also quite good, as sometimes you can listen to the characters' voices, when they are performing their Overdrive attacks. The musics in the levels are also quite good, but the ones that usually appear in battles may turn out to become boring after a while.

Play Time/Replayability
If you don't speak japanese, it may surely take you a long time to finish this game. Even if you do, sometimes you may have an hard time with certain battles, making you rethink your strategy and try again later. As for replay value, since there is an option in the main menu that says "Extra Contents", you can easily imagine that this game has a lot of unlockables (like a CG images gallery, and many other things...), making this game have an higher replay value.

Final Recommendation
A quite good game, and you should think of getting it if you want a game that is certainly different from most of the ones you see these days. However, I doubt that an english version of this game may ever be released, so be sure to learn japanese before buying this, in order to fully enjoy it, ok?

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/28/04