Blade Dancer: Lineage of Light

"Generic RPG with no depth in story meets high tech battle system."

Pros:
-Lunar Gauge adds a nice twist to combat
-No random battles
-Skulls can converge into one boss quality baddy
-There really is no pause
-Lots of side quests
-Crafting system is great
-Gold is not a necessity

Cons:
-Fable-esque economy due to crafting system being broken
-No overworld music
-No real character depth
-No story depth to an already bland story
-There really is no pause
-Weapons Break
-Slow Running
-Side Quests are rarely interesting or truly rewarding

Gameplay (8):
The game honestly shines here for the most part. The lack of random battles means you control how often you battle (at least to some extent), which is nice because you can try to avoid all battles just to get back to town and get supplies or weapons. The skulls however, are not stationary as seen in some games such as .Hack. Instead, they chase you or run from you depending on the levels of your characters, how many characters you have, how many enemies form the Skull's team, the power of each enemy and so on. This may seem rather dull, but when you over power the skulls later on, they will begin to seek out new allies. And then the fun begins, allowing you to fight a boss quality creature without having to fight an actual boss. Meaning you get a lot of EXP for fighting these things, not to mention a good bit of gold and/or items. Of course, you can't pause to heal to prepare against these things because the skulls will be able to attack you while you're in a menu. While this is nice at times, sometimes it can be downright frustrating because you get killed since you weren't able to heal.

While this sounds like a lot of work to do all this skull hunting, it can be downright fun because of the somewhat innovative battle system. Basically, it's the same type of system you see in Final Fantasy in that it's turn based, but the enemies don't wait for you to make your move. Also, you don't have individual mana. Instead, you have the Lunar Gauge, which is really the polite way of saying pooled mana. The pooled mana means that both you AND your enemies draw from it, which makes battling strategic to say the least. Also, speaking of sounds, the music is very good. When you hear it. Which is only in towns and in battles. The lack of music in the overworld is a very huge flaw for this game.

When you get tired of whacking your way through the main quest (And you will), feel free to talk to the NPCs and see if they have any jobs for you (Note, you have to talk to EVERY NPC between every major story event to see if they have a new quest for you). If they do, you can take it and gain your reward. Which is more gold... And of course an add-on to your Lunar Gauge. The biggest problem with Side Quests is that while there are so many, they are generic and for the most part unrewarding. There are a few that reward you with good weapons or lots of Lunar Gauge points, but outside of that, you get the gold you don't really need.

Of course, one of the downfalls is that your swords and other weapons break over time. This means you will spend a lot of time using the sick Crafting System since you don't want to spend 15k plus for 5 new swords. Also, your character doesn't run very fast at all. The good news is that about halfway through the game, you get a teleport system of sorts, so it makes it more bearable. Additionally, the problem with Crafting is that the in game economics aren't very good. In fact, it's very easy to mass a lot of gold. Not that you'll use it, which leads me to wonder why they make Gold so easy to get if you never use it. Whatever, it makes your good swords and the like available.

And of course, what good would an RPG be without a story? Not that this one's story is particularly interesting or even unique for that matter. Bad guy comes and oppresses the world. Good guy comes up and beats bad guy. Bad guy disappears for a time. Skip ahead 1000 years to where you have to save the world and you have a generic story. Sounds exciting. And it would be, if the characters themselves had any depth at all. I'll leave Gameplay on that note.

Graphics (7):
The graphics of this game aren't really outstanding nor are they really horrible. They are like most everything else in this game: Mediocre. They did add a nice sun effect though, but outside of that, they look generic.

Sound (6):
There are so many problems with the sounds (or lack thereof in the overworld). First of all, is the problem with no music in the overworld. It wouldn't have taken much more space or time to insert a corny little theme along the way. Then we have the voice acting. 3 of the 4 main characters cannot voice act, which is sad because it really overshadows the voice acting of the one character who can as well as the other characters who talk as they do not fail at voice acting.

Value (8): Despite the poor story and sound quality of the game, in addition to some of the other minor annoyances, this game still delivers a solid bang due to the gameplay it offers. The gameplay is quite solid and is worth mentioning again here as it literally keeps the game from being another horrible game period.

Tilt (8): Despite the bad reviews from the professional reviewers, I have to say this game is really a solid overall package in terms of uniqueness. There are a lot of ideas here that work as well as a lot of potential to be good. In short, this game is a game crying to be an outstanding RPG but failing to actually achieve this.

Final thoughts: All in all, if you own a PSP, you should consider looking at this title. I'd advise renting or borrowing over buying as it's 40 bucks to buy this game and you may not like it enough to consider the 40 bucks well spent. However, if you don't own a PSP, I wouldn't buy one just for this game.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/14/06