Case Cover
Dragoneer's Aria
Case Cover
Publisher: NIS America
Release Date: August 21, 2007
Number of Players: 1 - 4
Wi-fi Mode: Ad - Hoc
When I heard about this game, I didn't know if I should get it or not. Read a lot of mixed reviews for it as people were calling it as Blade Dancer two with some of the errors fixed from that game. Although I had Blade Dancer in my collection before the Dragoneer's Aria was out (didn't play it yet at the time), the artwork attracted me. Since RPGs for the PSP didn't have a big collection, I decided to get this used after Amazon.ca took too long to ship the game to me even though it was in stock. I was lucky enough to get it from EB Games as used copies weren't easy at the time.
About the game
Dragoneer's Aria is an original PSP RPG game. The firmware requirement is 3.40.
In the past, the Holy Dragon was annihilated by the Black Dragon. However, his soul gave birth to six new dragons. With the help of the Dragoons, they sealed up the Black Dragon & protect the world. Valen Kessler is about to graduate on being a Dragoon from the academy. At the graduation ceremony, it gets interrupted by a Black Dragon appearing & destroying Granadis, the capital city. The Water Dragon, who was in attendance for the ceremony, attacks the Black Dragon but is defeated. When the Black Dragon left, Valen finds a mysterious girl named Euphe Ralm who somehow obtained the Water Dragon's orb. Because of the Black Dragon, Valen & Euphe are assigned to protected the world's dragon & solve the mystery of the Black Dragon's sudden attack.
Graphics
The game uses 3D graphics & they aren't too bad as they seem to be close to the PS2's. The polygons are quite smooth, but get choppy when you get a close up of the characters. These usually occur in the cutscenes. The backgrounds are pretty rich, but plain as if there isn't a lot of details put into it. It's quite flat for some reason.
The character movements on the field is a bit slow. It felt more like jogging. Luckily, you can use Valen's field skill to make him run for a cost of Mana, the game's MP system.
As for the text & icons, they are quite clear. The characters aren't stretched & quite readable for its size.
Music & Sounds
The sounds effects sound fake. The slashes are okay, but the cutting isn't. It sounds like something else that I can't explain. Mary's gunshots aren't realistic as well. It sounds more like banging instead.
The music is pretty boring. It's orchestra stuff & has the classical music touch to it. I'm not a fan to classical music, so I could be a little harsh on this. The victory & leveling up music wasn't fitting. It was more like sound effects & were too soft for the mood.
The game offers voices in English & Japanese. I go for the Japanese voices as I believe they are more appropriate as the game was made for a Japanese audience in mind; even though the game was released it at the same time in Japan & North America.
Gameplay
The gameplay is your traditional turn-based style RPG. You run into the fields, see a monster, then decide if you want to attack it or run depending on your level versus the monsters. Higher level monsters chase you while lower ones ignore you as you aren't there. You get to see what monsters will be attacking based on a list. The battles are pure turn based. Insert the commands you want on your characters & the order they should go at all in one round. The Mana system is your MP gauge & consumes by bar amounts depending on your special skill & magic levels. Level one takes one bar, two takes two, etc. I found this system a bit tough to use as the gauge has a limit of ten bars. You can refill Mana by using normal attacks. Problem with this is that a bar consist of 100 energy. Normal attacks refill 50 energy. So, two normal attacks equals one bar. I had a lot of problems with this until I got Mary Murray & used her Mana Boost skill to refill my Mana. Another method is using the Guard skill to refill Mana.
The Guard skill is an interesting one. Using Guard will lessen the damage you take from enemies. However, to successfully guard, the game makes you play a roulette where you have to hit the blue gems. The more gems hit, the better. However, miss one & it resets all the ones you hit correctly. The game gives you a fair time frame to do this. But, I was very hard for me to hit them. Timing is critical & it took me a long time to figure it out. Even when I do, I still had problems. Mainly because of the speed. Although I rarely use it, people say it's very crucial in the game; mainly because of Mana. This skill does level up by the way.
The Dragon Orbs are used for Dragon Skills. The more you use on each character, the stronger it becomes. Each have an elemental property. Luminescence are used for magic & must be equipped on your equipment slots. It's kind of like the materia system from Final Fantasy VII. These too level up based on the usage. As for equipment, they don't seem to be great as the number of slots are limited & they don't seem to give much defensive powers for some reason. You are limited to wearing one equipment item too.
The leveling process isn't too bad as I thought. You level up every 500 experience points. Even when you get stronger, the weakest monsters will give up 15 points for sure. So if you come across powerful monsters that are starting to give you 15 points, you can go for weaker monsters as they will give the same amount.
The camera view isn't too bad. I like the reset option to fix the camera view. But the rotation of the camera isn't great. Because of the flat fields, I didn't know I was running into circles or into something close by. However, I think this game has the best camera feature from all the PSP games I've played so far in terms of resetting it.
The learning curve isn't too bad. I managed to play it well with the difficultly of using the Mana system at first. Plus, I read the manual first before playing. Even with the crafting system, it was very easy to pick up. However, I rarely used this skill. You get to use this skill when you pick up recipes in the game. However, the ingredients to make the item isn't easy to get from my personal experience. After getting all the dragon orbs, I only made one item. I have no idea to where to get the other items as they don't seem to show up for me.
The loading in this game is reasonable. However, it loads when you go into buildings or to a different field map or dungeon area. The loading can take around 10 to 15 seconds. The fastest I got was around six. Loading for battles is very minimal to none. It seldom comes up, which is good as the gameplay isn't disrupted.
The CG cutscenes can be long at times depending on how the story flows. Some cutscenes can take around a couple of minutes while some can be around seven minutes long. You can't skip the cutscenes, so it can be a pain if you are retrying a battle or replaying the game again.
For saving, you need to go to save points to save the game. There is one in every map with the exception of the boss & dragon lair areas. So saving isn't a big problem. The only problem is where you are in a battle or during a cutscene. Some battles are quite long by the way. This is probably due to low levels or poor equipment.
For the story, it's pretty interesting. However, it's not too enjoyable at times when you are using the Japanese voices with English subtitles. The reason for it is the names for some of the characters are different for both languages which can throw you off. Plus, I think the translations aren't done right. Although my Japanese isn't "all that", I get the impression that the English subtitles are missing some content or redoing the whole line(s). But I felt the story has some nice surprising elements & twists along the way. But character development is very shallow here. When you get to the ending, you can pretty much this problem. After sealing the dark orb & watching the rest of the ending, I was like "that's it?!" Although it completes the story, it would have been better to expand on it & see what the characters are doing after saving the world.
Extras, Bonuses, & Secrets
Extras are mainly the co-op ad-hoc feature where you can have up to four players playing the Dragooner mode. This mode is where you turn evil, fight dragons, & obtain items that can't be found in the single player mode.
Replay Value
The game lasts about 20 - 30 hours. Because it's an RPG with one ending, I don't see how you would play this game again in a short period of time. I can only assume you would go back to it if you are into creating new items or want the Dragooner Mode. For me, it took longer as I found myself level grinding a lot due to poor defense equipment & dying a lot. After completing the game, the game will ask you if you want to save. Saving will allow you to fight the final boss again with a higher level since the final boss does give you a lot of experience points to raise your characters up a level. I don't seen much purpose of that though.
Overall Conclusion
Dragoneer's Aria is an average RPG game. This game can be quite fun, but it's also a pain as well. You really need to do a lot of level grinding in this game. Although the number of points to level up is 500 which looks small, it's actually a challenge in finding the right monsters to level you up fast. I've heard you need to be level 99 by the time you reach the final boss. I managed to complete the game with a level 97 as the lowest.
On a scale of ten, Dragoneer's Aria receives a seven. The game is fairly fun at the start, but can be boring very quick. This is because of the level grinding & not using the Mana system properly. If you don't mind the grinding, this game can be fun. Plus, if you use the Mana & Guard system effectively, I really think this game will give you some great enjoyment. Being an average RPG fan, I didn't really get a kick out of it. It was more of a chore for me than playing. At times, I would pick it up to level grinding & later move on to a different game.
Last updated on March 25, 2008