Unfortunately for the poor, bumbling Baku, who later has his name forcefully changed to "Tumble" by his newfound compatriot Rumble, he accidentally lets the last seven keys get away from him after he unlocks two of the nine Temple Doors. Now an unlikely dream team, Rumble and Tumble must travel about the Sonno Island and venture into the dreams of all of the local inhabitants, in an effort to find the special dreams that hold the seven missing keys. And how will they do such a marvelous thing, you ask? It's fairly simple to explain; as I said before, Tumble is a "Baku", a mythological Japanese creature that can enter the subconscience of any living being to feast on their dreams. For, in order to get the Dream Stone, and what he most desires, Rumble finds that without the remaining keys to the Temple of Dreams, Rumble can never truly reach his goal. So, however reluctant he is to do so, he must join forces with the strange creature he has just met--whom he obviously doesn't like--and travel through the dreamworlds of the local villagers. However, unbeknownst to the Treasure Hunter and his newfound companion, they are having an unexpected and quite profound effect on the people whose dreams they enter; it also seems that the keys are just the means to an end.

  Now, those who choose to give Atlus' Dual Hearts a once-through might very well wonder why Sony Computer Entertainment chose not to publish such an excellent title in North America, especially when you consider that they funded its entire development. Fortunately for us, Atlus was kind enough to pursue the publishing rights, which is why I can now give the promising title my honest opinion and a very hearty recommendation. Now, Dual Hearts may look little better than a first-generation PlayStation 2 title, but as far as the raw gameplay is concerned, it has it all right where it counts. Playing like a refined version of the Nintendo 64 Zelda titles, Atlus' Dual Hearts allows its players the ability to freedom to wield two weapons or tools--one in each hand--and combine their numerous functions in many different ways. Let's take the default weapons as an example; the sword and the spear's functions are quite different. Both weapons have charge attacks, accessable through holding down that weapon's assigned button. Both weapons strike hard, but from near and far respectively. The sword knocks enemies back, while the spear knocks enemies sky-high. However, when both weapons are utilized in tandem, they allow Rumble to use combination attacks to keep enemies at bay...

  And even though you will primarily play as Rumble throughout Dual Hearts, there are also a few skills that can only be used by Tumble. Simply by pressing the R2 button, Rumble can jump onto Tumble's back and ride him, not only to traverse the landscape faster, but to utilize his unique skills, such as his ethereal breath, his dash attack and his ground-pound maneuver, comically entitled "Megaton Buns." Tumble is also great at defeating enemies that cannot be touched or killed by conventional means. So, scattered liberally throughout the many dreamworlds are shrubs that can be cut down by most of the weapons in Rumble's arsenal. Inside these plants live tiny little balls of dream energy called "Esamons". By knocking flying Esamons to the ground, Rumble can then pick them up, so that he can throw one at a group of hostiles. This Esamon will then encircle this horde of baddies, which causes Tumble to literally beat the tar out of these enemies in an effort to reach his tasty treat. You see, Esamons are the food of choice for a Baku, and are not only excellent snacks for Tumble, but are endowed with various elemental properties as well, including fire, ice and lightning. Later on in the game, you'll also be given a Draw Card, which allows Rumble to absorb Esamons of any element, then add that potent property to a weapon of your choosing.

  Getting back onto the subject of weapons, the action-based combat system in Dual Hearts doesn't reward players with character levels, but rather periodically doles out crucial level-ups for Rumble's wide assortment of weapons. At the second level, each weapon gains a longer point of reach, and at third level, offensive weapons become capable of producing simple combination attacks. Dual Hearts also offers its players another chance to make use of the same lock-on targeting system that made both Panzer Dragoon Saga and the 64-bit installments of Legend of Zelda such a blast to play less than five years before. However, unlike said predecessors' lock-on systems, the lock-on put to use in Dual Hearts is surprisingly analog. Gently pressing and holding the L1 button locks onto any given enemy for as long as the button is held, but a swift, firm tapping of the same button locks the view cursor onto an enemy permanently, or until the button is pressed again. And even though recent Zelda installments offered both lock-on configurations as a separate, player-switchable option, Dual Hearts manages to accommodate both button-holders and button-pressers among the gaming populous at the same time. Oh, and for those times when things get really heated in the midst of conflict and there are no life-up containers in sight, simply press and hold the L2 button down to heal the damage that Rumble has taken; the only catch of this skill is that you must give up the same number of Esamons that are currently stored in Tumble's oversized gut. You see, making sure that Tumble eats a number of Esamons not only keeps your ever-useful Baku buddy happy, but keeps Rumble at the peak of health as well--an excellent gameplay concept, nonetheless.

  Fairly smooth character animation and plentiful use of depth of field are mainstays of Dual Hearts' visual presentation. As has become common in nearly every video games made in the post-"pop-up" era, distances are drawn with less detail, yet all distant objects still bear a blurry similarity to their up-close counterparts. Dual Hearts also makes good use of real-time shadows throughout the game. These aren't just dark, round spots under the characters when they jump; though slightly pixellated, these shadows are about as close to the real thing as the developers could get using this graphics engine. Of course, these graphical features provide the player with an excellent view of both their immediate and distant surroundings, which makes traversing the game's diverse environments, whether via swimming, running or flying, a breeze. My only complaint is that swimming and flying both require a bit of readjustment after either diving or take-off, whichever the case may be. In other words, you don't quite dive deep enough to stay under initially, and you ascend just a little too high upon your maiden launch from the flight pad. Really though, these insignificant nitpicks are just that, and the game more than makes up for its couple of shortcomings by the time the ending credits roll.

  Atlus' Dual Hearts excels in many different ways, but the portion that places it far ahead of other titles in its genre is the characterization. I found myself becoming attached to every single character that I met, especially when I finally understood the reasoning behind Chiffon's silent treatment for the very first time. Just wait until the tail end of the game, because not only is it quite a touching course of events, but it also includes a rather obvious reference to a familiar character from Square's Xenogears at the end of her dream--see if you can catch it. However, the real key to the storyline behind Atlus' Dual Hearts lies not in the interaction between playable and non-playable characters, but in the subtle, yet ever-growing relationship between the game's polar opposite co-stars Rumble and Tumble. From the very first time they meet up in the Temple of Dreams, to the hilarious introduction of Black Esamons--Tumble's only known weakness and Rumble's only known excuse to kick Tumble as hard as is humanly possible--to the first time that Tumble ever scores a point by catching Rumble with his guard lowered in front of a girl, ("You're so whipped!") these two just make such a lovable duo. Though short, Dual Hearts is still oh-so-very sweet, especially as far as great characterization and an enjoyable gameplay design are concerned. So, big deal; it may very well look and play just like The Legend of Zelda, ("Look Mom, I just collected four pieces of a heart container!") but if you were the one who had to choose which game title to imitate to make this storyline work, you'd have to admit that you'd probably have done the same thing they did. So, for any would-be critics out there, just remember that Matrix Software's Alundra looked and played an awful lot like that one famous Nintendo adventure series too, and we should all know by now that there's really no fault to be found in that.
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