Blade Dancer Lineage of Light Review (PSP)

An interesting RPG that will keep you coming back.

Now RPG game play and portable games systems may seem to be a bizarre combination. The idea of gaming on the go is to give short blasts of entertainment. As such there are very few RPG style games for the PSP.

This puts Blade Dancer – Lineage of Light at both and advantage and a disadvantage. First, it means there is very little competition. On the flip side there is a reason for the lack of RPGs and so this has to work very hard to impress.

Lets start from the beginning. The game starts with your normal RPG fair. In ancient times The Dark Lord waged war against Lunadia. During this time a hero emerged, the Blade Dancer Gerard. He disappears when a new evil turns up called the Dread Knight. However soon after both the Dread Knight and the Dark Lord vanish.

Fast forward to the present and enter Lance, our main hero of the tale. He is about to start an adventure to prove himself in the land of Foo, where he will soon discover the key to the mystery and who knows what else!

Your adventure starts in the city of Jade. Here you must wander around, talking to the locals and finding a few odd jobs to build up your cash. As you wander you will gain snippets of info about the land of Foo and of what adventures could lay ahead.

Once you leave the city the game really begins. You will see floating skulls. Each skull represents a baddie of some description. You can focus on them and find out exactly what the baddie is, be it one foe or many. They are also colour coded to tell you just how dangerous they are. If the see you or you decide to engage them you are taken to the battle screen. Interestingly, this is not your usual turn based affair. it actually runs in real time. First your attack must charge, during which time you can be attacked. Once charged you can unleash an attack or an action of some description and try to destroy the enemy. Then you must wait to recharge and hope you recharge faster than the enemy. This adds a nice sense of urgency to the combat that is missing from many of these types of games.

These skulls are not daft though. If they feel outnumbered they will run away to hook up with other skulls, then hunt you down again! This is a very nice touch.

As well as basic attacks and item usage, every hit charges a lunar bar that allows you to use Lunabilities, specials that are learned as you level up.

During the game you will meet up with 3 new team members.
Gozen – a fighting giant monk
Tess – a girl who has no memory
Felis – an empath.
Not only can these members help in combat, but depending on who you set as the leader they can have an effect on the group, such as improved defence.

Another interesting aspect of the game is the crafting. Most RPG games have this, but in Blade Dancer, it is more important than normal. You can take an item to the Appraiser in a town. Once paid, they will give you a recipe for the item. With this you will be able to recreate the item as needed if you have collected the correct ingredients. This means that during the quest you are able to rearm your team with out needing to be near a town. Although this is a simple idea, it really helps keep the flow of the game.

The graphics are good, 3D third person throughout. At times the 3D scenery appears to tear, but not to badly. The landscapes and cities are all well drawn and interesting, at times the landscape is almost breathtaking. The cast are well drawn with a great anim� style. Admittedly they seem to have run out of monster models at some stage as quite often models are reused and just repainted.

On the sound front it is a mixed bag. The music is thoughtfully orchestrated and never seems to get annoying. On the other hand the voice overs are pretty bad, but then that is a downfall of many translated games.

Generally the game plays well. There are a few annoyances. For instance, there is no way to tell if an NPC has a quest for you. This means you have to talk to everyone you meet, just in case. Also there is a huge amount of backtracking needed. I spent about 4 hours in the first 5 or 6 screens.

These aside, the game is a great RPG and a welcome addition to the PSP catalogue. Don’t expect a portable World of Warcraft, Blade Dancer is nothing like that. It is a solo affair that works incredibly well on a hand-held.

If you are an RPG fan and own a PSP then I totally recommended this!

The Good: Some imaginative touches with decent roleplaying
The Bad: Combat can be a bit strange, has a generic feel at times


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Silver Y AwardSilver Y Award
4 4 / 5

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