Players take control of a boy named Lance as he sets out to save the world from imminent destruction.
Full Review
Blade Dancer: Lineage of Light Review
By, Josh Ferguson
Backdrop
.hack Part 1 Infection (Dot Hack) begins with a bang. Something disastrous happens to your character‘s real world friend, while innocently playing a 20 million-subscriber base, wildly popular online RPG game (MMORPG), The World. To unravel the mystery of your friend’s misfortune, you become an online, ingame rogue hacker, exploring every corner of The World, even some virus-infected ones.
The hero is armed with the special skills of Data Drain and Gate Hack, and some colorful, talented fellow adventurers to fill the two other available party slots. Different adventurers must accompany you depending on the plot‘s development. You have some control over the others in your party, including upgrading them through trades or gifts. You can play only a single class, Twin Blade. Other characters are from different classes, with varied strengths and weaknesses, from a mage type (Wavemaster) to a bully (Heavy Axeman).
Gameplay
Gameplay takes place in three principal areas – towns, fields, and dungeons. Towns house The World’s servers. There, the player can save the game, buy magic scrolls and useful and unique items, store items, buy equipment, and talk and trade with lots of other players in character online. One town has an unusual ranch to check out, a patent homage to an enduring feature of just about every Final Fantasy.
The town’s Chaos Gate provides instant teleportation to a particular wide-open Field, containing monster encounter hotspots, a mystical spring, treasure, and lots of mysterious food. You enter three distinct keywords, some known at the game‘s onset, and others learned through play. Whatever keywords are entered, the difficulty level of the destination is helpfully revealed. This prevents a low-level party from being massacred. Once the keywords are entered, you travel through the Chaos Gate. (You can enter specific keywords learned to continue the plot, do side quests, or do unlimited exploring. Or, you can instruct the Gate to enter random keywords, and take your chances. There‘s also an option to enter any keywords you wish from a word list.) Every Field houses a single Dungeon. The dungeons, where you spend much of the game fighting for your life, are not overly large in size, and always range between three and five average levels.
Many have compared Dot Hack to Phantasy Star Online Episode I and II (PSO) on the Gamecube. Let us gently discredit this. We feel Dot Hack has far better graphics than PSO. The Fields and Dungeons contain many colorful, over stylized backdrops and settings, including weather effects. Dot Hack’s monsters resemble the beautifully-drawn monsters of the later Final Fantasy’s. Dot Hack’s world is gigantic with a seeming infinite number of locations to explore. PSO’s world is relatively small, and plot is threadbare, with meaningless, though fun, side quests, which instill no enthusiasm in the player. Dot Hack’s plot is deep and complex, with each subplot advancing the story just a little bit further. (Remember though, the end of this game in no way comes close to wrapping up the story, to be completed in the three games to be released later this year.) One visual treat, however, was lifted directly from PSO – the cascading rings that accompany the teleportation of characters to and from different areas.
Combat
Dot Hack’s combat engine can best be described as modified real-time. Much like the action-RPG, Kingdom Hearts, button mashing can be effective to beat monsters. Monster combat icons appear as large yellow twirling landmarks. As you approach, the landmark dissolves, monsters come at you big-time, and, undoubtedly, players will feel a healthy adrenaline rush. Some of Dot Hack’s many monsters do not stand around waiting to be pummeled, rather some you need to catch. Dot Hack lets you turn combat almost into a turn-based affair. The player needs only to hit Triangle in the middle of battle to pause the game instantly. From there the player can give orders to the others in the party, anything from healing someone, reviving another, casting a spell, designating a target monster. Without jeopardizing your party from the hailstorm of monster blows, combat becomes a calmer, more strategic, experience. This will help the many action-challenged. Camera angles play a big role in successful combat. You must be facing a monster to do any damage. As in many games, manipulating opposing environmental elements, like fire vs. water, is a key to successful monster combat.
Dot Hack’s cyberspace setting provides a wealth of Wow-inducing outbursts. The Data Drain option in combat is a great example. When a monster’s approaches zero, the player can Data Drain to reduce a horrendous, gigantic steel robot, for example, into a sniveling, puny monster, easily defeated with a single blow. Data Drain always results in a nifty, rare item or essential Virus Cores so you can Gate Hack areas of The World now closed, but needing investigation. One bad side effect – if you defeat, a Data Drained monster, but a single experience point is earned. One REALLY bad side effect – if you Data Drain too often without giving the skill a rest, you may overload and explode. Game Over. In the case of Boss monsters, Data Drain works the same, but what remains is no sniveling puny monster, but a full-blooded slightly less tough monster. All of this makes for interesting and captivating combat, a large part of the game.
Fresh Features
Dot Hack is replete with new and interesting features that kept us riveted.
To start, the entire background and story of a real world gamer becoming a rascal hacker, penetrating deep into a virus-infected online game, is quite novel. Combine this with Dot Hack’s emulating the look and feel of an online game universe. (Message traffic on the web shows many gamers mistakenly believe Dot Hack is a real online MMORPG, along with monthly fees! No real Internet connection is required.)
Just like in the real word, Dot Hack replicates your excitement level when “New” appears before a popular forum or on your email screen. Some of the game involves receiving emails as the plot develops, as well as new, crucial information surfacing on The World’s Board. (Look out for emails challenging you to a strange game of Tag.) The online game world looks very familiar with a bunch of characters wandering around the game’s towns, with the ubiquitous balloon icons talking typical “trash” to each other, even criticizing “newbies“.
Combat grippingly called for surprisingly strategic decision-making to succeed, not related to the usual attack or defend choices. Do you go for experience and upgrade your character or try for some special equipment or a Virus Core, vital to Gate Hacking? The innovative control of other party members became second nature to us after some practice. The game rewards a player taking chances, like entering a Field or Dungeon rated 5 levels above the player’s current level. On the other hand, the game scoffed at players entering areas much lower rated the their current level, by awarding negligible experience points for victory.
Dot Hack takes progress reports to a new level, by slowly unlocking books that contain much in the way of statistics and information. There’s even a monster compendium with tips for defeating them.
Some might complain about the minimal “Save Game” ability, but we thrived on it. You explore a very hostile cyberspace environment without the facility to save. Only in a server-hosting town is saving possible at the local Recorder. We may be a solitary voice in the Wilderness, but we like this throwback to the good old RPG days. Those of you old enough to remember the Wizardry series, may recall those fingernail-biting multi-combat treks back to the Castle just to save the game. In case you’re really stuck deep in a dungeon, a common item will teleport you to the outdoor field, from where you can simply gate back to town from the command menu.
Many pieces of equipment come with distinctive powerful attack, healing, and status skills, essential to combat dominance. The player must tradeoff whether to equip something that will raise defense or offense or something less vigorous that lets you use a powerful skill. Trading is the most successful way to upgrade equipment.
In a first, Dot Hack comes with a 45 minute anime video. This gives some great background on what’s going on in The World, as well as provide clues for completing the game. In a nice twist, voiceovers for game speech can be set for Japanese or English presentation. Listening to the authentic Japanese voices really keeps you glued to the game.
Though some may scoff at what follows as meaningless, we liked the game’s unlocking of some nifty new “toys” to like, some only available when the game is cleared. You can unlock many different background music play lists. Tired of creepy tunes, just switch to something more upbeat, or futuristic. Just like real world gamers, who constantly change their desktop wallpaper, new and different wallpapers are unlocked along the way. Some are concept art of characters, while others are full blown anime renditions of the characters. This makes for great fun, and seems to pump additional energy into the game. As you progress over a dozen special cut scenes or movies will become viewable after defeating the game.
Though Dot Hack’s extras and new wrinkles enhance the RPG game experience, much of the gameplay will ring true to those who enjoy RPG‘s. Expect plenty of exploration in a huge 3D world, frequent monster combat, tons of treasure to earn and discover, upgrading your character’s weapons and armor, and needing to level before tackling pivotal story dungeons. The status screens for the characters and all equipment are well laid out and easy to grasp.
Time for Completion
Game length in hours always concerns many purchasers. A short RPG normally takes a lot of flack, and many online are asking about Dot Hack‘s time for completion. (Some have questioned whether Bandai should have released a single 80 hour game for $50, rather than four 20-hour games for $200 for a single story. This matter is beyond the scope of this review, but our high opinion of this game as a standalone is obvious.) Our experience, playing the plot without doing side quests or extra exploration, is in the 12 to 15-hour range. Players side-questing and extensively exploring, aside from the main plot, can expect to spend 25 hours to complete the game. You can even continue to advance your character, after game completion, to get a jump start on Part 2 due in May. In the next game, your character can be imported from Part 1.
Furthermore, imagine trying to explore every nook and cranny of the fields and dungeons accessible by a large number of 3-word combinations. Doing that would put the game in the 50-hour range, if not more. However, at a certain point, new items dry up, and a single experience point is earned for any defeated monster, no matter how tough.
Shortcomings
While, as is evident above, there is much to recommend in Dot Hack, certain concerns to varying degrees deserve mention.
From the “Why oh why did they leave this out?“ File. Pregame game board traffic and information about the Japanese version released months ago had many salivating for replaying the game in “parody” mode. This mode apparently converted all Dot Hack’s game world characters into satirical comedians. Sorry to say, this highly-anticipated feature is missing from the version released here.
The game requires massive amounts of button pressing. Every item or treasure uncovered from combat victories or exploration (opening chests, searching expired adventure remains, collecting food for Grunty’s, as examples) must be confirmed with a button press. When there could be 50-100 such occurrences in a single dungeon or field, over the course of the game, finger cramps seem inevitable. Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance also required lots of bashing for buried treasure and chests, but the items literally flew into your inventory, a much better way to handle this.
The manual is woefully terse and lacking in some crucial information and guidance. While the ingame tutorials fill in many of the gaps, one extremely important gameplay feature is missing from both the manual and tutorials – instructions on control your characters directly during combat.
Final Word
We got a kick out of Dot Hack. The feeling of “just one more dungeon” dominated our lives for the 3 days to completion. The engaging environment held our attention without much effort. The strategic nature of combat, plus the convoluted plot kept us going for hours on end. The constant unlocking of both frivolous and important gameplay features created a “what’s next” anticipation. Now, if I could only read Japanese better, Dot Hack Part 2 is already out in Japan!
Final Grade: B
While the PSP has seen a decent quantity of RPGs as of late, the problem is that the quality of many of these games is merely average at best. One of the latest RPGs to be released for the handheld is from NIS America and titled Blade Dancer: Lineage of Light. Is this the RPG that PSP fans have been eagerly awaiting? Read on to find out more.
The story of Blade Dancer: Lineage of Light follows a young man by the name of Lance Bennet. Early in the game, we are shown that Lance has set off on a boat in search of an adventure. Also, it seems that Lance has been troubled by visions of a young red-haired girl, begging for his help. Not quite understanding these visions, Lance continues forth on his adventure and arrives at the mysterious island of Foo, where he sets out to test his skills as a swordsman. Of course, like any RPG, a few other characters will join Lance, and a whole storyline about trying to save the world will be revealed.
If you have played an RPG before, then the storyline in Blade Dancer will seem quite familiar. These days it is common to encounter a story where the game’s main character sets out on an adventure so that he may test his skills. The game has a decent cast of characters, but they are also somewhat cliché among the genre. These include the energetic, clueless, youth-seeking adventurer who ends up saving the world, the quiet but massively strong powerhouse, and even a young woman suffering from amnesia. Aside from that, the game doesn’t feature too much interaction among your party, leading to times where the adventure can be somewhat dull and boring. In other words, as long as you’re not looking for a unique and exciting storyline with Blade Dancer, then you may not be disappointed.
As far as the combat goes, Blade Dancer is somewhat different than the traditional RPG. Rather than featuring random battles, the enemies actually appear on the screen as floating skulls, and if they notice your character wandering the map, they will often attack–that is if they don’t see your party as being much of a threat. There are a few different colors of skulls, which indicate the strength of those enemies. For example, the red ones are supposed to be tough, while the white ones are fair. On the other hand, the blue skulls are the weakest and easiest type of skull. These blue skulls will often retreat if your party comes near, but these blue skulls aren’t stupid. Rather than just merely running away from your party, a skull will often seek out other skulls and then try to gang up on your party. This is made even more difficult because it isn’t possible at any point to actually pause the game, and enemies can also quickly respawn and attack while you are cycling through your menus. If you’re thinking, “wow, that sounds a little bit harsh,” well, at times it definitely can be–especially when it comes to the beginning, because chances are you will be spending a couple hours just on the leveling up process so that you may be able to successfully battle some of the earlier enemies.
The game’s combat is basically turn-based, with something known as a lunar clock next to each of the names. Once the clock completely revolves around, an exclamation point will appear, indicating that the character can perform an action. Each of the game’s characters have the same basic moves that usually appear in RPGs, including physical attacks, items, the ability to retreat from battle, and special abilities known as lunabilities. These different lunabilities range from healing spells and physical attack spells, to stat increase spells and group lunabilities that are very powerful attacks. Unlike many RPGs, your characters don’t have MP, and instead their abilities come from the use of the lunar gauge. As your characters deal damage or receive damage, the lunar gauge will begin to fill. Of course, each of your lunabilities requires a certain amount of lunar power on the gauge, and once that amount is acquired, that ability may then be used. However, the twist to this whole thing is that the enemies also use the lunar power to perform their abilities. This adds some nice strategic elements to the combat, and with the large quantity and different types of lunabilities, it adds a little extra to the gaming experience.
Aside from the combat, one of the strongest areas of the game would definitely be the item creation. Each of the weapons found throughout Blade Dancer has a certain amount of life, and as you continue to use them in battle they will begin to dull until eventually they break. Rather than continuously purchasing weapon after weapon, the game allows your characters to craft their weapons and items if you have the appropriate recipe on how to create that certain item. These recipes can be acquired by taking the item to an appraiser, who will then separate and hand out the recipe. It is also possible to try and create items without the use of a recipe, but you may often encounter combinations that don’t work. Luckily, when a recipe doesn’t fit, the items aren’t lost, but occasionally when you are using a recipe to create an item, the process will fail and you might lose an item. It is also nice that you can basically craft items at any point in time, which will definitely help make the journey a little easier.
To aide the player as they travel throughout the game, the select button can be used to open up the world map. While it is always nice to have a map, the problem is that it could definitely be a little more detailed and maybe list out the names of different locations, including shops, towns, and trails. This would have definitely been helpful, because occasionally I would find myself backtracking and going completely in the opposite direction than I should have. Plus, with the large amount of walking that the game requires, it would be very nice to know for sure that you were traveling in the correct direction.
Concerning the graphics, Blade Dancer is an overall good-looking title. The character models for each of the game’s playable characters are detailed and look nice, as well as the character models for each of the enemies. Character animations are also pretty nice looking. Sadly, though, many of the enemy character models are constantly recycled in the early part of the game, but they still look nice. Many of the game’s environments are done beautifully, but some of them are occasionally recycled throughout the adventure. On the other hand, the towns aren’t quite as detailed, but they are still decent looking. There are also some noticeable pauses during the beginning of combat and when you are leaving an area.
As far as the sound department goes, Blade Dancer is somewhat of a mixed blessing. While the game’s soundtrack isn’t done poorly, there really isn’t anything remarkable or memorable. Plus, the quality of the voice work ranges from good to poor, with the main character being one of the worst and most annoying. While some of the characters aren’t quite as bad, the overall quality is average at best.
While Blade Dancer is certainly a game that can be enjoyed alone, there is also an opportunity to play the game alongside your friends. The game allows for up to four people to join up and play through the storyline together. If you do play through the game co-op, there will be some opportunities to pick up certain weapons that aren’t available in the single-player mode.
With its somewhat cliché story and characters, this certainly isn’t an RPG without its share of flaws. Still, with its interesting combat system and great item creation, Blade Dancer: Lineage of Light is an RPG that definitely deserves to be checked out by any PSP owner who is a fan of the genre.
Final Verdict: 86%
