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chuckroYou’re playing the leaders of a mercenary troop hired to defend the kingdom against the invading “Dragon King” who has absorbed the soul of a dragon god for power. He’s got a grudge against the Francian royal family; and unfortunately they’re idiots, so it’s up to you to save the kingdom.
This has a 3D view and looks like it’s the same engine as Dimension Cross, but no jumping this time. This has a job system, though I didn’t bother changing the characters off of their initial jobs and only found one additional job during the main game that they could have switched to, anyway. The battle system has a decent amount of variety to it, with an assortment of character- and job-specific abilities and the “dragon soul” system that lets you spend MP/turn for enhanced stats and access to a limit break style super-attack. Like many EXE-Create games, there are titan, fast and metal versions of enemies who’ll periodically pop up.
The dungeons…are there. No puzzles, only a handful of doors and switches; basically space-filling paths with dead-ends holding treasure. Each has teleporters at the beginning, middle and end; and most of them you’ll revisit for a sidequest or two. Several of the dungeons have bonus dangerous areas with higher-level enemies and a bonus boss that you can fight for a high-end weapon. (I was deeply annoyed that the second one gave me a top-level knife, when I wasn’t using a character who could use knives.)
The difficulty stays reasonable as long as you do the sidequests and engage with the equipment upgrade system: Specifically, that you combine your equipment into differently-named upgrades, not just stacking the pluses together. (There’s some kind of limitation on when you’re allowed to upgrade to certain levels, but I was never able to figure out what it was. My best guess is that it’s plot-based.) You get IAP points after every battle, though there isn’t much to buy with them—there are XP/GP doublers that you’ll have finished the game before you can afford, and a high-level equipment lottery that isn’t necessary or particularly likely to be helpful. You get plenty of tickets for the low-level weapon lottery, but in practice that just gives you fodder for stacking bonuses on your main weapons, which you get plenty of during gameplay anyway.
I feel like I’ve commented that some of the other EXE-Create games have felt “overstuffed” with too many systems. This one felt reasonably stuffed? Like, there were plenty of things to engage with but I wasn’t overwhelmed by them, and they were decent about the tutorials.
Plot-wise, it feels like they wanted to make a Fire Emblem game, because the big cutscene events involve armies maneuvering and strategic plans for the battles. But what they had the system for was a standard turn-based jrpg, so you hear about the armies moving and cutting off each other’s escapes and all that, but you go through a dungeon fighting random battles and then fight the general as a standard boss battle. The twists and turns to the plot aren’t anything new, but they work decently well, if a little formulaically. It’s actually interesting that they give a lot of the Dragon King’s generals names and personalities but then you kill them after their one appearance. One of your female characters is introduced as the “shameless tease” who immediately starts sexually harassing the male main character, so that’s a thing. (As usual, the translation is a bit clunky in places and there are some odd word choices and speaking styles. I somehow doubt “teaser” was what they called her in the original.)
SPOILERS: The hero is actually a bastard of the previous king, but he keeps it a secret from everybody after he finds out. The Dragon King is actually being manipulated by the guardian dragon, who’s actually evil and becomes the final boss. The mystery girl is the Dragon King’s sister, and in the normal ending she sacrifices herself to seal away the evil dragon. There’s a postgame true ending, but I had my fill and stopped at the normal one.
Overall: This is a perfectly cromulent jrpg experience. Nothing brilliant or particularly innovative, but it manages balance pretty well and chugs along at a decent pace.
This has a 3D view and looks like it’s the same engine as Dimension Cross, but no jumping this time. This has a job system, though I didn’t bother changing the characters off of their initial jobs and only found one additional job during the main game that they could have switched to, anyway. The battle system has a decent amount of variety to it, with an assortment of character- and job-specific abilities and the “dragon soul” system that lets you spend MP/turn for enhanced stats and access to a limit break style super-attack. Like many EXE-Create games, there are titan, fast and metal versions of enemies who’ll periodically pop up.
The dungeons…are there. No puzzles, only a handful of doors and switches; basically space-filling paths with dead-ends holding treasure. Each has teleporters at the beginning, middle and end; and most of them you’ll revisit for a sidequest or two. Several of the dungeons have bonus dangerous areas with higher-level enemies and a bonus boss that you can fight for a high-end weapon. (I was deeply annoyed that the second one gave me a top-level knife, when I wasn’t using a character who could use knives.)
The difficulty stays reasonable as long as you do the sidequests and engage with the equipment upgrade system: Specifically, that you combine your equipment into differently-named upgrades, not just stacking the pluses together. (There’s some kind of limitation on when you’re allowed to upgrade to certain levels, but I was never able to figure out what it was. My best guess is that it’s plot-based.) You get IAP points after every battle, though there isn’t much to buy with them—there are XP/GP doublers that you’ll have finished the game before you can afford, and a high-level equipment lottery that isn’t necessary or particularly likely to be helpful. You get plenty of tickets for the low-level weapon lottery, but in practice that just gives you fodder for stacking bonuses on your main weapons, which you get plenty of during gameplay anyway.
I feel like I’ve commented that some of the other EXE-Create games have felt “overstuffed” with too many systems. This one felt reasonably stuffed? Like, there were plenty of things to engage with but I wasn’t overwhelmed by them, and they were decent about the tutorials.
Plot-wise, it feels like they wanted to make a Fire Emblem game, because the big cutscene events involve armies maneuvering and strategic plans for the battles. But what they had the system for was a standard turn-based jrpg, so you hear about the armies moving and cutting off each other’s escapes and all that, but you go through a dungeon fighting random battles and then fight the general as a standard boss battle. The twists and turns to the plot aren’t anything new, but they work decently well, if a little formulaically. It’s actually interesting that they give a lot of the Dragon King’s generals names and personalities but then you kill them after their one appearance. One of your female characters is introduced as the “shameless tease” who immediately starts sexually harassing the male main character, so that’s a thing. (As usual, the translation is a bit clunky in places and there are some odd word choices and speaking styles. I somehow doubt “teaser” was what they called her in the original.)
SPOILERS: The hero is actually a bastard of the previous king, but he keeps it a secret from everybody after he finds out. The Dragon King is actually being manipulated by the guardian dragon, who’s actually evil and becomes the final boss. The mystery girl is the Dragon King’s sister, and in the normal ending she sacrifices herself to seal away the evil dragon. There’s a postgame true ending, but I had my fill and stopped at the normal one.
Overall: This is a perfectly cromulent jrpg experience. Nothing brilliant or particularly innovative, but it manages balance pretty well and chugs along at a decent pace.
