Dragoneer’s Aria – Very long and very slow
22.11.11 / Nippon Ichi Software, RPG, Sony PSP, Video game / Author: Kina
Tags: dragoneer's aria, review
What I asked for: A short, English RPG to act as a rest stop between UnchainBlades Rexx and Persona 2
What I got: Dragoneer’s Aria. Well, it’s in English all right. And it’s definitely an RPG. But at 89 hours and counting, it is hands down the longest RPG I’ve played this year. And it’s not just long, it’s slow. In fact it’s long because it’s slow. When the hell will this thing ever end? [EDIT: I just found out that there's an error with the PSP clock in this game: it keeps track of time even when the PSP is asleep, meaning I probably played only about 20-30 hours. Disregard future references to 89 hours.]
The Story: An evil black dragon who was sealed away has broken free and is going to destroy the world. But he can wait a couple of hours while the heroes tramp over the world trying to stop him. I’ve only seen ol’ Nidhogg twice in the whole game, and both times he wasn’t that scary. I only have the game’s word for it at this point that he’s trouble, but that’s how RPGs usually go. Aaaaanyway, our protagonist, a ladyboy named Valen, has to team up with a healer named Euphe, a loli pirate named Mary and an asshole elf named Ruslan to find the secret to Nidhogg’s powers so they can stop him once and for all.
The Slowass Battle System: Make it stop. Please. Somebody. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I estimate a full 80 of those 89 hours so far have either been spent running around fields or wasted on the most sluggish battle system I’ve ever faced in my life. It’s hard to describe length verbally, so I looked around Youtube to see if I could find an average battle. i found this minor battle which takes 10 minutes to complete:
It was only that short because there was one enemy. Take note of how every single move by every single character is sllooowly animated, how it takes 15 seconds for each magical attack to be charged up, executed and to hit its target. How each character has to recite a spell “Magic Shot Aspersion! Sicken!” before finally releasing the magic. How much time is wasted by the camera showing each character attacking/defending/being hit individually instead of showing them all together.
The Mana/Energy bar at the top acts as your MP bar. Regular attacks and successful Guards fill it up and Mana (magic, special skill, dragon skill) attacks drain it. The guy in the video plays a lot more defensively than I do and spends a lot of time on guarding and using buffs/debuffs. Level ups are plentiful and refill your HP to full, so I prefer to attack wherever possible.
Using Mary’s Mana Boost skill means I never have to guard to build up Mana either. I don’t think I’ve ever guarded in the entire game. But even with my Attacking mentality, the average field battle takes upwards of 5 minutes to complete and most boss battles take between 15 and 60 minutes (rrgh, Great Spirit). And there are plenty of both in Dragoneer’s Aria. The enemies have high HP, high defence and high attack power, and sometimes they’ll even heal themselves just to mess with you. It’s only in the last few hours or so, now that my characters have hit level 60-ish, that battles are “only” taking 2 or 3 minutes each, and even then I still have to sit through the same slow animations. This sucks.
The Slowass Everything Else: Everyone talks like the player is hard of hearing: slowly, carefully, pronouncing every word, with long pauses between each sentence. Even when something “dramatic” is happening, they take sweet time getting it out. And each line must be punctuated by some kind of look, or gesture, or head toss, which also takes a while to play out. Half the time they aren’t even saying anything worthwhile, just bickering among each other or making snide comments. *sigh*
The story is slow too. I thought T.I.T.S. was bad, but now I bow before the true masters of long drawn-out storytelling. I was very happy when the evil black dragon showed up and laid waste to the city within 5 minutes of the game starting. I thought for sure I’d make a few rounds, find out a few secrets and then kill the boss and that’d be it. More fool me, I am making a few rounds and I have found out a few secrets, but because of the slow battles and long treks, that’s taken me 89 hours. And what I’ve found out isn’t that interesting either. Why am I still doing this?
Hmm. Why am I still playing this game? Hmmmmmmmmm… I’ll have to think on that one.
aw this looked kinda interesting to be another addition to my library, oh well let’s hope the vita has greater rpgs
If the price drops below $5.00, buy it. Otherwise save your time and money.
I don’t have much hope for the Vita for the first year or two. It takes time for good RPGs to come out on any handheld/console. The first few releases are usually crap games, remakes or ports.
I remember I played this like 3 hours and I wanted to slaughter my PSP, so I stopped and went to play something better. Now I see I did what I had to do XDDD is it THAT bad? Now I’m curious… But I certainly can’t imagine myself playing this for 89 hours.
Not that bad I guess, since I was able to play it for 89 hours. I might even go back and finish it after Criminal Girls. But it’s not worth playing if you have anything better to try instead.