Reviews > Dragoneer's Aria
(PSP) 6.5
August 22, 2007
Dragoneer's Aria is, in some respects, a paint-by-numbers Japanese RPG. That's not exactly a bad thing either. With good character design and graphics, great voice acting and the overall production values of a full-sized console RPG, DA seems almost to have been shoe-horned onto the PSP. Unfortunately, despite the fact that enemies are visible and, in theory, avoidable, you'll spend much of the time getting attacked with no opportunity for escape. Add in the fact that you can only run from battles where you're STRONGER than the enemy, and you have the ingredients for massive frustration.
First, I'll cover some of DA's strong points. Juno Jeong, the art director for the Korean MMO Lineage, took over character design for DA and the results are really positive. Many people will probably criticize the relative androgyny of the main character, Valen, but this isn't anything new for Final Fantasy veterans. The rest of the characters are varied and stylishly rendered. Their distinct personalities come through, especially with the well-handled voice-acting.
Some aspects of the battle system are well-handled. Particularly, the customizability of your characters, where you level up orbs that can be exchanged among party members, and the mana system, where you perform regular attacks to build up a pool of mana from which all party members draw to perform special attacks. In addition to being customizable, your characters all retain their own utility in combat, as the orbs only provide modifiers to the native abilities of each party member.
The music and voice acting are both great, and the game shines in terms of overall presentation. There are some issues, such as the weird character animations and the long load times, but overall, DA bears the look and feel of a full console game, replete with its own well-developed style.
Unfortunately, DA also suffers from a few issues that make it harder to recommend. The afore-mentioned inability to escape from enemies in the overworld seriously discouraged me from time to time, as I would finish one difficult battle only to be attacked again immediately by another enemy, with no opportunity to flee. The result is a lot of progress being lost before the player can reach a save point. As well, the gameplay tends to devolve into a massive grindfest as you attempt to level your orbs AND your various abilities, but the frequent death due to ruthless enemies makes the process a lot more annoying.
And really, that's part of the same Japanese RPG package. Arduous and repetitive battles, good presentation and style, and a fairly cliche story all add up to a handheld game that should successfully hit that Final Fantasy sweet-spot for any gamers in need of a fix. Perhaps DA could be criticized for not really taking many chances, but if that's the game you're looking for, Dragoneer's Aria is it.
Visuals – 8.5
Audio – 8.5
Control - 9
Story – 6
Fun – 5
Value – 7.5
Style – 8.5
*Brian Schulman - Associate Editor, GameWad.com
