The Playstation system was a rather nice video games system of the mid to late 90's and carried over a bit into the early 2000's. It is also the system that scored a major upset, by being the preferred system over the Nintendo 64 as before that Nintendo was usually the dominant video gaming system. One of the reasons for the win I like to think is the fact the Playstation offered video gamers more RPG titles, the most famous of them being Final Fantasy VII. Though I like every one released on the system. My favorite Final Fantasy game period is actually Final Fantasy IX, which puts me at odds with several people. This game was not created by the RPG king at the time, Square, but rather by Sony themselves. I got this game only a few years back at a used gaming store, I do not know why I never pounced on this when it was initially released as I was an RPG junkie at the time. Perhaps it was the very silly television commercial that portrayed this game as almost a comedy rather than an RPG. Still, I finally have played through it and have to say it is pretty good, but there are also a lot of flaws to go along with the good.
The story is probably the best aspect of the game. It involves a young man named Dart who becomes entangled in a plot by an emperor to take over the neighboring kingdom. However, that is only the tip of the iceberg as Dart will gain the powers of the legendary warrior, the dragoon as he and several companions track down a man named Lloyd as this mysterious man kills one of their friends and is collecting strange trinkets from each continent. The dragoons will have to combine their might to fight off several threats and figure out the secrets behind the black monster, winglies and the devastating creature the Virage.
The game play is similar to Final Fantasy VII, in fact the game looks a lot like part seven as far as backgrounds and character design without the future aspect that FFVII presented. The graphics are okay, but when this game was released Final Fantasy VIII and IX had been released and boosted much smoother character design and better design as far as the map and cities and such were concerned. The game also froze often, I had to play it on a Playstation One rather than my PS2 to combat this which is strange as you would think a game made by Sony would work in their next generation console when nearly every PSone game I've played has had no problem playing on the PS2. The combat is turn based which is what I prefer and it adds a wrinkle where you can chain your attacks together for devastating force when you push a button the right way. Think the Shadowheart wheel or the attack when you had an effect on your weapon in Lost Odyssey for Xbox 360. It is fun, but in this game you have to do way too much leveling for my tastes and this makes the combat repetitive. So another fault with the game is it takes way too long! I was finally nearing the end after many hours of playing and then the last part of the game took longer than expected and I was about to pull my hair our as the final boss kept changing forms. At this point I was so strong it did not matter how many times he changed, it was only a matter of time before I was victorious.
So, overall a good game. My review may seem a bit negative, but I have to admit I was expecting something a bit better as I had heard people raving about this one. They made it to sound as if it were better than any of the Final Fantasy games, but it really is not as good as any of them. It is a pretty good RPG, I think though other than the FF series, the Playstation system did RPGs better when they were not 3D and looked more like a upgraded version of a SNES game. This one tried to be bold and something special and while the story is something great, too many flaws and such doom this one to being just a pretty good game. Still, I am surprised they have never made a sequel as it was a rather good seller in its day.
The story is probably the best aspect of the game. It involves a young man named Dart who becomes entangled in a plot by an emperor to take over the neighboring kingdom. However, that is only the tip of the iceberg as Dart will gain the powers of the legendary warrior, the dragoon as he and several companions track down a man named Lloyd as this mysterious man kills one of their friends and is collecting strange trinkets from each continent. The dragoons will have to combine their might to fight off several threats and figure out the secrets behind the black monster, winglies and the devastating creature the Virage.
The game play is similar to Final Fantasy VII, in fact the game looks a lot like part seven as far as backgrounds and character design without the future aspect that FFVII presented. The graphics are okay, but when this game was released Final Fantasy VIII and IX had been released and boosted much smoother character design and better design as far as the map and cities and such were concerned. The game also froze often, I had to play it on a Playstation One rather than my PS2 to combat this which is strange as you would think a game made by Sony would work in their next generation console when nearly every PSone game I've played has had no problem playing on the PS2. The combat is turn based which is what I prefer and it adds a wrinkle where you can chain your attacks together for devastating force when you push a button the right way. Think the Shadowheart wheel or the attack when you had an effect on your weapon in Lost Odyssey for Xbox 360. It is fun, but in this game you have to do way too much leveling for my tastes and this makes the combat repetitive. So another fault with the game is it takes way too long! I was finally nearing the end after many hours of playing and then the last part of the game took longer than expected and I was about to pull my hair our as the final boss kept changing forms. At this point I was so strong it did not matter how many times he changed, it was only a matter of time before I was victorious.
So, overall a good game. My review may seem a bit negative, but I have to admit I was expecting something a bit better as I had heard people raving about this one. They made it to sound as if it were better than any of the Final Fantasy games, but it really is not as good as any of them. It is a pretty good RPG, I think though other than the FF series, the Playstation system did RPGs better when they were not 3D and looked more like a upgraded version of a SNES game. This one tried to be bold and something special and while the story is something great, too many flaws and such doom this one to being just a pretty good game. Still, I am surprised they have never made a sequel as it was a rather good seller in its day.