37 out of 37 people found this review helpful.
the legend lives on!
Date of Review: Oct 7, 2000
The Dragon Campaign, A fight between the Winglies and Dragoons, two different species battling it out. The Winglies had help from mysterious dragons, however despite this the Dragoons prevailed.
Now thousands of years after The Dragon Campaign, the dragoon spirits are reconnecting with their destined users.
Thus forming a new species of Dragoons to fight against a newborn dragon, and new mysteries. However the Final battle means going against something that should not exist but has been resurrected from the past, the Dragoons sworn enemies, the Wingling!
Graphics
FMV's are amazing; one step ahead of the Final Fantasy?s in this category Each FMV features beautifully detailed characters, and wonderful backgrounds that actually appear to come alive. In addition to this, there is complete voice acting throughout the FMV's, so not only is this the first game to have this caliber of FMV graphics, it's also one of the first to feature voice acting through it.
As for the in-game graphics, well they aren't so good; actually they are pretty bad to say the least. Although they definitely take full advantage of the playstation's graphics, being about the same as Final Fantasy's in-game graphics, I still find them less than stellar. Maybe the Dreamcast's graphics have spoiled me, but when I played this game and saw the amazing FMV's, then saw the in-game graphics, I'd have to say that I was extremely disappointed.
The in-game graphics had that weird chain link effect where the character swerves around in place, while it is supposed to be standing still. The graphics were also extremely sketchy and bland. Very disappointing: (
Sound
Very catchy tunes, all orchestrated. However I found that they just didn't match the standard that Final Fantasy set for background music in RPG's
Also the voice acting was great, however another thing that griped me was that though the voice acting was in the FMV?s, that?s the only place it was. It was not in the actual gameplay at all!! What gives??
Again I'm not sure if the playstation could actually handle that much sound, but still even so, I was disappointed.
Gameplay
Ok, here?s the great part of the game.
At the start of the game all you can do is additions. which are a series of hitting the x or circle button at the right time during battle to execute different combinations of moves.
As you go on you will get a Dragoon Spirit, this will allow you to use magic through special points called spirit points which when the meter is full, transform you into a Dragoon. In Dragoon form (Which is basically you with slightly more detailed armor, and wings) and it is in this form in which you can use magic, or attack using your dragoon form.
Dragoon additions are different than regular additions, to do these you have a circular meter which spins around five times, you must hit the x button at precisely the right moment for five times, and you will execute a move for as many times you correctly hit the x button.
Overall
In some ways this is exactly Final Fantasy in a different form, in some ways its better, in some ways its worse, but all in all it's a great game, an a great addition to the playstation's RPG library.
