This is a tough one for me to rate (which is why I haven't) largely because it feels like a game I can no longer really experience in it's "intended" context. It's a game that comes out before the current status quo of videogame oversaturation, from a time when you would buy a game and it would be The Game you were playing for the next month or so, and it shows in some of it's design. That's no longer the life I live sadly and so I'm not sure I was quite able to meet dragon quarter at it's level.
The game is clearly designed around multiple playthroughs, and as such the main game is quite short for an RPG. The counterbalance is supposed to be that the game is hard to beat on the first try, but in practice I only restarted once after the ice caves. If you avoid using your Dragon powers for the first half of the game, you can blast the remaining bosses pretty much turn 1 with impunity.
The combat is pretty satisfying once you've got a bunch of skills built up for the party but the animations (especially on Nina) are wayyyyy to slow for a game where you're chaining like six moves together with each character every turn. This plus the really fragmented combat encounters makes the game drag quite a bit unfortunately.
I really like a lot of the ideas here but the execution is a little off in my opinion. Way too much really important plot information is hidden behind restarting the game from various points or playing through the game multiple times, and if you end up not needing to restart that much, most of the villains just kind of come out of nowhere in the last hour of the game with no indication of who they are. I think that especially the scenes regarding Bosch and Nina should probably have just been part of the default playthrough since Ryu's relationships to those two form the core emotional arc of the game. Even so, the final cinematic was moving, and said core arc is a strong one.
The reason it's so hard to rate is that all of those above negatives are purposeful decisions by the developers to make the choice to use your Dragon powers tougher. I can skip some early game slog by using them, but that means I'll have to hold back later on. If I can just beat this boss without transforming, I can use those powers on a tougher boss later. Or I can go all out and burn through the D meter, and be rewarded with more story content when I inevitably have to restart.
Overall really cool on paper, but I just don't have it in me to slog through the whole thing again to see the bonus scenes right now. One day, with enough distance, I'll replay with my cleared data, so I'll just look forwards to that, I think.
The game is clearly designed around multiple playthroughs, and as such the main game is quite short for an RPG. The counterbalance is supposed to be that the game is hard to beat on the first try, but in practice I only restarted once after the ice caves. If you avoid using your Dragon powers for the first half of the game, you can blast the remaining bosses pretty much turn 1 with impunity.
The combat is pretty satisfying once you've got a bunch of skills built up for the party but the animations (especially on Nina) are wayyyyy to slow for a game where you're chaining like six moves together with each character every turn. This plus the really fragmented combat encounters makes the game drag quite a bit unfortunately.
I really like a lot of the ideas here but the execution is a little off in my opinion. Way too much really important plot information is hidden behind restarting the game from various points or playing through the game multiple times, and if you end up not needing to restart that much, most of the villains just kind of come out of nowhere in the last hour of the game with no indication of who they are. I think that especially the scenes regarding Bosch and Nina should probably have just been part of the default playthrough since Ryu's relationships to those two form the core emotional arc of the game. Even so, the final cinematic was moving, and said core arc is a strong one.
The reason it's so hard to rate is that all of those above negatives are purposeful decisions by the developers to make the choice to use your Dragon powers tougher. I can skip some early game slog by using them, but that means I'll have to hold back later on. If I can just beat this boss without transforming, I can use those powers on a tougher boss later. Or I can go all out and burn through the D meter, and be rewarded with more story content when I inevitably have to restart.
Overall really cool on paper, but I just don't have it in me to slog through the whole thing again to see the bonus scenes right now. One day, with enough distance, I'll replay with my cleared data, so I'll just look forwards to that, I think.
I first played this in the mid-2000s after seeing it covered on G4/TechTV. I knew there was some creative new game plus trickiness to it, but when I game over'd for the first time and saw my story progress reset to 0%, I took the game straight back to Babbage's. Upon reacquiring it I scoffed at Child Me's lack of sophistication. Had I not heard the soundtrack by Hitoshi Sakimoto?? A beautiful looking and sounding game to Adult Me's eyes and ears to be sure. I even engaged with the Scenario Overlay system in good sportliness for the first 4 game overs I had upon replaying it. I love the understated plot and character writing. More JRPGs could stand to reduce their dialog to a more Dragon Quarterly proportion. However the bell curve of my enjoyment of the game mechanics quickly crested and fell. This game makes some interesting bets with using some rogue-like elements. But the static dungeon layouts leave out the hallmark of why I like to replay more proper rogues: variability. My taste for yet another wipe and reset through the campaign was dampened by the fact that nothing changes other than the extra secret cutscenes. And those cutscenes are good, just not enough to get me excited about retreading old ground for the third time. The combat animations feel sluggish, especially given the building intensity toward combos, once you've had to execute them hundreds of times already. I may come back for a higher D-Ratio run or two if my interest is ever sparked again. For now I'm glad to have given this a second shot. It's a good example of designers trying something weird and making something Not For Everyone. An effort we only see in the indie sphere circa 2020's.