Draglade (Nintendo DS) - Review by Chris

Introduction

From action based to strategy based, the DS is now home to a vast array of role playing games that have provided gamers with some of the most substantial and best moments of gameplay on the console. You need only look to The World Ends With You to see this. Yet, outside of that title, the action RPG genre has seen little in the way of worthwhile innovation. That, however, is where Dimps Corporation comes in with the release of Draglade: an action RPG which blends the tried and tested gameplay with a unique mix of music for a truly unique and enjoyable experience.

Gameplay

In Draglade, the gameplay centres around the idea of Grapping. This is whether combatants use a combination of attacks in conjunction with the creation of music to wow over fans and onlookers while at the same time defeating their opponents. The battle system utilised within the game is the biggest and most important part of the gameplay as it provides a truly unique experience not only on the handheld but on any console. But more on that in a second. The game primarily provides you with a single player story mode in which there is a selection of 4 available characters to choose from, with 5 more becoming available as you progress through each of the initial characters' stories.

In the story, you'll undergo the typical plot of the main character simply wanting to be the best and better than everyone else. In this case, each of the characters wants to be a Major Grapper, someone who is highly revered by the world's populous. After very short origin setting, showing you why the characters want to become a Major Grapper, you'll set out to take the exam so as to become one and this will see you travelling around the world, taking on battles in numerous locations and taking the 4 necessary parts to the exam. The story itself isn't a particularly interesting aspect of the game nor is the story mode itself, but it does allow you to get to grips with the battle system and level up your characters before you head out into the more meaty multiplayer options.

These multiplayer options extend to single card download play, multi-card play and online options, through which any of the characters which you have personally levelled through the story mode or customised can be used and this customisation is the key to providing a unique experience and distancing yourself from the competition. The battle system is truly unique, bringing in some of the action RPG basics which can be seen in many of the Tales of games from Namco but mixing it with a musical theme. Each character has light, heavy and bullet attacks that can be mixed to create combos but with a press of the L button, you'll enter into the beat combo mode during battle. This is the game's big innovation making you hit the Y button in time to a beat bar in the bottom right corner of the screen so as to pull off a special combo attack and land more damage on your opponents. The initial beat you have access to works well enough but the game allows you to tweak it to your own design so as to make it unique to your character and play style and the possibilities are virtually endless. The interface for changing these beats is simple, merely requiring you to adjust some sliders on the touch screen to the desired height and then you're set to go. It is this customisation and utilisation of it that will make the difference in the multiplayer spectrum, with all modes, especially the online, working superbly and all supporting the option to trade your beat designs. The game is certainly a lot better and much more fun in the multiplayer spectrum but while the story mode is disappointing, it is still enjoyable.

Controls

The primary controls require you to focus on the face buttons and the d-pad. And it is with these that you'll play the entire game but you will need to use the touch screen occasionally for a few options. In game, you have 3 attack buttons, the attributing to light, heavy and bullet attacks. They work well but it'll take a few minutes to get your head around the light attack being on the Y button when you'd think it would be on the A button. A tap of the shoulder button will put you into beat combo mode, meaning you'll have to hit the Y button in time with the beat bar on the screen and this is perhaps the most fiddly of the control implementations as the beat bar is small and positioned in the button right of the top screen and it can be hard to hit the timing of the notes to pull off the combo attack. It is something you'll get used to as you progress and experiment with your own beats. The touch screen has to be used to change your current bullet options during battles but having to take out the stylus to do this in the middle of some of the more challenging matches and prove disastrous and a button based alternative would have been much better as it means you could keep your eyes and hands on the action.

Graphics

Sticking to a side scrolling look, the game's visuals are all done in 2d sprite work which looks great. The character models look great and have been animated extremely well in and out of battle, with the battle animations being as fluid as one could have hoped for. The characters portray the generic big haired look that many Japanese developed games seem to be plugging and they just don't do much to step out from the crowd to be noticed because of the generic modelling. Environments, be it town or city, show such an attention to detail that you can see things littering the shelves of buildings and it looks fantastic. Exterior environments continue the high standard of the graphics but it is in the overworld map and the static speech bubbles for conversations that the game doesn't look great. The overworld map is very basic, consisting of a landmass and some water hued in a green colour and showing very little other than the points where you'll go for cities, with these taking the form of a grey mass of sprites that don't look very attractive. Some attention to detail here would have been nice so as to maintain the high standard seen elsewhere but you're never on the map for more than a couple of seconds. The menus and the general interface on both screens seems a little cluttered, especially in battle and some interaction between the two screens for stat counters would have made it less cluttered than it is.

Sound

The score is made up primarily of faux j-pop tracks and techno beats and while it sounds decent enough, it presents itself as nothing more than a generic tracklisting to keep the game trundling along. The use of sound in battles, however, when using beat combos is certainly better and provides one of the better uses of sound in the game and an interesting twist gameplay wise. All speech throughout the game is done through speech bubbles so there are no voice-overs which isn't a bad thing as we've been saved the generic teeny voices which you'd expect to accompany the art style.

Dual screen

The action takes place on the top screen, in battle and out, while the touch screen is used for your bullets in battle and other menus, such as beat combo customisation. There isn't any real interactivity between the two outside of changing bullets in battle but the two work together well.

Final comments

Draglade is certainly a very interesting and entertaining game. The mixture of side scrolling fighting with the utilisation of music through combos is an interesting twist on the genre and one that works extremely well, allowing for a fantastic level of customisation over what is possible and some very solid fighting. While the single player story mode may not be of much credence, it is the multiplayer options, along with the unique battle system and customisation, which definitely make the game worth your time.

Pro: Unique battle system, visuals are great if a little generic, multiplayer options really take the game into its own
Con: Story mode is short for all characters, interface can be a bit too cluttered
Final score: 7.4

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