Destiny's Blades

I don't know where to begin with Destiny's Blades. For the most part, it's an enjoyable game with the only real threat to its enjoyment is it's temporary concerns. Despite these concerns I continued playing through this game--at first out of duty it seemed like. About halfway in, however, I realized something: this game is enjoyable. I feel the reason due to this success is Destiny's Blades emphasis on the Epic RPG genre. We don't see a lot of amateur RPGs in this category mainly because of the sheer time, effort, thought, and motivation put into them is straining. Destiny's Blades boasts more than ten hours of enjoyable gameplay whereas your average amateur RPG these days will struggle for two or three.

I feel like I'm advertising some sort of male enhancement pill. If I were, though, Destiny's Blades is definitely "well endowed" so to speak. And finishing this game truly fills you with a sense of accomplishment. After finishing this game I wiped the sweat of my brow and let out a deep sigh, for I have never in my life put that much effort into playing through and fully immersing myself knee-deep in an amateur game. (It took me about six sit-down sessions/days to finish this beast.)

I have two main concerns with Destiny's Blades at this point. One is dialogue illegibility and the other is music selection. The former is a quick fix, which will probably already be fixed for the most part in the most recent version but I feel it must be addressed anyway.

Dialogue in Destiny's Blades was very hard to read. For one, there was a superfluous amount of typographical errors. Many of which simply took the life away of the dialogue. For instance, one line read "nihgs" (or something to that extent) instead of "kings" or possibly "knights." And my mind is so fantastic I start to diverge and wonder what types of spelling suggests spellcheck would give us. Some of which I feel aren't appropriate for the review at hand but the point is a serious scenario in the game would not produce a serious response with these errors. I do feel they are quick fixes, and I'm sure many of them are already gone away.

I like a music selection that is catchy, yet moderately unpopular and noncommercial. Destiny's Blades manages to evade one criteria and create a domino effect on my mind that topples over the other. Simply put, my biggest complaint here is the sheer predictability of every single piece of music in the game. That's not to say the music isn't appropriate compositionally, but the opening title made my teeth cringe hearing FFVI's "Terra." I love this piece of music but it makes me think of Final Fantasy, not Destiny's Blades. It wouldn't be so bad if every piece of music in the game didn't come from one of the following three sources: Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, or the RTP. (I wish I could be exaggerating.) I just get the feeling little effort was put here. On the plus side, though, music is not as important to me. It was just important enough for me to nag a bit. I don't expect every game to have 100% custom music composed by world renowned composer X, but I also don't think it's very professional to blatantly use so many of Uematsu's compositions. I also realize this is just amateur gamemaking we're talking about so professionalism is generally not top-priority, but it should definitely be on the to-do list.

Thankfully, I was too busy enjoying the gameplay to actually dislike the soundtrack most of the time. Destiny's Blades gameplay is a strong point, and this is nice because gameplay ties my top two aspects of importance in gaming in general. (I'll get to the other later.) Destiny's Blades features a plentiful array of minigames and dungeon environments to keep the player from pressing Alt + F4. Puzzles were challenging at some points, but not impossible. Minigames are dispersed around the world for your pleasure, but I found that early on they were far too expensive to fully enjoy. (Needless to say a lot of saving and reloads ensued to explore and involve myself in these games early on.) The other nice thing is none of it is mandatory. In some parts of the game I was too busy immersing myself in plot development to take a break and do a minigame or sidequest, of which Destiny's Blades features a good amount. Many were cleverly placed and complemented, rather than worsened, the overall gameplay experience.

The dungeon design was brilliant in most cases and my only real issue on gameplay is the encounter difficulty. The rate itself, though above average, was not too bad. The monsters themselves in general seemed way too difficult. Many monster attacks took you out in two or three hits, which was not so bad itself but in some cases you become severely outnumbered--even with four party members. Pricing of healing items was moderately reasonable--with the exception of Ethers. I have no idea why Square insisted on making ethers ten times more expensive than Potions, but that carries through in Destiny's Blades. If you want to use your magic-users to their fullest extent (and even your main hero) expect to spend 50% of your profits on MP Potions. All of the Staffs for the second mage (whom I named Danny after my roommate) gave you a variety of spells but his first staff worked best for me the whole time. Multi-target skills are the only real way to get an advantage in encounters. Thus, to counter difficulty in Destiny's Blades you typically finish a dungeon, go to town and rest/buy equips, return back to dungeon and get three or four more level ups so you can survive the dungeon to come. I did not mind this much because there is plenty of variety in the DBS but it didn't really make me excited either.

Let me take a brief moment to say the maps in Destiny's Blades are spectacular. Maps are nothing short of navigable, involved, and well-designed. Graphics are also very consistent, and since I'm a Mac & Blue whore (pardon me, sex worker), I didn't mind the chipset selection at all. Maps remained consistent throughout the first three chapters and never fall short of impressive.

Character development is my other important quality all good RPGs in my book require. While it is a bit slow to come, it exists. I felt it was a bit delayed and almost hesitant, like a timid mouse scared to run out of its hole in the side of the wall. Character interaction was sparingly, but it sort of picks up a bit during chapter two. However, I remember a few times where I was expecting something to go one way but it went another relatively quick and skewed my perspective of what I was to expect, and I mean this in a good way. Every character has a different and distinct relation to the main character which I admire. I expect this variety in characters will continue to grow in future chapters and I am still very excited for it.

The goals of the authors in Destiny's Blades are clear-cut and well-executed. Be prepared for an epic quest, not a melodramatic sidestory, full of intense and fresh gameplay with a nostalgic backstory, a beautiful world, and an overall exciting game. A demo this vast not only leaves you feeling accomplished but with a reminder that not only is this game is definitely going to be finished, but it's going to be done so properly and astoundingly.

This is a game!