Dragoneer's Aria (PSP)

At first glance Dragoneer's Aria looks and sounds like a great fantasy RPG about dragons. You play as Valen, a young Dragoon (protector of the dragons) who has just graduated as a tragedy breaks out and the Black Dragon attacks. I bought this game thinking this was right up my alley. Yeah, the theme and the subject might be, but that's where it ends.

Without a doubt this game's biggest problem is that it's unbelievably slow. So much so you almost start pondering if it's someone's practical joke. There are so many aspects that make sure you'll be about a simple task all week and one's interest in the game is sure to feel the strain.
-Monsters get stronger so fast that you literally can't turn around the corner in a dungeon without being in trouble or overpowered...yet again.
-Fighting animation is slow and awkward and it's a turn-based battle system, so not everyone will like it. There are also no HP bars for enemies, so for strong foes you've no idea how long you could be sitting there for.
-The way the game judges enemy strength against yours is flawed, and monsters indicated as weak actually do a lot of damage. The annoying part of it is, you still only get a pathetic amount of experience for them so leveling up in previous dungeons is impossible.
-The magic system takes forever to level up. So basically all spells except healing are useless, and hence the whole system almost redundant. Yet if you want to open certain chests, you need to level them up.
-Most chests require items which are hard to come by to open them. So by the time you get around to it the items inside are useless except maybe for synthesis.
-And enemies have an incredibly low drop rate of items.

Beyond that there's more troubles. The cutscenes have their share of drawbacks. For one the animation is robotic and unnatural, and the characters have nearly no facial expressions. For the English dub, lip syncing is non-existent at best and there is no background music almost ever. You have to use your imagination quite a bit just to make it believable, but the lack of music during scenes drains any emotional effect there might have been (poor animation and all). It literally turns the drama and tragedy into comedy. You know it's bad when one of the characters undergoes a life-threatening situation and all you can do is sit there bursting into laughs because of how fake it looked.

What it all adds up to is that you need a lot of patience and persistence to get on with this game. At the end of May I'll have had this game for 3 years and I'm still not finished with it.
But if you can get past all the slowness, the graphics are quite nice and pleasant to the eye, the dungeon music is beautiful and the map is extensive (though with the slowness of play, that's not much of an advantage).

Overall I'd rate this game as time-kill, not something to be enjoyed. Dragoneer's Aria is a great idea with a failed execution. I'd say if one is curious and can get it for around a fiver, sure why not. But I wouldn't go out of my way for this. There are tons of better games out there than this one which are certainly more worth investing in.

I felt I had to write a review since the only other one, though in-depth and probably well-thought-out, is distinctly unfair.

I've played this game for about 3-4 hours now and I'm already drawn in. I don't feel as though the character levelling system is difficult (I'm at level 15 with my characters, with most of my time spent wandering in the town and exploring the forests and caves). The battle system is a little slow, granted, but it's really grown on me.

One notable plus to this title is the addition of Japanese audio - somehow the terrible voice acting sounds a lot better in Japanese! I'm a little confused as to why they changed so many character names between the versions, but it's refreshing to have the option at all!

The characters are likeable enough, the scenarios are a little repetitive, and the monster designs are a little lazy (same monster, different colour in a lot of cases), but if you're open-minded in your game choices, give this a go. The price is great, and although this isn't likely to become a firm favourite, it's not such a bad way to pass the time.