yeah, it's a first-person dungeon-crawl on the DS....but....I feel like I'm working when playing this.
Finding out how the story ends is pretty much all there is to keep you going, as there are very repetitious dungeons, the same monsters over and over and over, and a battle mechanic completely biased toward swordplay, leaving the potentially interesting magic system in the dust entirely.
I actually tried to play this game as a magic-user, and found myself dying again and again....pick up the sword, and I sailed through it.
Then again, one could pretty much say the same for Diablo II, and that was a truly magnificent specimen of a game.....its not the mechanics that is the main problem.
Rather, the problem here is that, although the idea of a first-person fantasy RPG can be found in this game, the execution comes off as though you are going from one little box to another, without any immersion into the world at all. The repetitive wall and floor patterns, combined with the near-absence of interaction with others (besides a few mice standing around who tell you stuff you basically already know), and it feels a lot like you are running around in a Disney ride lopping the heads off the animatronic characters therein. It is a slogfest through and through, with nothing to look forward to except the next bit of story script after defeating the next boss exactly the same way you defeated the last thousand or so enemies.....
Top that off with some floors and enemies capable of killing you with one stroke (with some sort of dumb death spell that, even if you cast the counter-spell for, will still kill you once in a while), and you have yourself a game that is both boring and frustrating at the same time. I didn't really think that was possible, but there you have it.
If you have seen my other reviews, you know I am usually a total sucker for this type of game, liking ones that nobody else seemed to, simply because the first-person fantasy RPG is my true love as a gamer. This one, though, was just so dull, boring, repetitive, and work-like, that I cannot recommend it unless you absolutely cannot find anything else to play.....frankly, the Pokemon RPG looks to be more fun than this one, despite the inferior graphics.
About the only things I can say this game has going for it are:
1) the music is quite good in places, and
2) there are two rather longish storylines to play through, meaning if you like the tedium this game offers, then you will get your money's worth.
If you are like me, then despite the warnings, you will still want to try this game, seeing as how it *is* a FPS dungeon hack on the DS, after all. Don't say you weren't warned.