A well put together action/rpg... but not much else.
So I was hoping for a true "Alundra 2" when I picked up this game (the real Alundra 2 is a travesty of a game and bares little resemblance with the original), and didn't quite get it. Oh well. It's still a solid action/rpg with some major platforming inspirations.
For a fairly early PS2 rpg I find this rather well done. The graphics aren't too grand, but still not horrid. The gameplay has some little control issues which was pretty common for a lot of games of this time, but at the same time it does better what many couldn't.
First off, there aren't any annoying/"innovative" gameplay mechanics. Everything here is tried and true. You've got your hero out to find something called the "Dream Stone" (I think?) and his soon-to-be sidekick/pokemon-reject in the introduction. The story is a lot less complicated than it would seem if I tried to explain it, but basically your sidekick (Tumble) is from the dream world and he's lost some keys which have taken host in certain citizens around town, who you have to "enter" into when they're sleeping and retrieve the lost keys.
The action is a bit clunky, but there are plenty of options to choose from and many different ways to dispose of your enemies... but in the end that doesn't matter. This game is EASY. Whether you find that a redeeming or irredeemable factor, it's completely up to you.
The music here is also very ho-hum. A lot of it harkens back to classic platformers, but then some of it is trancey-techno junk. And then there are also a few really good classic RPG tunes. Overall, the music is only slightly above average.
And NO VOICE ACTING. Thank god. Maybe it's just me, but I've played a lot of RPGs that were completely ruined by voice acting. They didn't even dare with this one, thankfully.
To tell you the truth, this is still one of the better early PS2 RPGs. I think it's much better done than games such as Dark Cloud, Ephemeral Fantasia and others, but still, some of the regular early programming issues bog it down.
I say pick it up, because you can easily find it for around 10-15 bucks and it's atleast worth a playthrough.