A decent RPG, but with more attention could be more better.
Desolation…
Strange but true in the last period of time neither PSP or NDS got a decent J-RPG; luckily after the disappointing Nostalgia (RPG for first grader… I think the Dora the Explorer's game had more RPG contents than it) finally Sands of Destruction came to gladden our days.
Plot begins with the usual teenager boy, but differently from the 99% of similar games he is not destined to save the world, but to destroy it. After the first hour of play our hero, Kyrie is the name, is cornered by some enemies and panicking he release a fearful power reducing an entire village to dust. Later he is approached by a strange girl working for the "World Annihilation Front", an organization with the final purpose of destroy the world they're living.
The setting created for the game is surely original: the world is divided in four great island bordered by a sea of sand. Each island is named after one of the season and shows climatic features and landscapes matched to their names. Original even the political structure of the world with two populations: the usual humans and a race of demi-human half beast named ferals. This time are not the evil human to vex the noble and peaceful demi-humans, but the ferals, thanks to their great powers, to rule the other kind with iron fist. Ferals are from twelve tribes kept by a powerful being called "Rex" (from medieval Latin, "King"). While some of the Rexes are kind and don't abuse humans, other are incredibly bad and perverse until to eat human's flesh or use children as plant food (!!!).
In this context moves the World Annihilation Front and the group of main characters battling with the Rexes and the four Primal Lords, living pillars of the world.
Strarting from those originals premises you could expect a plot as much original and engaging, but probably you'll get a delusion. Overall story is surely solid and well told, but in the end tastes like something already seen. However a great work was done about the characters typecasting as for the party members, as for the important enemies, thanks even to a beautiful character design and a wonderful voice acting.
This last point deserves a couple of word.
Voice acting in Sands of Destruction is one of the best ever seen on NDS. Not only all important dialogues are completely dubbed, but the cast makes a wonderful work talking about the recitative level. From the dubious tone of Kyrie, to the aristocratic speech of Lacertus-Rex, until the megalithic Primal lords, this game is a real pleasure for ears.
Backing to the plot and singular characters, while the doubts of Kyrie, ambivalent between his duty as world destructor and the love for his companions, are pretty uninteresting, the attitudes and the personal story of other main characters are surely more engaging leading the main plot to some interesting clue.
The game mix funny situations and gags with more violent and dramatic implications, in a manner typical of J-RPG.
Just an advice; though in this game the visual violence is very low, the lightness how some strong arguments like death, murderers, torture and cruelty are treated could offend some sensible minds (saaave the childreeeen!!!).
Graphically the game mixes 3D polygonal locations with bitmap sprites. Locations looks solid, well designed and colored, while sprites, though well drew suffer of a graphic resolution very low and bas animations. Low resolution affects even the characters portraits during dialogues, while poor animations persist in the battles too.
Various cities and dungeons are represented each with a personal visual style; dungeons are not too intricate, while the random encounter rate is perfectly bearable. The game offers some in-dungeon puzzles always pretty clever and satisfying. In all the game only a couple of puzzle was really hard to figure, but the game shows a peculiar system if you remain stuck. If during a puzzle you commit too much errors the main characters give you useful advices to come to a solve. Keep to mistake and the main characters themselves will give you the entire solution.
This is surely a good thing for lazy players or not loving puzzle people, but could piss off who love lose an entire night on a clever puzzle until they find right answer.
Now come to the battle system.
Battles work in turn mode; on the screen you can see a succession of characters and enemies actions so to decide the best strategy. Directional cross is used only for select the enemies to target or a item from the menu; selections of offensive actions or attack or healing skills is possible pressing the button A, X, Y, each of them unleash directly a physical attack or open a submask to choose the wanted skill.
To explain plenty the battle engine I must first talk a bit about characters progression. Winning battles the characters gain experience and skill points. Leveling up is managed automatically by the game, while skill point can be assigned practically to each attack or skill a character has.
Normal fighting can be ran using blows (powerful normal hits) or flurry (long series of weaker hits). Each character has a sequence of three blows and a sequence of three flurries: choose to empower one of them can alter significantly the way to use a character in battle.
First of all the characters get as many actions on the battlefield as how much battle points they have at the beginning of the fight.
Each battle point allows to use a single action in battle, so if you start with three battle points you could use a complete series of blows/flurries, three attack skills in a row, or make some combinations. Not every character starts with a high number of battle points, but their limit can be raised equipping right items or in-battle performing critical hits and/or special attack actions. You could start even with a single battle point, but with a bit of luck and a clever customizations of the melee abilities you could attack even six time per turn, until to build up the right number of battle points to unleash the special attack, a final move personal for each character.
An intelligent allocation of the skill point is essential to don't create a weak characters. Empowering attack actions you could choose to assign point between attack power or accuracy. Raise one means lower the other, so is obligatory to find a balance or you could risk to have a powerful character that miss every attack. Same for the skills with the choice between their efficacy and the number of MP required for activations.
Worthy of mention the air combos, the follow up system and the quips.
Battle arenas are multilevel, with some enemies that fly on the upper screen of the console. Attacking them with a blow or a flurry will make jump your character to dispense an air attack different from the usual ground melee.
Follow ups are special actions a player can use in specific situations. Some blows have the special ability to stun an enemy or send sky high; if this happen the further pressure of an attack button unleash a special combo either on air or ground. Follow ups are perfect as link hits if you are trying to perform a final special attack.
About the quips: during game every characters learn some pretty suggestive sentences that can be "equipped" in a special menu. Every sentence can active itself during a certain moment of the fight granting a character a special bonus, from raising their attack and defense until doubling exp or gold at end's combat.
Overall the battle engine of this game is surely interesting, but suffer of some little issues. First of all, though being never boring is a bit too slow; mistaking some customizations you risk to make a character absolutely useless (luckily some items catch later in the game could solve this problem allowing to redistribute the skill points); moreover the fighting is unbalanced favoring the melee fight, with attack skills barely useless and support skill very powerful.
Another problem is that in the battles the game shows all his technical limits, especially in the poor animations of characters and enemies and in the awkward special effects.
Sincerely, after I saw the wonderful fighting animation of Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier I was really disappointed how the programmers of Sands of Destruction neglected a so important part of the game.
Final Line
Sands of Destructions is surely a good product, well-groomed in the graphical look (at least about the locations), in the sound with fitting music and an astonishing voice acting; good even the plot, though not revolutionary, but enjoyable thanks even to a cast of characters/enemies various either in design than attitudes. Programmers was also brave searching to create a new and interesting battle system, but the try don't succeeded plenty, originating a battle engine not boring, but slow and a bit unbalanced and plagued by a technical part unworthy of the exploration phases.
Moreover, the game is not too long (about 20 hours of play): a couple of additional hours would be appreciated.
In the end, Sand of Destruction is surely a game over the average and a good J-RPG, but with some attention surely could was better.
Final Score 7.5