Record Of Lodoss War - The Advent Of Kardis

[mazonemayu]

Gameplay

This is one of my favourite games on the Dreamcast, it is an action RPG, very similar to Diabolo, but better imo. You run around in the world of Lodoss, performing tasks & killing baddies with your sword, cast magic, heal, rinse repeat...but thats not all. First of all the controls are spot on & very responsive. One button to attack, another to use potions and stuff, another for magic and so on. Also there's a ton of things to do and collect, with subquests in subquests in subquests . Mind that this game is hard, VERY hard, you'll find yourself wanting to throw the controller through your tv at least 20 times before you see the ending and then... well the ending, this is also a long game, VERY long (60 hours at least if you play it half right).
There is also a ton of equipment to collect, modify and use; every boss (and there's +30 of em) is vulnerable for something different and this is where the fusion of ancients (runes) comes in. Through the game you'll find or win those runes and you'll have to fuse them in your equipment (armor, sword, helmet, shield) to make em stronger. This isn't free, it costs mithril, lots of it; enemies sometimes drop it when killed, the rest you need to excavate in caves so you need to make pickaxes and so on...
As I said, there's a lot to do in this game.

Graphics

Average, everything is high res and very detailed, but it has a PS1/N64 feel to it. The camera can be turned 360° to your likings and it stays where you put it, this is a plus imo, specially since the game is in 3/4 overhead view.

Sound/Music

There's no music in the game, only thing you hear is the weather; music only starts playing when baddies appear or when facing a boss or something similar. The sound effects are excellent, from footsteps (sound changes depending what boots you're wearing), clashing of swords, thunder, grunting of baddies, etc...

Story

Someone's trying to revive the Goddess of darkness and you're summoned from the dead to beat her. Thats basically it, there's a few twists and turns, but don't expect SOA epicness.

Replay

There's as good as no replay value, but in this case thats not a bad thing, as the game is so long and hard. You'll be glad when you see the ending

Overall
8.5/10

As I'm a sucker for this genre and even more for the leveling up for the sake of leveling up with too much to do kind of game, I'll have to give it a 8.5/10 and thats only for the graphics or it would've been a 9

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZC5B6VmARA[/youtube]

[Neohound]

Yeah, it's a wicked game. I never thought, when I first put the disc into my DC, that I would be playing nothing else for the next two months of my life !! But that's how it get's you, it's so darned addictive.

[pcwzrd13]

Sounds really good. Maybe this will be my second RPG for the Dreamcast. I'm currently playing Grandia II which I'm really enjoying.

[mazonemayu]

added a vid (not mine)

[Neohound]

Sounds really good. Maybe this will be my second RPG for the Dreamcast. I'm currently playing Grandia II which I'm really enjoying.

Yeah, I'm sure you'll like it. It certainly has elements from Jrpgs and games such as PSO, but also has this western flavour, as in games like Diablo etc

Mayu, is that the French Pal cover ? It looks different to my British copy.

[mazonemayu]

yep, I think the french cover looks nicer than the regular PAL one

[rooster]

How much better than Diablo is it? I usually like action RPGs, but I hated Diablo..

[mazonemayu]

its a lot better imo, but then again taste is subjective

[BrianC]

I personally like Diablo 2 a bit better but this definitely isn't the same game. Same view and RPG comparisons aside this is actually quite a unique game which really blew my mind when I picked it up a few years back (I had just finished playing the phenomenal Torchlight and thought "fuckkkkk not another Diablo clone!" so I was very surprised.)

When a friend of mine started playing with me he summed up what makes it so awesome with a statement that went something like this:
"Dude, its like a bunch of Japanese people made an anime that was trying to emulate Western literature and then another bunch of Japanese people decided to make a game about the anime that tried emulating a Western role playing game."
They did a decent job actually but its still got that Japanese quirkiness running throughout and I can't think of another game that has that feel to it.

[Neohound]

I was thinking "What other games on DC are similar to ROLW ?". I came up with Sword Of The Beserk, Dragon's Blood and maybe even Silver and PSO share some similarities. But really, it is a pretty unique title.