Blade Dancer: Lineage of Light - Sony PSP

This is a game that has some outstanding strengths and some unfortunate weaknesses. First, the 3-D anime style graphics are excellent. There is really an immersive 3-D world to play in. The whole game is obviously inspired by the Final Fantasy series. Time passes, and day becomes night and day again. Instead of random encounters, there are monster icons (decorated floating skulls) that are wandering around the environment. You can avoid them. If they are weaker than you, they may run away. If they are stronger, they will chase you, but you can outrun them most of the time if you want to. You get money, XP, and Items from battle. The characters gain levels relatively quickly.The weaknesses of the game make it somewhat slow and tedious and hard to adapt to portability. First, there is no way to save the game except save points which are not all that common. There is no way to pause the game. The battles run on in real time, and you have to watch a little "Timer" for each character fighting. The only way to take a break from the game is to use the "Sleep" function of the PSP (thank you Sony). Without that, I would consider it unplayable. The weapons are breakable, but they do not break at random, they have a life gauge and they break when their life runs out. You need a supply of them. The crafting system is tedious, especially since any crafting has a very significant chance of "failing", and then you lose a possibly very rare or expensive item. I recommend crafting at save points. The magic system is truly unique. The MP are free in each battle, but must accumulate before they can be used. The twist is that your magical enemies can also use the same MP to cast spells against you. So you have to use `em or lose `em. Not all enemies can cast magic.All in all it's a very pretty game, and a lot of fun, if you can get by it's negative points. If you liked the real-time battle system in some of the Final Fantasy titles, then you'll probably like this game.

Been looking for this game at a decent price for a while. Sadly, it did not come with a case or manual which was never in the description.

Fun game with some of the best graphics I have seen on a psp. This game is for rpg pros. The limited weapon use makes the game extremely difficult. It is most fortunate that I do not rage quit.

all good