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It's disappointing that Dragoneer's Aria is an average-at-best yarn about the struggle to save the world from an all-powerful dragon. While this turn-based RPG boasts a lot of combat options, it suffers from sluggish, visually unappealing battles. The NIS brand carries a lot of weight in niche circles these days, thanks to the runaway success of Disgaea--a quirky, enjoyably endless romp through the netherworlds. But, while NIS has followed up that success with many others on the PlayStation 2, its PSP efforts have fared much worse. Early on, it will be the hero Valen and the sprightly Euphe against the enemy hordes. Later Mary, a gun-wielding pirate, and Ruslan, the loner of the group, will join your ranks as you traverse the land in search of answers, including the status of the world's good dragons.
The most rewarding, and frustrating, aspect of Dragoneer's Aria is the battle system. It's odd how detached everything is. Never will you see your party or the enemies side by side. The camera focuses on each individual in battle, making it a very disjointed affair. Battle speed is another huge issue, making more difficult battles take way longer than they should.
...this is one adventure that offers plenty of great ideas hampered by a slow, poorly realized battle system.
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Though it takes the standard turn-based approach, there is actually a lot of strategy in how you conduct battles. Character order is up the player, so it's important to choose wisely since actions beyond standard attack and defend use mana, which can be earned and stored from battle to battle, as well as on the field and through crystals of varying strength. One of the biggest problems with this structure is how quickly mana can be used up and how hard it can be to recover from that loss late in a battle. This is where the very difficult guard feature comes in. Properly timing button presses to trigger guard points in a rotating circle blocks some or all of the enemy's damage depending on how many are activated. It also rewards double the mana of a normal attack.
Using skills and spells increases their level, whereas experience points affect HP and other attributes. I wish more games took this approach, so that preferred skills and spells could be focused on at the player's discretion. Don't expect to use these high-powered skills and spells too often though, since the mana bar doesn't proportionately grow as your levels increase. Besides rush attacks and spells, dragon skills are granted by finding and equipping dragon orbs. To use magic, skills, and dragon skills, you have to equip them in accessories with different numbers of slots, a process familiar to those who've played Final Fantasy VII.
Besides bosses and standard enemies, special avatars appear after killing enough of a particular enemy. Once enough of that avatar is killed (which can take a really long time!), you will earn its soul and will be able to summon it in battle. There are also item points that can yield serious loot, but be careful. They often hold powerful enemies that have to be defeated first.
In battle and on the field, each character has special abilities. Field skills let Valen dash around visible enemies and Euphe perpetually heal the party. In battle, Mary's mana boost increases yielded mana and Ruslan's cleanse lowers or removes status ailments. These skills level up with use just as the others do. On the field map, the camera sits behind the character and can be rotated around the screen. In town, you can do the usual, including buying recipes to craft various items.
While NIS is known for developing and publishing games with cutesy 2D art, Dragoneer's Aria sports rather bland 3D visuals. Developed by Hitmaker, this is one adventure that offers plenty of great ideas hampered by a slow, poorly realized battle system. If you've already trounced Jeanne D'Arc and are looking for something to hold you over until Disgaea hits the PSP, Dragoneer's Aria may temporarily satisfy that RPG itch, at least.
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