Emerald Dragon for SFC
Review #2100
Emerald Dragon
The good kind of ED
Gameplay
Horrible equip menu. You have to go to the Status menu to see what is equipped. The Equip menu is just a list of equippable items with no groupings or even sorting. Truly awful.
Chat feature tells you what to do next.
Up to five person parties.
Interesting battle system. Move around a grid. Movement and attacks use up your turn, which is displayed as a colored square surrounding your player. Once the square shrinks to nothing oyur turn has ended and enemies can move and attack. Attack by running into the enemy, Ys style. This mode is extremely choppy. It feels like an early gen title. Not great, but certainly unique. I liked it far more once I got a party.
You control the main character but all other party members auto-battle. Limits what you can do, but they do what you want for the most part.
Fast movement, but it's configurable to Fast, Normal, or Slow. And they aren't kidding with Fast. Same weird movement tech as Aretha.
Level Design
Standard stuff. Still, the world looks big and the Chat feature makes it easy to figure out where to go, if you need it. Good stuff for the most part.
Theme
You're a dragon!! But not really. Instead, you are transformed into a human so you can seek out your adopted human daughter. You of course get caught up in the concerns of nations and fight their fights for them. Playable characters drop in and out of our party frequently, and come prebuilt with a static level. This negates the value of grinding, except for your two main characters. Kind of weird. Still, I got caught up in the story. Good stuff.
Art Style
The overhead view looks great, with excellent pixel art. The battles...are a mixed bag at best. Performance issues abound which really hurts the experience. Still, the pixel
Audio
Voice samples. Some music is good but a lot of it is truly awful, like the town theme. The music switches gears constantly, creaating an inconsistent, and jarring atmosphere.
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