Blade Dancer: Lineage of Light is a role-playing game (RPG) for the PlayStation Portable that features an active time battle system, an intricate item crafting system, a good story with voiceovers in original Japanese and dubbed English, and best of all, many hours of addictive game play. Blade Dancer: Lineage of Light gives the PSP one of the first RPGs that isn't too basic, too simple, too short, or too boring. It turns out to be a pretty exciting game with some fun characters and enough to do to keep you busy for hours on end.

The story takes place in the mythical world of Lunadia. In the history of Lunadia, a dark lord once ruled with an iron fist. Out of the moon's protective light came a lone warrior who held the power to drive the evil emperor into seclusion on an island in the east. He was Gerard, the Protector of Light, the Blade Dancer. When the blade dancer drove the dark lord away, he mysteriously disappeared. Without the blade dancer, the dark lord unleashed his own champion, the dread knight, on Lunadia. Once again, the world was enveloped in darkness. However as quickly as the new reign of darkness began, it stopped and the dark lord was not heard of again.

One thousand years into the future, Lunadia is, yet again, faced with a terrible darkness and only person who can save Lunadia from the plague of evil is the blade dancer's successor, he who is of the lineage of light and descendent of Gerard. His name is Lance Bennet. Lance comes to the island where the dark lord was driven into seclusion in hope to prove his abilities as a warrior. He does not know anything about who or what he is or will become. He will become the blade dancer and save the world. Joining him for the ride are his friends, Gozen, a martial artist from the Zarkan Clan, Felis Lehitol, an empath in training (like a medical doctor, but with magic), and Tess, a girl without an idea of who she is. Together, the four quest to stop the dread knight and the dark lord.

Overall, the story is nothing big in the world of video games. There is a big bad guy who is in the midst of resurrection and you have to stop him before he comes back to life and engulfs the world in darkness. However the difference about Blade Dancer: Lineage of Light and other games with the common good against evil theme is how the story is portrayed. The plotline development is handled well with interesting characters, well-written dialogue (while cheesy in some cases), and voiceovers for the critical parts of the story that add emotion. Coupled with the exciting game play, Blade Dancer: Lineage of Light turns out to be a lot of fun.

Gameplay:

Blade Dancer: Lineage of Light is a game unlike most. While it has components that are common to other games, it puts everything together to make for an exciting RPG. The key aspects are the battle system and item crafting system. The game play also exhibits a lot of freedom, so that you the gamer, can roam the world map freely (for the most part, there are some areas that you cannot get to until you the story develops). In addition, there are several side quests to help you give you something to do.

The game uses an active time battle system, which is referred to as a "Lunar Battle". In a lunar battle, the passage of time determines when a character's turn will be. Each character has a lunar clock and when the clock makes a full revolution, they may conduct a melee attack, use a special lunability, use an item, flee from battle, or change equipment. It is important to note that just because a character's clock has made a full revolution it does not mean the character has to do anything. This is an important tactic because there are group attacks that do more damage when more characters have dedicated their turn to it.

Lunabilities are the equivalent to the concept of magic. Lunabilities are sorted into four categories, solo, heal, assist, and group. Solo lunabilities are actions only requiring the character invoking to be involved. These spells are offensive attacks/magic that may affect one or all enemies. Heal lunabilities do just as they suggest, heal. They consist of the healing magic, i.e. restore hit points, cure status alignments, revive downed characters, etc. Assist lunabilities consist of support magic that help boost character's statistics, as well as lower enemies' values. The support magic also includes offensive status alignment spells like sleep, petrify, charm, etc. The group lunabilities are special group attacks. They require at least two characters to participate in. A character have a full lunar clock to participate. As previously mentioned, the more characters involved, the more damage the attack will do.

In order to use lunabilities, you need to get lunar power. Lunar power is somewhat equivalent to magic points commonly found in RPGs. The difference is, however, that lunar power is not something directly associated with characters. In other words, a character does not have lunar power. Instead, lunar power is something shared by everyone (characters and monsters). When a character or a monster does a melee attack, a certain amount of lunar power is put into the lunar gauge. The lunar gauge is a pool of lunar power that both characters and monsters can use. The shared pool adds an interesting consideration to your battle tactics. While you might be saving up for a high lunar power consumption special attack, the enemy might snipe the power from beneath you! And sometimes you need to be careful of attacking too much, because you might just be feeding the enemy what it needs to unleash an unstoppable special attack.

While playing you also need to consider the durability of your weapons. Whether you are conducting a melee attack or using offensive lunabilities, the durability of your weapons is affected. After a while, they break and you need to get something new. (You cannot use offensive lunabilities without a weapon equipped). For this reason, the equipment change option in battle is vital. You will need to be quick on your feet to change weapons as they break or if you want to preserve certain items. No sense on using a valuable and rare weapon on a weak enemy you can defeat with your fists.

On that note, another interesting aspect to Blade Dancer: Lineage of Light is the crafting system. Since weapons will eventually break, you may need to get your hands on new weapons and equipment anytime, anywhere. Crafting is a portion of the game and it lets you synthesize up to five different components/items together to make new weapons and equipment. You can try to create them manually by selecting ingredients (trial and error), or from recipes. When you get a new item, you can take it to an appraiser, who will break down the item to the components needed to craft it, give you the components, and the recipe. On the flipside, it makes having weapon/equipment shops almost pointless. Once you figure out the pattern for the shop's inventory, you can craft the items for a lot less by buying the necessary parts from the crafting broker.

Blade Dancer: Lineage of Light also features a multiplayer option. Using ad-hoc wireless, up to four players within the same physical vicinity can connect and play together in a co-op match, or network play. In the network play, there are four levels, the beginner's maze (unlock your gate, defeat the final boss), overlord's maze (unlock all the gates, defeat the final boss), death maze (share the treasure, defeat the final boss), and enlightenment maze (defeat all enemies and final boss). While playing in network play, some unique items can be imported into single player game. These unique items cannot be appraised or recreated using the crafting system.

All in all, I enjoyed the game's battle system and crafting system. The two key game elements added an additional layer complexity that helped make Blade Dancer: Lineage of Light an addictive, through-provoking experience. Another positive aspect includes the game's load time. The load time between screens can take up to five seconds, but the longest loads are in the towns. When you are on the world map, the load times are a couple of seconds. Overall, Blade Dancer: Lineage of Light is an exciting RPG that any fan of the genre with a PSP should pick up immediately.

In the general scheme of things, Blade Dancer: Lineage of Light is a pretty good looking game. It utilizes the 3D-rendering capabilities of the PSP pretty well. The 3D character models have a decent level of detail. The characters integral to the story have a good level of detail, while the NPCs throughout the town are not nearly as detailed. The monsters also come with a fine level of detail. The environments and settings are generic, but work.

Audio:

The audio is a mixed bag. The background music is somewhat plain, yet subtle and does not get annoying but does not add any value to the gaming experience. The sound effects are a disappointment. They are plain, repetitive, and could use some work. The real strength of the audio comes from the voiceovers, which appear during the critical parts of the game. The voice actors incorporate emotions to make the character lively and they are partly what made the story so intriguing. The voiceovers can be heard in original Japanese or dubbed English.

Conclusion:

Blade Dancer: Lineage of Light starts off pretty slowly with a lengthy introduction, and quickly becomes an exciting adventure. The story is developed with and incorporates voiceovers that add emotion to the critical portions of the tale. The game play offers an exciting RPG battle system with an intricate item crafting system and other elements to make the game anything but dull. In the end, RPG fans will definitely want to pick up Blade Dancer: Lineage of Light.