
	Platform PlayStation Portable (PSP) Genre Role-Playing Publisher NIS America Developer SCEI / Hit Maker ETA July 2006
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Blade Dancer

Whenever a new system comes out, RPG fans have little choice but to wait a little longer for their games than those who get their jollies from racers, fighters, FPSes, and such. Like it or not, developers have to take their time when making a role-playing game. There’s a lot of content in these things, from story, to creating the game world, and, of course, there has to be a halfway decent battle system in there. Now that the PSP has been out for a little over a year, we’re finally starting to see the rate of RPG releases on the handhold pick up. Next month, Sony and Hit Maker have one such offering hitting the Japanese market by the name of Blade Dancer, and now NIS America has announced that they plan to bring the game to Canada and the U.S..

Following the adventures of a young knight named Lance, players will explore the land of Foo. As lovely, and fantastical as this world may look, it finds itself in a bit of a conundrum, as the Dread Knight, a terribly evil warrior from the Great War who slew Foo’s hero of choice, Blade Dancer, has returned and is back to wrecking mayhem. Making matters worse is that this is a regular occurrence, as the Dread Knight appears in the Sepna Forest once every one hundred years, and each time he brings his demon army with him for the ride. Now Lance is charged with the task of ridding Foo of the Dread Knight once and for all.

However, the young knight isn’t alone, as he is joined by a variety of characters that will help him along the way. Those that we know of so far include a fairy named Tess, an elf healer named Felis, as well as Gozan, a monk for the “Yellow” clan, an intelligence gathering organization, who is on a mission to research the ruins scattered around Foo.

As players wander the world of Foo in search of the Dread Knight, there’ll be a lot of opportunities for battle along the way. Thankfully, Blade Dancer won’t beat gamers over the head with one random encounter after another. Instead, floating skulls that move around the screen will represent monsters. These roaming groups of enemies will still try and take a piece out of Lance and the gang, but at least it gives players a fighting chance of not getting stuck in a cycle of repetitive battles.

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If one does get into an altercation with a band of bad guys, players will be greeted with a mixture of the conventional and the original when battle breaks out. Standard melee attacks are done in a turn-based fashion, but who attacks in what order is determined by the speed of individual characters and enemies. Magic, though, doesn’t exist in Blade Dancer the same way as it does in other RPGs. In this game, players will use what is being called Lunability. The way this works is that as characters and enemies

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attack one another, they slowly fill a gauge at the top of the screen that can be used to cast spells. What is particularly interesting about this method is that it is a shared gauge. Both players and the enemy can use this, so if a player waits to long, one of their enemies could decide to caste a spell instead, using up the gauge, and dealing a lot of damage to one’s party in the process.

Hit Maker is also making use of the PSP’s wireless abilities by allowing up to four players to wander the land of Foo together. This will provide a chance to run around beating up monsters with friends, as well as collect items, but will not advance the story, as that remains exclusively a single player experience.

One aspect of role-playing games that has gained a lot of popularity in recent years, especially in online ones, is the ability for players to craft new items. This feature is being brought to Blade Dancer, where players can learn how to make up to 650 items. This will be an important skill to learn, as weapons in the game will wear out over time, and eventually necessitate a replacement. One could run to the store to buy one each time this happens, but it would probably be easier for players to craft extras to carry with them if a weapon does break. When crafting, players will also sometimes be able to make high quality versions of weapons that have enhanced stats over the standard version of that weapon.

Up to this point, RPG fans have had scant few options for titles to satiate their needs on the PSP, and of the games in the genre that are available right now it would be hard to blame them for not being overly enthusiastic for what’s for offer. Hit Maker looks like they want to try quite a few new things with Blade Dancer. This coupled with some cooperative wireless play could just help to fill the void in the PSP’s library when the game hits our shores this summer.

Mr. Nash

(February 20, 2006)