Disk 4: The Mystic Dragoons (ミスティックドラグーン), Part 1

Name: The Mystic Dragoons (ミスティックドラグーン)
Type: Fantasy Turn-based RPG
Available Languages: Japanese

I went about picking this week’s game a little differently than I have my previous choices. All of the other games were obvious picks for me, games that I wanted to get to immediately. But what to do next? Such was my quandary as I stared at my game shelf, titles blurring as I pressured myself to just choose one already. So I ran my fingers over the jewel cases, glancing at titles, occasionally looking at a cover, until I reached a game called The Mystic Dragoons. Well, the title passed muster, so I checked the cover, and was rewarded with some of the nicest cover art I’d seen in quite a while. And so, this week’s game of choice was picked purely for the cover art and the prospect of the presence of dragons. Just for a heads up, I will often be using the anglicized names that are used in the art book when they are given for ease of understanding. Well then, ladies and gentleman, shall we begin?

The opening movie shows people using a time travelling dragon that utilizes water to head into the past to commit an assassination in order to change the future. Alright game, you have my attention. Apparently their scheme worked and the future has changed. Well then, I’m ready to seek justice, preferably with my very own dragon.


The time travelling dragon prepares for its unpleasant mission.

After the game finishes throwing a ton of plot at you, you get to control the main character, who at present is an unnamed little boy who hails from a line of great dragoons. Your grandfather leaves your care to the dragon Raira and proceeds to send you off into the unknown. Nothing like RPG parenting, is there? You end up in a village that appears to know a thing or two about dragons, and your character finally gets a name: Cliff. It appears that we’re going to be stuck in Collet for a while, our hero is only three, after all. And so time passes as Cliff is raised with the other children in the village. The player even gets to join the kids in a pointless and boring round of hide and seek.

After all that nonsense is over, you finally regain control of the character and gain access to the status menu. It’s about time we got to the gameplay. Raira is having a baby, so we’re off to the caves to name it, accompanied by Mila, a girl from Collet. Baby Alf joins the world just in time for the village to be attacked, so we have to make our escape, weak little level ones that we are. Thankfully, the monsters here drop a bunch of healing items, so grind, little weaklings, grind. Now, it’s time to find out why someone finds it necessary to destroy our peaceful little community of dragons. You meet Buran, the jerk who set his monster army upon you and your friends.

 

 

Cliff doesn’t handle seeing even more of his friends murdered in front of him well and attacks Buran, which goes about how you’d expect it to at this point in the game. After getting beaten within an inch of your life, you find out that these nasty fellows are members of the Gureizeru army. If the map in the booklet that came with the game is anything to go by, the Gureizeru Republic is a long way from Collet, which leads me to wonder what they want with us. Well, now that they’ve killed the dragons and murdered the adults, they set fire to the entire village, all while having a good laugh at our expense.

But then Pura-ma Federation’s Tactical Dragoons show up and send Buran and his friends packing. Apparently the Gureizeru Republic believes that dragons are going to destroy the world because a princess told them so in a prediction, hence what we’ve had happen today. Sounds logical to me. I’m ready to go join the dragoons, not so much for the purposes of revenge, unlike my characters, but because I get to ride a dragon. Hey, whatever works for you, right? But then as soon as they arrive, they ditch us, burning village and all. Great.

 

 

Soon after, we’re off to the Gureizeru Republic to see Elmys talking to Cronoss, the goddess of time. Apparently this is the girl who said that dragons were going to destroy the world, and she mentions that it has thrown the world into chaos and wonders if that is the god’s intention. Elmys is approached by her two sisters, who drag her off for a meeting with Buran. Elmys is about as thrilled about all this destruction in the name of the goddess of time based on her word as one might expect.

 

 

Finally we return to our heroes and their burned out husk of a hometown. Hopefully this means that I can actually play the game for a while now. Apparently we need to head northwest to a city called Dorasshu to upgrade our equipment. I’m all about that, so let’s move out. We finally reach the world map, so it’s time to start our grand adventure toward becoming dragoons and stopping the Gureizeru Republic. Why do I get the feeling that this is only the tip of the iceberg?

The battle system in this game is your basic turn-based fare. When you are fighting on the ground, you are given the choice of five icons to use. You can attack, using your weapons or special techniques. There is a magic icon, an item icon, an icon that allows you to adjust your position in regards to the enemy’s location, and an icon that allows you to run. Later when you can ride dragons (Oh joy of joys!), you get a slightly different set of choices. Along with the attack, magic, and run icons, you also get two new ones. There is charge icon that you can use to hit enemies bodily with your dragon and a breath attack that you can use to have your dragon attack the enemies.

The character designs for this game are lovely, and are showcased to good effect in an accompanying art booklet. Kamimura Sachiko draws with a delicate, detailed hand that really brings each of the characters to life. Unfortunately the in game design is not nearly so beautiful. The scenes are rather empty and plain in comparison to the detailed sprites and pretty character designs. If they had put half as much effort into the backgrounds as they did into the rest of the game, perhaps this title would be much more well-known. I’m not one to judge on a game’s appearance alone, but it seems just a little lopsided to me. The first magic spell that I received in game, Kare Yuku Dendoron, is quite possibly the most hideous spell animation that I have ever seen. I would tell you what it reminds me of, but I’m trying to keep this blog completely clean, therefore, I’ll leave it for you to find out yourself. Let’s just say that the animators were unimaginative and that the spell is hideous and leave it at that.

 

 

Overall, despite some graphical flaws and an occasional lag in the narrative, I like this game. The story is classic fantasy, but with a slightly different approach. The sprites are detailed and expressive. And hey, did I mention that you get to fight while riding a dragon? Because if I didn’t, that would have been very remiss of me.

When I originally wrote this post, I intended to talk about this game for several weeks. After playing through most of this game, I have found that that is not feasible. I googled this game’s Japanese title at one point, and the very first option that popped up was Mystic Dragoons kusoge. For those of you who know what that means, no further explanation is needed as to why I’m ready to move on. For those who do not, look it up at your own risk, as the translation is rather vulgar. Suffice it to say that the Japanese by and large are not impressed by the quality of this game. I wouldn’t go so far as to relegate it to the territory that they have left it in, but I can see why casual RPG gamers could develop a loathing for this game. I myself have grown quite weary of it and I’ve played through most of it as of writing this, so for those of you who are thinking of importing it, you have been warned. In the long run, this game becomes an exercise in intense boredom. So it’s back to reviews we go!
 Edit June 5th, 2014:

Since writing the above, it has come to my attention that this post has become the most popular one on my blog. Being quite happy to give in to popular opinion when it comes to my readers, I have posted part two for your enjoyment.

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