Disk 12: Dragon Knights Glorious (ドラゴンナイトツグロリアス)

Name: Dragon Knights Glorious (ドラゴンナイトツグロリアス)
Type: Visual Novel RPG
Available Languages: Japanese

After several weeks’ jaunt from Sony’s little gray console, it’s time to return to the PlayStation. This week we take a look at Pandora Box Creative Office’s JRPG Dragon Knights Glorious. Yes, dragons again. What can I say, they’re a JRPG staple. Apparently this is volume one of a group of games called the Pandora Max Series, amusingly designated on the front cover of the jewel case as PMS. After the prerequisite juvenile chuckle has been logged, let’s see what this rather generic looking adventure is all about.

The Pandora Max Series, as I will call it because I can’t bring myself to use the shortened designation, seems to be a reduced price group of games for the PlayStation. Considering that this game’s list price is under 2,000 yen, I’m prepared for just about anything. Having no opening sequence, we head from the main menu straight to the game proper. We are greeted with a screen full of static, accompanied with trippy music and what sounds like someone trying to wake us up. Possibly. Maybe. Not what I was expecting, but I’ll roll with it if it means that I can get away from this music.



No, it's not the fault of the device that you're viewing this on. The game really does start out looking like this.

What looks to be the silhouette of the winged dragon-girl from the front cover of the game appears, and she snaps you out of the static via a dual shock attack. That was new. Unfortunately the horrible music remains. The dragon fairy’s name is Puriru, this weird dream is in fact her ‘Mind Mail’, and we’re the first to accept it. I wonder why. She gives us the option of changing her name to something we’d like better, which is kind of desperate and sad, so I’ll be nice and continue calling her Puriru.

When she asks for your character’s name, we get the dubious joy of finding out that it is Daiku. Whatever you say, game. After digesting all this, Puriru asks Daiku some questions about himself, all of which he is apparently happy to answer. After Puriru’s inquisition, the Mind Mail gets cut off before she can finish telling you whatever it is she had to say. How very typical.

After deciding that the whole bizarre sequence was a dream, which would be a logical step if this wasn’t an RPG, Daiku muses about it in a monologue of white text on a silent black screen. It’s about as entertaining as it sounds, but at least that horrible music from the Mind Mail is gone. During this sequence, the player is allowed to make a choice as to the main character’s opinion of said dream, which leads to some character shaping that is somewhat interesting. After some rather deep, destiny-laden thoughts, Daiku is offered another choice as to his opinion on the dragon fairy girl.

We finally reach chapter one, and are awakened by being decked by a guy whose hair looks like something straight out of a Toriyama Akira manga. This is Chiko, according to the booklet, and I like him already. It seems that Daiku was smiling in his sleep, and our companion took offence to it, given that they had eaten quite badly the night before. It then becomes clear that we’re in jail. It quickly becomes obvious that Chiko has serious anger management issues, as he starts a fight with our cellmate immediately after beating Daiku up.


Apparently, Chiko hates joy.

After yet another visual novel style decision making sequence about how to stop the fight, we are introduced to our other cellmate. According to the accompanying booklet, this extremely pretty fellow is Batto, and he gets the honor of being the first person to mention Dragon Knights in the game. During the conversation that follows, it is revealed that Daiku is travelling with these people in order to become a Dragon Knight. It is also his fault that they are in jail, which will look really great on his resume. After discussing their situation, during which Chiko assures Daiku that he is going to kick his…er…hindquarters, we are offered a save point and a flashback sequence. Wow, Daiku sure spends a lot of time talking to himself. He is a classic visual novel protagonist, only way less interesting. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m ready to get to the fighting now.

When you reach the RPG portion of the game, you will face the enemy in a first person perspective format. The battle system itself is very basic, with five commands appearing at the bottom of the screen between your characters’ avatars and their stats. You can attack, use special techniques, defend, use items, or run. You can decide what sort of basic attack you want to use against the enemy and, depending on which ones you choose, you can unlock a more powerful attack in a later turn. This gives what would otherwise be a barebones battle system a bit more oomph.

The character designs in Dragon Knights Glorious are this game’s greatest selling point, as they are very nicely drawn and emote quite expressively. I’ve already mentioned that I found Chiko to be hilarious, and that is entirely due to his well-drawn expressions. The game’s story sequences take place in visual novel like stills that are extremely basic, which I would normally have a problem with, but the screen is mostly taken up by the characters that you are talking to. Chiko’s rumble with his cellmate takes up almost the entire screen.

The music in this game is actually quite good in many places, when they choose to use it. But on the other hand, there are too many long silences for my taste early on, and of course the horrible opening sequence music deserves a mention again for being just that bad.

Overall, I can say that you can tell that this is a budget game. It is a visual novel with RPG gameplay and mini games that I would have enjoyed more if it hadn’t felt so bland. We’ve seen this hero a thousand times before, and will probably see him a thousand times again. If he were at all interesting it might make his endless internal monologues worth reading and therefore make this game worth the small chunk of change that I paid for it, but as it is, I can say with no hesitation whatsoever that this is the first game that I have posted for on this blog that is a complete waste of time.

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