Review of Link of Hearts

[1oldtymer]

[center]Link of Hearts: Battles, More Battles, and Not Much Else[/center]

Link of Hearts is an unusual Kemco RPG. It has a standard plot, but with a few surprises which would have been quite interesting if more fully developed. There is very little dialog, but the vocabulary, perhaps because of the superior translation, is somewhat more elevated than in similar games. There is almost no character development or interaction. If you want battles, read on, otherwise you can exit here.

I will spend most of this review discussing the play elements, but first let me note some of the interface features. The world map does not have any locations marked, but is just a small window showing the outlines of the land/water. Saving can only be done by going through the menu; loading must be done by going through the menu back to the title. In the shops, you can only buy quantity one of an item at a time, so if you want ten potions, it is a sequence of ten selection taps and ten confirm taps. Although there is a monster guide, it gives only a list of names of defeated monsters and nothing else.

You will not get lost. There is a menu item that tells you what next to do, but no location is marked on any map. Most dungeons are very short and have no detours or ways to get lost. There is no item that allows you to "escape" a dungeon, but some of them (not all) have shortcuts to get out once you reach the end. There is always a restore point just before the final dungeon boss.

There is an item that allows you to teleport to previously visited locations, including even dungeons.

How about the play? There are no subquests and no post game. The NPCs have nothing much to say. Here is the most you can expect from the NPC conversations:

NPC1: There are some old ruins west of here.
NPC2: You need to get the mayor's permission to visit the old ruins.

So you will waste time bumping into each NPC until you get the next step unlocked.

You can use the clear data to continue to play, but all that is added are two challenge monsters. [Note: I think this is accurate, but I could be wrong. One of the monsters might be available prior to game end.] If that sounds lame, if you want to battle the two difficult monsters, you will find yourself spending grinding time in the post game. Did I say grinding? There is only one useful grinding spot, and even that is quite slow. I completed the normal game with my party at about 55% of the level I later reached when I finally defeated the most difficult boss. Unhappily, if you have any "extra" characters, those on the bench get NO benefit from the battles.

By now, if you have read this far, you probably are thinking, "No way I'm wasting time on this piece of junk." However, if you like battles, and mountains of customization choices under tight constraints, Link of Hearts has something to offer. There are plenty of skills and items that, at least on the surface, offer a lot of choices about how to approach various monsters. In fact, some configurations are absolutely critical, and it will take you some trial and error to figure things out. Fortunately, you can reconfigure anytime (except in battles) with no penalty. The assignment of skills is sort of like assigning points or choosing which branches of a skill tree to open.

I deliberately chose the phrase "on the surface" to describe your choices. If you don't grind to max to fight the challenge bosses, you probably will have a variety of skill assignments depending on your strategy. In my case, after grinding to max, my skill assignments today are almost identical to what I did 3 years ago. Some of that comes from adopting the same strategy, but most, I believe, is a consequence of being at maximum levels and not being impacted by constraints (caps) on the choices.

Most dungeons have a few mini-bosses as well as a final boss. After you get rolling, you shouldn't feel in danger to losing these battles, but they can easily last 15 turns, or much less if you get careless or impatient. If you are an experienced player (or if you peek at the tips in the forum), you can discover a way to make the late battles, which are really just preparation for the challenge bosses, somewhat easier.

One of the two challenge bosses took me 35 turns to defeat when I was just at the levels when I completed the normal game. After cashing in my points from defeating lots of monsters, I knew from playing 3 years ago just what I needed from the shop (which you would not know unless you read the tips in the forum). With the item from the point shop and just a little grinding, I knocked off this boss in 22 turns.

Of course a foolish challenge of BANDISMOR, truly a nasty monster, right after my 22 turn victory, resulted in calling out the cleanup squad to mop up all my blood on the floor. I needed to grind to almost double my level before knocking on that door again. I guess I should have expected that any monster residing in The Crack of Testing might not appreciate visitors. However, once I was at max, the battle with Bandismor was not difficult, and in that sense was disappointing. I would compare this battle with the process of defeating Apocalypse in Alphadia: if you are prepared and cautious, you should win without ever being in danger of losing. Preparation here is perhaps a bit more than in Alphadia, because you need to configure your skills properly.

So if you enjoyed triumphing over Apocalypse, Link of Hearts offers a similar challenge.