Review of Destiny Fantasia

[1oldtymer]

[center]
Destiny Fantasia: Post Game is the Attraction
[/center]

The story told in Destiny Fantasia has a good hook: a killer comet is about to smash the earth and destroy humanity.  A group of the "good guys" has an uncertain and untested theory about how to prevent this catastrophe, but they suddenly find themselves at war with the "bad guys" who have a much more certain method to stop the comet.  The difficulty with the solution of the bad guys is that at least half of mankind will die.  So, what would you do?  Abandon the uncertain but less deadly theory and strive to save at least some people, even if that means sure death for billions?

Unfortunately, the moral dilemma posed by the story isn't pursued once it is set up, and we just get the good guys fighting the bad guys.  Oh well, you can't expect too much.

I played this game about 3 years ago, and I can't stand the interface.  The NPCs move around and constantly bump into you, with the result that you are forced to run through their dialog over and over.  Everything is squished together on the screen (even on a tablet), so it takes repeated attempts to designate the right monster to attack when many are on the screen, or to which character you want to give an item.  I tapped "back" so many times because of this clutter.  I found myself frequently using the 4-way controller to avoid this headache.

There are some features, that when you hear them, make you think, "Wow, sounds like a great game."  In addition to the standard battle/level up/dungeon crawling, there is an arena, a dungeon with a timed escape, areas of extreme environment that bleed hit points unless you have the right items (which you may not early in the game), the notorious cart/track/switch dungeon, and even the frustrating slippery ice sections.  Sounds great, right?  Well, yes, but these intermittent pleasures are quite small in scope compared to the time you spend just fighting the monsters.

In fact, the game allows for no scope for thought or strategy at all.  It is basically linear, and there is never any tradeoff involved in using a particular weapon.   Weapon "abilities" take points to level, and when the proper amount is reached, that ability belongs to the player forever, even if the weapon is sold to the store.  As long as you have money, you always upgrade your weapon and your armor.   One major drawback is that any player "on the bench" (not active in your formation) receives NO benefit of any kind from the battles.

There are no shortcuts to leveling up here, except for the arena.  In the arena, even if you eventually lose, you keep whatever stat improvements you have acquired from any matches won.  There are only a few restore points outside of the inns, so you must have a sufficient supply of items for the tougher dungeons.  There are no metal monsters to give mega experience (although there is the rare Ciriatto monster that does give extra large rewards), and no difficulty options to try to game the system.  It is just onward and fight.  Fortunately, the grinding is almost automatic as you make progress in the story.  So you will not miss the presence of any way to reduce the frequency of the random monsters.

There are a few subquests and some timed puzzles.  Rarely, if ever, do you need to talk to an NPC.  The NPC comments that do matter are always of the form, "go [direction] to find [place]."

The dungeons are usually simple, except for the very last one, which is a bit of a maze with switches and multiple doors/levels.  Some of the bosses are difficult, but not tricky, and can be defeated with the standard revive/heal/attack attrition technique.

You can use the cleared data to replay the same scenario, and there seem to be additional monsters and subquests in the post game.

[Update: there is some post game stuff, as I found the "Ruin of Time" location using my clear data, but it may have been present in the normal game.  There are also several subquests, but again, I don't know how many of these might be in the normal game.  Finally, there are one or two major bosses that I think are just in the post game.  There are also additional weapons, etc., but they don't seem like much of an improvement.  The increase in stats as you go through the steps to unlock everything is sufficient to give you a fighting chance in the arena and against the extra bosses.]

There may be a memory leak in the game.  On my tablet, at one point I experienced a severe slowdown on the world map.  Quit followed by reload solved the issue.

Early in the game the monsters can be tough, but once you near the end of the game, you are strong enough to make your victories likely, but sometimes still a bit of a struggle.   The team arena matches are winnable, although the last one is tough.  The individual arena matches do require thought and strategy and are quite difficult.

The story has the good hook, there is some conflict in the plot, and there are moments of engaging play.  The arena, once your stats are high enough, does offer scope for tough battles.  I just wish the normal game made more of its good features, and didn't make it possible to zoom through it without exploring some of the more interesting features.