Gamertell Review: Sands of Destruction for DS
by at January 27, 2010 9:33 am
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Sands of Destruction comes with a pretty impressive pedigree. It was developed by Imageepoch, creators of Luminous Arc 1-3 (DS), 7th Dragon (DS) and Arc Rise Fantasia (Wii) and published by Sega. It also enjoyed quite a bit of success in Japan, inspiring aWorld Destruction: Sekai Bokumetsu no Rokunin anime and World Destruction: Futari no Tenshi manga series. Now North American audiences get the chance to see what exactly makes Sands of Destruction stand out.
The world’s too messed up to save. Destroy it!
Humans aren’t on top anymore, the beastmen are. And, sadly, many of the beastmen overlords aren’t compassionate rulers. Most of the world is covered in sand, and humans are regarded as second-class citizens or slaves. It kind of helps you understand why there is a group called the World Annihilation Front (WAF) is out to destroy the world.
Kyrie is a young man living in a small town with his uncle. Things are more stable there, as the beast lord for the area is kind towards human and beastmen and humans get along pretty well. One day, after running an errand for his uncle, he comes back to town to find fliers have been dropped from above stating that he has joined WAF. He’s called to the beast lord’s residence to be questions. After trying to escape, Kyrie hears a mysterious voice and freaks out. When he wakes, everything around him, the town, the mansion, has been turned to sand.
The beastmen take Kyrie away and imprison him. That doesn’t last though, as he’s soon freed by Morte, the Scarlet Plague and WAF member. Morte then convinces him to join her, and tells him that she’ll show him why the world deserves to be destroyed.
A typical RPG with an unusual battle system.
Sands of Destruction has a few unique concepts going for it that set it apart from most DS RPGs. First, there’s tons of voice acting. Its really a surprising and staggering amount, and I don’t think I’ve heard this much dialogue in a DS RPG since Suikoden Tierkreis. Also, the story is fairly unique as our “heroes” are really antiheroes setting out to hopefully destroy the world. But the battle system is where Sands of Destruction really stands out.
While battle is turn based, it’s also active. When your character’s turn comes up, you can check their stamina dots to see how many attacks or special abilities they can unleash. Attacks chain together, by pressing X or Y, and can help deal more damage by putting together combos with more advanced options. You can also use an item, but that ends your entire turn and I’d recommend using skills, which only use one of those precious, yellow dots.
You can also equip “Quips” before battle, a phrase that, when triggered and said in battle, will result in a beneficial result for your character or party. Quips are earned by playing the game as normal. During spoken story scenes a line may appear a different color, and after the character says it he or she learns that particular quip.
Sadly, aside from the unique “destroy the world” storyline and unusual battle system, Sands of Destruction is really just your typical JRPG. The characters are all drawn in the anime style. Character sprites are incredibly detailed and the party members all tend to fall into the standard RPG stereotypes. That isn’t a bad thing, just if you expected everything to be totally revolutionary and different, you’ll be disappointed.
A good choice for fans of JRPGs.
While Sands of Destruction may not be as innovative as many would hope, it is another good addition to the DS’ robust RPG library. The storyline is more unusual and intriguing than the ones found in most games, and the innovative, combo-based battle system is quite fun as well. True, it still perpetuates RPG character stereotypes and the challenge wears thin once you level your characters’ skills up to a certain point, but it’s definitely worth a playthrough.
Site [Sands of Destruction]
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