Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Well hello
there, and welcome to another review of a KEMCO title! We’ve been through a few
of these in the past, each with their own charm, and now it’s time to take a
look at a new title: Dragon Spira.
The world
of Dragon Spira is an interesting place, where The Divine created six spirit
beasts to rule over the world, along with different races for most of them.
However that didn’t go over so well when the spirit beasts rebelled, and were
sealed into eggs. The Divine created humans to replace them, and left them with
some relics and wisdom before disappearing. One thousand years later and humanity
is doing pretty well for itself, all things considered. Unfortunately, danger
lurks, and a hero is needed to stand against the coming evil! (that’s you by
the way).
So you end
up with a traditional JRPG party of four plus a mascot creature (who is also
helpful in battle at least) to venture forth. Now, most of you who are familiar
with KEMCO titles should know that they generally come in two flavours: old-school
Final Fantasy like or old-school Dragon Quest like. This time we’re going with
the Final Fantasy like style.
For those
of you new to KEMCO titles, Dragon Spira is a very retro stylized JRPG, but in
a good way. You have a party of heroes that ventures out into the world to
right wrongs and uncover hidden secrets along the way. Getting into random
turn-based battles is a mandatory experience here, all done in a pixel-graphic
and MIDI sounding adventure.
Between
bouts of random encounters and facing off against powerful bosses, you will be
exploring dungeons, towns, taking sidequests from characters or the guild, and
maybe challenging optional areas if you’re feeling confident? You may need to
rethink that last one though. When the game says “powerful enemies here”, it
means you’re getting one-shot.
Dragon
Spira runs the traditional set-up: visit a town, find out there’s something
important to do in a dungeon nearby, find and enter dungeon on world map, clear
dungeon, report in to town, rinse and repeat with the next town. It’s a tried
and true formula of JRPGs through the ages. Thankfully KEMCO tends to do away
with a lot of the frustration of some of the older games when going for their
retro feel. Such quality of life options include: being able to teleport to any
town or dungeon you have previously set foot in, indicators for where quests
are available, the option to warp back to quest giver when complete from the
quest menu, and many other small but handy bits.
Exploration
of dungeons is pretty straightforward, where you walk around aiming for the
depths and the boss that’s sure to meet you there, getting into random battles
along the way, and maybe seeing a cutscene or two. At set intervals there are teleportation
circles that you can use to warp between different zones, as well as braziers
that can summon enemies as a set of three individual battles so you can get
exp, money, stones, and RP more efficiently, more on those last two later.
Combat in
these types of KEMCO games is a little interesting, as player units are in a
vertical line with front and rear options, while enemy units are placed in a
3x3 grid so that they fit. Some enemies will take up multiple squares. Combat is taken in turns based on speed of
units with faster units taking earlier and more frequent turns, as indicated by
a handy turn order bar at the top of the combat screen. When in combat you have
a number of tactical options available to you: attack, job, unique, item,
defense, summon, and if you have the mascot character unlocked summon.
Unique and
Job refer to skills, which cost MP but hold special effects, deal extra damage,
or multiple enemy tiles. Each move has it’s own range, so pay attention when
deciding what skill to use. Unique are character specific and are solely
learned by that character, but Job skills are learned as long as you have the
required job equipped and at the right level. Summon just calls your mascot to
stand in front of the unit that summoned it, which is also the only time you
can use the mascot character’s Wonder Skill ability to help you in battle.
Yup, you
read that right, we get jobs. Now, I feel no shame in telling you I’m an
absolute sucker for a decent job system, and I feel like Dragon Spira delivers
a decent system. You start out with a set of jobs, and a bunch of locked jobs
you can’t access yet. Basic jobs can level from JP earned primarily through
combat, and default jobs will level to 25. Once you hit 25, if you have a
specific item, you can use it to unlock an advanced version of that class allowing you to level it to 50. Some of the locked jobs require hitting that
level 50 with more than one job class. There are both active and passive skills
awarded to you as you level your jobs, and your jobs can be swapped at any time
outside of combat or a cutscene, so feel free to play around with them. It is
important to note that jobs can only equip certain types of items, so if you
make it through a good chunk of the game without getting a decent dagger and
equip a thief job, don’t expect that to go super well. While job levels are not
shared across party, you don’t lose anything from switching jobs, so you can
always swap back if you don’t like the job you’ve changed to.
So, let’s
take a poke at a really weird but interesting feature: the sugoroku board. If
you don’t have any idea what that is, don’t worry, neither did I. Basically you
can think of it kinda like a mario party board, or maybe a Jumanji board if
that’s more familiar. As you pass over or land on certain tiles, you gain the
item or stat associated with that tile. On certain tiles or at the end of the
board, you may distribute all the stats you’ve earned through tiles. Yes, you
can replay boards, so you can do this pretty much indefinitely. Do note that
the higher the player party level the more costly it is to move tiles on the
board.
So how do
you move tiles? Well, you earn RP from battles, or the board, and you spend a
set number of points based on board and party level to spin a roulette wheel
that has 1 to 6 on it. What you land on is how far you go. At intersections
where you have a choice of direction, you also spin to determine where you go.
You can find items to choose a desired roll, so don’t worry too hard about
missing a tile. You can always come back and try again.
So you
KEMCO veterans are probably wondering at this point: does this one have the
store? The answer is yes, it does. For those of you confused, these types of
KEMCO titles tend to have a sort of store where you can exchange kaishin stones
earned through combat or as certain rewards for either permanent cross-save
game modifiers like increased exp earned, or exchange for items or an equipment
gacha roll where you might end up with some ridiculously overpowered gear.
Overall I
have to say I’m quite a fan of Dragon Spira. The combat is pretty fluid and has
a lot of options for you, the job system is a decent mesh of easy to use and
tactical options with a fair number of jobs available, and the sugoroku boards
are an incredibly interesting addition to the game. The story is pretty
engaging, the characters are unique in their portrayal, and each job class has
their own outfit sprite in addition to the general character sprite. I would
definitely recommend Dragon Spira if you’re looking for a really fun retro
style RPG.
Score: 8 / 10
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