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Sands of Destruction

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GF Rating
6.7

203 ratings

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GF Rating
9

Excellent

Sands Of Destruction suprised me.

posted by Triune (SAN JOSE, CA) Jan 26, 2010

Member since Jan 2010

12 out of 13 gamers (92%) found this review helpful

So, I personally am loving this game, it's been way to long since I have seen a decent story driven game, they brought some unique aspects to the old RPG style game, simply and easy to use.

Scenario/Plot: So the premise of the story revolves primarily around Kyrie a young boy who lives in a small town that appears to be untouched by the troubles that envelope the rest of the world, such as the human enslavement by the Ferrals, (Half human half beast, some more so then others,) and Morte a girl with an organization that plans on destroying the world, Kyrie is the key to their success. All this happens in the first ten minutes.

Music: Nothing to impressive about the music but not irritating, the music didn't really leave much of an impression but I know I didn't hate it which is normally a good sign since it's there for back round noise rather then a CD you'd buy.

Art/Graphics: Again nothing to impressive but, not bad graphics, if you've played games like Lunar, the game play looks similar to that, or Golden Sun as the people are more CGI then cartoon.

Gameplay: A simple control system is what I like about this game, it really brought me back to the RPG's that have died unfortunately. Battle is simple, select a target and pick your attack, nice thing is that each character has a set number of attacks, they can be increased by "Morale" which certain characters can raise and also by performing certain tasks such as increased combos. My personal favorite aspect are the "Quips" they tend to be simple statements that add effects, (Voice actors used)

Characters: The most important thing about any RPG or Story Driven game is the characters, they are who you will be spending the entire game with, the Kyrie, is a bit of a wuss very early in the game but seems to quickly grow a back bone, Morte uses Kyrie's acts of kindness to start fights because she is that kind of awesome girl. Taupi is just to amazing to ruin, my favorite character tho.

Hope this helps,

TriuneProphet

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GF Rating
5

Fair

Sands of Destruction . . . Destruct!

posted by IllogicalJ (BROOKLYN, NY) Jan 25, 2010

Top Reviewer

Member since May 2005

2 out of 8 gamers (25%) found this review helpful

The story is interesting, but the gameplay is too boring to compel me to finish playing through. I got lost in one dungeon, bogged down with fights trying to work my way through, and by then had cracked the confusing gameplay system and was killing each enemy with ease. I don't know why enemies didn't deal me much damage, nor why bosses were able to go seven or eight times in a row, but it hardly mattered. I wanted to read the script, not play the game.

That said, I'll try to explain it: your three characters gain morale at the start of each battle (don't ask me how) and can then choose between flurry (fast) attacks and blow (slow) attacks. After customizing these, you can string them together automatically (this is the glitch I was mentioning earlier); the only challenge in the game is how long it takes you to figure out what to do, given the lack of in-game explanation (this being a rental, there's no instruction booklet).

Story is the one place the game shines--the characters are original, and your goal is to "destroy" the world, though you are fighting an evil empire to do so (beatmasters, who have enslaved humanity). Except--things just sort of happen, and the long in-game dialogue scenes cannot be sped through (though they can be skipped), which is tedious, considering Sega doesn't know how to hire voice actors.

I haven't beaten the game, so I can't make a conclusion, but I hope I've adequately explained why I stopped playing. Maybe I'll just list those again: There's no challenge, the dungeons are confusing with a too-high encounter rate, and things are, overall, repetitive.

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GF Rating
4

Weak

Sands of Tedium

posted by Kyogissun (ROCHESTER, NY) Jan 17, 2010

Member since Dec 2004

3 out of 21 gamers (14%) found this review helpful

Sands of Destruction attempts to make people think that the boring and tired mechanics of past RPG's still work. That is to say, generic turn based gameplay, OVERLY quirky characters. random encounters and oh yeah, ludicrous plots.

Basically, you play a young man who's gifted (Or cursed, I didn't play long enough to find out OR care) with the power to turn anything he wants to sand. But of course, he has no control over it and hates this. But a female lead named Morte, part of the 'World Destruction Front' (Or something similar, I forget) wishes to use this power to destroy the world.

This seems to have the makings of what COULD have been an interesting RPG. On top of the aforementioned, the world is one in which humans are downtrodden by human/animal halfings (And some just flat out furries) known as ferals which SEEMED to be an interesting reason why one would want to destroy the world...

But it gets dragged down. As mentioned before, a generic turn based battle system (with maybe the only unique part being multiple attacks per turn) means no quick and exciting battles. Random encounters are also something that kill this game which last I checked, THE INDUSTRY DECIDED WASN'T A GOOD IDEA ANYMORE.

But what killed my enjoyment the most for this game was... the cutscenes. Anywhere from 2-10 minutes long with 3-12 with no breaks and no way to speed up dialogue.

Even more annoying is the game's lack of taking itself seriously. I'm not saying I'm anti-comedy, but with an interesting premise, it only killed me when the characters talked in such a SNARKY and SARCASTIC tone that I wanted to groan and tell these characters to shut up.

It's sad to see this happen. What was supposed to be an interesting traditional RPG from Xenogears Alumni staff members ended up being a pathetic excuse of a game. With much better choices like Disgaea, Mana Khemia and MANY MANY others out there, JRPG (And traditional) fans should avoid this like the plague.

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