Sands of Destruction?

[Avatar of Justice]

Has anyone played Sands of Destruction? It came out last week on the DS, and I can't find any good reviews of it. It has Yasunori Mitsuda as the composter and Masato Kato (writer of Xenogears and Chrono Trigger) wrote the story. I'm in love with the concept of the game where you play as a group of people bent on destroying the world. However, it seems like it has the potential to be a mediocre game.

[Kanthos]

Try this. Doesn't look to be spectacular, I think.

[Dhsu]

I saw some preview art and video and it looked pretty cool. Sounds like most people thought it was a disappointment though. Oh well.

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

If I still had a DS(a problem I hope to rectify), I'd definitely be giving it a shot. The ATB gang at 1up says that it's basically Xenogears. That can be either good or bad, but I'd still say give it a shot if you thought Kato could write up a good story.

[sabrigami]

I actually bought the game last week and so far, it's one of the most fun I've had with an rpg in years. I'm not saying it's the most groundbreaking, but a hoot no less, especially if you like classic rpgs. The graphic are pretty cute, the battle system is really fluid and intuitive, and even the voice acting is pretty good too. I also find the music to be fairly enjoyable as well (especially considering I find most games like this have very irritating music). The best part, is the chars and the writing. I've really laughed a lot at some of the dialogue. I would highly recommend this game to anyone who likes classic type rpgs.

[XZero]

A friend recommended it to me, so I picked it up along with Glory of Heracles. Sands of Destruction is, in my opinion, the better game. It's kind of generic, but if you're into anime-style JRPGs, it's really good. As an aside, the anime is pretty enjoyable as well. The first two episodes are up to watch in dubbed format on Funimation's website.

EDIT: I almost forgot; Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger/Cross, Xenogears, etc.) did the music, and it's really good.

[TSori]

I bought it a week or so ago.

I've enjoyed playign it but it really hasn't been anything special. I like the characters. And i think most of them are really well done. Liek someone else mentioned, i've laugehd out loud at some of the dialogue. The battle system is excellent. its different but a lot of fun. The premise for the story is also great

on the downside, the story doesn't really seem well executed. You spend long lengths of time with no idea why you're doing things. Or you feel like you don't have enough information to actually get into the game. With the music. It certainly isn't bad. With the exception of the title screen theme though, none of it seems particularly good either. In my opinion it doesn thodl a candle to any other soundtrack mitsuda has done.

that said though, this is all my opinion and i'm only 13 hours in, so it may change. Its been enjoyable and interesting enough. It won't be on your list of favorites i don't think. but you wont regret having spent the time playing it.

[SwordBreaker]

5 hours in. I like the fact that the characters don't take themselves seriously. It's pretty obvious that the voice actors were having a lot of fun with the lines during the recording sessions. Speaking of which, I'm quite surprised by the amount of voice work present here. For a DS game, it's pretty epic. Now I know how all the space has been filled out.

Everything else is pretty much traditional JRPG standards. Graphics are Xenogears-like. The battle system is basically an updated version of Xenogears as well, which is enjoyable to mess around with. It's fun to distribute your points to power-up and unlock various attacks. Dungeons are standard-fare, too. Loving the music...it's not Mitsuda's best work, but it's still great stuff. My only quip is with the programming of the music itself...random encounters happen frequently, an as soon as you're done with one, the dungeon music loops from the beginning. It's a bit irritating since tracks are long and the only time you can fully appreciate them is when you're in the menu messing around with stats and equipment.

If you're looking for a standard JRPG on the go I'd go for this one. They are much better choices on the DS obviously but this game is the most recent. It helps that you can save anytime, anywhere. I can understand the disappointment of some media outlets since people were expecting an epic tale from this game just like Xenogears or Chrono Trigger. Sands is the complete opposite.

[XZero]

The reviews were right about one thing, though. It seems that if you allocate your points well enough, your party gets ridiculously overpowered after only a few hours. It's fine with me because I have no problem with plowing through a game like this in a (comparatively) short amount of time, but killing bosses in just a couple of turns is really something I'm not used to.

[SwordBreaker]

The reviews were right about one thing, though. It seems that if you allocate your points well enough, your party gets ridiculously overpowered after only a few hours. It's fine with me because I have no problem with plowing through a game like this in a (comparatively) short amount of time, but killing bosses in just a couple of turns is really something I'm not used to.

Good point. Funny story about that. During the first 3 hours of my playtime, I did not noticing the scrolling bar for the abilities, so I assumed that each character started out with 4 and that I'll get more as I level up via EXP. So I kept on grinding the first 4 abilities of my party until I noticed that damn scrolling bar. Too small and tucked away. And yeah, I do feel overpowered right now because of that slip up.