Blade Dancer: Lineage of Light [PSP]

Bringing classic Final Fantasy style role-playing to the PSP, Blade Dancer is a slightly too familiar tale of young heroes, worlds in need of saving, creepy villains, and an island inexplicably called Foo. Although its responsive battle system stands out, the game's plodding pace, lackluster presentation, and numerous other issues prevent it rising above mediocrity.

On starting the game, you'll be struck at the interminable length of time Blade Dancer takes to get started. It has a tendency to leave its players running about from town to town, killing random monsters without much in the way of direction or purpose - more like an MMORPG than a typical console game, if anything. Once the main storyline kicks in, you'll find it generic but unobjectionable -- it's no Final Fantasy VII, to be sure, although the game's general style is pretty similar.

Sadly, though, it's nowhere near as attractive as that PSX classic. Battle animations don't show off much in the way of flair or creativity, and when you're exploring you'll see ugly-looking white seams between the game's polygons. It all feels like it's been thrown together without a great deal of care, and although that's by no means a deathblow you might find it a little off-putting.

Speaking of off-putting features, Blade Dancer also has no pause button, of all things. The clock keeps running all the time, even when you're choosing attacks in combat or switching out equipment or crafting in the field. Erp. You can see groups of roaming enemies from quite some distance -- although for some reason, no matter what the composition of the group might be, each pack looks like a single gray floating skull. No, it doesn't make much sense to us either.

Once you actually get to fighting one of these groups, you'll find what amounts to a standard Japanese RPG part turn-based, part real-time combat system with a couple of clever twists. The first of those twists is that both you and your enemies draw from the same reservoir of magic energy, so if you're planning to use healing or offensive magic, you'd better make sure you don't let the bad guys swipe all the mana. Clever group attacks and a responsive control system round out what's easily Blade Dancer's strongest aspect.