7th Dragon 2020 review

So, I've finally beat 7th Dragon 2020, and when I say beat, I mean completely beat - I've pretty much got a feel for all the classes and how they work as I went through six different team configurations (playing each of the five classes at least three times each). The last boss wasn't too difficult, but the extra boss... well, let's just say the Wiki recommends you max out your level, and I beat him at 81... though with the almost meaningless class changing I did, I was probably the equivalent of 83 or so. Most replays I've seen so far of the fight have been high 80's at the very least. It was pretty tough, I had to try around ten times to beat him. Been a while since a game's actually challenged me.

So, where do I start? Scenario-wise, I think I could have thought of a little better way to start the game off, but once you get past that, everything was pretty standard fare though still enjoyable. There's really no big surprises, save one half-surprise, but the entire game is believable enough and the writers are seriously not afraid to kill NPCs off in droves (the whipping boys usually consisting of JSDF members). Music was pretty good as well - the main soundtrack is composed by Yuzo Koshiro. As well, there's an alternate soundtrack which are remixed pieces of the original, by a variety of (what appear to be) indie Vocaloid artists including sasakure.UK, who composed the game's main theme. All of these alternate tracks feature the voice of Miku Hatsune, who cameos in the game and unlocks said track selection. It's not spectacular and epic like Last Ranker was (and it's really, really hard to beat Yoko Shimomura), but it still has its memorable moments. Some of the DIVA mode songs are hit and miss, but there's some really good songs in the alternate BGM tracks. And as an added plus, your characters can be voiced by famous seiyuu like Tomokazu Sugita (who voices me, heh heh), or Yukari Tamura (who actually does say, "Standby, Ready!" during one EX skill).

All that takes a back seat to the gameplay, though. At heart, 7th Dragon 2020 is a dungeon crawler. Unlike last time, where there were 4 person parties with 7 different classes, this time there are 3 person parties with 5 classes between them. The three person parties I think are a limitation of the hardware - loading times were pretty horrendous until you installed the game (every battle you'd have to wait a second or two), and even then the install file was 1 GB large. Perhaps this is a cause of all the animations and models that have to be loaded, I don't know, but either way 5 classes is a good number for 3 people.

Each class does have its own specialties, and much of the game is spent trying to figure out which abilities to learn to bring out the best in your team. The more unique gameplay point is that each class, and thus each party member, has certain skills that can help the game plans of other classes. Samurai, who can lower enemies' resistance to status ailments, can be paired with dagger Tricksters, who rely on inflicting status ailments. Destroyers, who can draw enemies' attention to themselves and have a passive ability that gives them a free automatic attack if they are hit, can be paired with Hackers, who can increase the chance that such auto-skills activate. This is just the tip of the iceberg too, as there are many more combinations (some three-way) to be discovered.

The game is more or less tweaking your team's skills and strategies to find a plan of attack that works for you. Moreover, characters can switch classes, which will slice their level in half (and of course deallocate all skills), but return all skill points they've earned up until the switch. If you choose, you can change your party and your approach to battle with not too much re-grinding.

However, I can't help but think sometimes that this sequel came too soon. You have ten models to choose from with your character, yet you can't recolor them as you choose. Again, the three person party limitation seems to be more of a technical limitation, either on imageepoch's part, the PSP's part, or both. Each character class only has two real paths of development rather than the first game's three, and there are less of them now. In fact, it seems like a certain class of skills exist simply because the developers realized that players weren't getting enough actions out with only three people. These are auto-skills, which have a chance of activating at the end of every turn or the start of the battle depending, if some condition is met. For example, Hackers can have a percent chance of healing the party at the end of every round, or Destroyers get a chance to throw out an automatic (powerful) attack at the end of a round against an enemy who attacked them. These sort of skills are necessary when there's a lot of pressure from the enemy and not as much room for error - if one person goes down in a three person party, it's a big deal and you can spend an entire turn doing nothing but getting him back up. In a four person party, you still might be able to put someone on offense and still recover your fallen friend.

The other big difference from the previous version is that there are no skill trees - all skills can be taken at any time without having to invest in other skills... provided you've unlocked them. Unlocking skills can only happen at certain points in the game, meaning that you're going to start the game without certain skills that are central to some strategies (such as the Trickster's React skill, which is important for all Tricksters). And perhaps because of this, there are some skills (like the Samurai's Kesa-giri) which are simply outclassed in every way by some skill you might unlock half-way or near the end of the game. Past a certain point, these skills become useless or practically useless, which I don't really like.

Also unlike the last game, SP is rewarded after every battle, and not on level up. This means that it is possible to learn every single skill for your class, which was actually impossible to do in the previous game (and thus forced specialization). I'm not really sure I like this either, but generally, classes are more focused in this game without too many paths they can take, and it adds more incentive to switch classes, so I guess it works out in the end.

The final word is simply that this game is really, really good. Even the setting, the much maligned and oft mistreated urban fantasy schtick, is done well - you get to romp around a ravaged and much transformed Tokyo, slaying creatures of myth right in front of places like the Marui building in Shibuya without the campiness that makes most urban fantasy just plain bad. The gameplay... well, I've written only one paragraph that isn't introduction or conclusion that doesn't deal with it, so that should tell you how center stage it is, and it's great. All the characters are likable with many throwbacks to the first game, so veterans of the series (who've probably already played the game by now) have something to evoke a nostalgic smile on their face. Perhaps there were a few design decisions I didn't necessarily agree with, and actually the game is kinda easy when you get used to it (but still a little challenging at times)... but when you get down to it, I can't recommend this game or this series enough - if you're into RPGs and want to try something off the beaten path (and don't mind the Japanese), just know that this series is one of my favorite RPG series of all time. Playing this game evokes memories akin to the first RPGs I played on the NES and SNES, back when companies were still trying to find out what made games good so they could grow as companies, and makes me glad I'm still into the genre.

For the record, I finished the extra dungeon at 107 hours or so, though my regular clear happened at around 100 hours. Unfortunately, none of the original voice actresses of the characters I chose are in the game, so I had to sub some voices in for them. My team (in the end) was...

Cael (Me), Samurai, CV Tomokazu Sugita
Ayase Aragaki (OreImo), Psychic, Alt. CV Yui Horie
Natsumi Asou (Sketchbook), Destroyer, Alt. CV Rina Satou

... Also, I find it a little disheartening that there's no Kansai-ben speaking voice, let alone a Fukuoka-ben speaking one, but I guess you can't really ask for too much. ^^