Customer Reviews

Sands of Destruction

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've been playing this since it was released. This was very eagerly anticipated in my house (I have 2 kids who play the DS as well and our favorite type of game is RPG). For the most part it has met expectations but I can't say that we are so enamored with it that we can't put it down.

The graphics quality is o.k. The opening video is good. I find the characters pixilate too much and sometimes they seem blurry. Yes I'm a middle aged mom but I don't need glasses to see up close like with the DS screen--I've asked a couple friends (all ages) and they agree--the sprite graphics aren't the best. I much prefer the ones on games like Dragon Quest IV. Overall I'd give this about 3.5 stars.

The sound is pretty good--it doesn't make me want to buy any soundtrack but it doesn't irritate. It seems standard. I'd give it 4 stars--a bit above average but not so great it merits a 5. In a few cases it does bring in a tone that really matches the storyline.

The gameplay is where this gem shines. First I will tell you--read the manual. It is actually helpful unlike the vast majority of game manuals. At first I found the battle mechanics a bit confusing but only because I didn't have a good idea of the overall system. The way they are mapped is outstanding, superb, and amazing. All of the commands map to the X,Y,A,B buttons. They are layered (so you press A for items and then it takes you to items. You press X for blow or Blood skills and then it takes you to choosing them. Y for Flurry or display life skills.) There's more but it's all in the manual which I'll state again I highly recommend you read. There is a defend option (which is useful against some of the bosses and a few of the regular encounters). The manual has defintions for many of the actions (Abilities and Debuffs). It's really quite helpful. I sometimes spend a lot of time figuring out what different abilities or skills do in RPG's so to have it laid out so well is great--of course you need to practice and figure it out a bit too but the head start is appreciated. The one thing I still don't fully understand though is the Battle Points (BP) but ah well I seem to be doing fine so far. Thanks Sega! I'd give 4.5 stars here.

I like the store menu as it shows how the item will affect the characters. Props for that. I thought it came standard until recently when I played a RPG where you didn't see this. So it was a guessing game..not fun!

The more puzzle type atmosphere of the dungeon's or caves or ships (this game has some good variety but I always call these dungeon's anyway out of habit) is o.k. While the game is very linear to me these have some variations that help to mix it up--like finding a key or figuring out how to get into an area. It is random battles--and they aren't too frequent at first but soon become so. However they are nothing like Black Sigil which seemed like a battle every step you took. These are pretty good if repetitive. There is also save and healing points where you can refresh scattered about. I appreciated that. The drop of healing items is also very high. Edited to add a note: If you do NOT like grinding and want to just blow through a story this is not your game. I happen (call me strange) to like grinding and exploring a lot. Depending on your preferences this could lower a star rating for you. I'm the type of player that has explored so much and fought so many battles that I'm over leveled by the end--that is just how I play. Just to give a perspective. This I give 3 stars

The character voices I thought were really good. I have low expectations though so that might have something to do with it. The dialogue is funny at times. I didn't find too many instances where it kind of poked fun of the genre or made me laugh out loud but it is more than satisfactory. I did think the characters themselves were a little cliched. I mean the main character is a boy hero who doesn't know he's a hero with special ability. Granted destruction is a different concept--speaking of I still find this strange. I think it's too many games with save the world as their motto.

I'm not yet finished but so far I'm happy and feel just fine about plunking down my cold hard cash for this. It doesn't rate as highly for me as the Might and Magic title released for the DS in December which, if you have not played it, I would strongly recommend a purchase over this game. It is a puzzle RPG similar to Puzzle Quest but even more fun. Probably one of the top 2 games I played for the DS last year (the other being Suikoden Tierkreis which I loved).

Keep in mind I like traditonal (j)RPG's--I am not a veteran gamer but I have played quite a few handheld RPG's for both DS/GBA and PSP including all the Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Golden Sun, Tactics Ogre, Luminous Arc, Rhapsody, and more. While Sands is not my favorite game it certainly is fun to play. I don't know about replay value (not finished yet) but my inclincation is to say once we are all done this is probably a trade in. This is different than The World Ends with You which we still enjoy playing and have played twice or Disgaea that also got a couple of play throughs.

Overall I recommend this game to those who like traditional jrpg and do not mind grindig. I would say unless you are starved for RPG's on the DS you might want to wait for a price drop. I will say, due to said grinding, I did not find it a difficult game so far (about 15 hours in--seems like about a 25 hour game tops) It is a very solid and mostly enjoyable game with great gameplay and a good manual that will actually help you. If I felt like the story held my interest a bit more and I was more enamored of the characters it would have been a 4.5 star review. I'd likely actually give it 3.5 to 4 stars. I rounded up.

Pros: Great story. Catchy music. Good voice work. Unique characters, and well laid out back stories. Very challenging puzzles. The game overall is organized very well, no frustrations with menus, or battle system.

Cons: Broken battle system (shove all points into flurry, spam Y button to win). Random encounters are set too high, and with very complicated puzzles, running around a lot gets annoying. Voice work slows down the story, sometimes it can take 10 seconds for the next line to be read (and this happens consistently), very odd pacing.

Still, you can't do too much better with RPG's on the DS. Play it for the story and characters, but not for the battle system.

For fans of the traditional turn-based, random-encounter dungeon crawls of yesteryear, there's good news here. "Sands of Destruction" feels like classic RPG gaming from the golden years of SEGA and Square with turn-based combat, experience points, spells, multiple characters joining your party, etc.

Graphics are mostly good, with nice 3-D dungeons and levels which can be rotated on the fly to preset angles. A very handy and player-friendly feature is the onscreen map. Textures are a bit blockier than they should be, however, and when character sprites are blown up during cutscenes, they look really pixelated. Battles, as stated before, are randomly generated and there's no innovation to the encounter system. This can be quite frustrating if you're trying to walk somewhere fast and get bumped by enemies. Fights take place on both of the screens, which is a good use of the DS platform. Airborne attackers use the top screen. The combat system is pretty fluid once you get the hang of it. Different actions and attack types are mapped to the A X Y buttons (heal magic, offensive spells) so you don't have to fish through submenus for attacks. At the bottom is a row of icons representing you and your enemies, arranged by turn order to show who'll fight next. The game lets you save anytime, instead of at checkpoints, which is another welcomed feature. I'm about half-way through the game. None of the enemies I've encountered yet are particularly inspired. They're the same ones you see in every RPG: scorpions, flies, wolves, etc.

There's some major annoyances, like the story and wooden, stilted voice-acting. Right from the first cutscene, the insults get pretty strong and are surprisingly mature for a DS game. The original story was supposedly much darker and scaled back to avoid a higher age rating. Humans are slaves to feral masters, and one of your characters, Morte, is bent on destroying the world. Your quest is to help her. Your main character Kyrie has some latent power to destroy the world, turning it in to sand, hence the cliched name "Sands of Destruction." The story is very much like a Final Fantasy-styled RPG opera with lots of dialogue and drama, and it all feels very contrived and artificial. Surprising for a DS game, most of the lines are spoken, but the stiff and poorly-timed voice acting makes me wish they hadn't. I also wondered what he original Japanese dialogue sounded like. It would've been nice to have both languages included, but for space reasons, this probably wouldn't have been possible. Luckily, every cutscene and dialogue is skippable by pushing start so you can avoid the dialogue and get right to the gameplay.

Unfortunately, every character has a catch-phrase that's mandatory before and after each battle. For example, Kyrie, usually shouts "I've got to do something!" before every fight, and Morte says "Here comes the paaaaain!". It's really pointless, repetitive, and annoying. Each battle result also requires pushing the A button 4x to confirm the tally and dismiss the following info windows. You cannot just tap the screen because the touch sensor is disabled. Secondly, each character can only melee attack a single enemy per turn. You can attack up to 4-5x in one turn, depending on buffs, but if you kill the enemy before all your attacks are used up, you can't attack another enemy. Lastly, even though you have 5 members in your party, only 3 can be active at any time. The others cannot fight. They earn XP at a very reduced rate when not being used.

Player customization is a bit confusing and unsatisfying. From combat, you get gold, XP and something called CP, customization points. With this, you can upgrade your fighting and magic skills. But it's lock-stepped. If you upgrade Attack, Accuracy goes down. If you upgrade magic, Power goes up, but so does spell cost. I don't like this. Lastly, the adventure so far (6+ hours into the game) has been completely on rails. You can't chose where you want to travel to. The game takes you to various lands and you are locked into each destination. You can't travel around the world map at will.

Overall, a competent effort from SEGA and fans of RPGs have been waiting a long time for a game like this. It's not any different from all the other console RPG's of the past, despite the marketing claims. If you enjoyed Phantasy Star or any of the Final Fantasy games, you'll probably like SOE. So far, I'm enjoying the game and not paying much attention to the storyline.

Sands of Destruction is a turn based rpg with Action elements. The game is the epitome of your typical Jrpg; it has many of the cliches and stereotypes in the book. Despite this, the game is fairly fun because of its lively and interesting characters (except the main character,he's okay) as well as the fun and ease of the gameplay.The game also has a unique skill upgrade system that can make or break you characters depending on how you use it(don't worry, it's not hard :) The problem is that it goes by so fast that the characters and story despite being somewhat interesting leave you with a taste and that's it. Imagine eating you first chocolate bar and then getting it taken from you after you have only eaten a quarter of it. The game is pretty short (maybe it was just easy, I don't know... the last few bosses are the only ones that are difficult)and I beat it in 12 hours and did a few side quests. I think that despite the good points about it it just leaves me annoyed as it could have very easily been a very good game.

This game is outstanding.

It looks, feels and sounds just like a traditional console RPG as you would expect on the SEGA Saturn from the long gone 32-bit era, combining 3D polygon playfields with 2D sprites. It has that unique and rare SEGA feel to it, from the unusual and one-of-a-kind storyline to the graphical interface and effects. And it's portable!

It's a treat for anybody who likes RPGs and those who were lucky enough to play the few and precious Saturn RPGs; this one feels just like them. It is rare that the feel of RPGs from one system can be recreated on another, and most of all a portable system like the Nintendo DS, but this game is proof that it is possible.
It's a great value for enthusiasts of the genre, and very affordable.

I bought this game for my younger brother for his birthday. He loved it and he is still playing the game from the time that I bought it until now. This is a recommended game.

For some reason, this game reminds me of Chrono Cross that was originally on the PSX. Has a similar battle system, and a memorable cast of characters. It has an old school feel to it, but you're not saving the world, you're trying to destroy it. Overall a great game, and if you have an Amazon game credit like I did, definitely a must buy.

Although starting with an interesting concept, it slowly becomes a path well trodden. Saying that, there are some good scenes here and there throughout the game. But with a battle system that's a couple of cracks shy of being completely broken, I can only recommend this game to seasoned fans of JRPGs. And even then, I would only get this game to kill time.

It doesn't have much that hasn't been done before but it pulls everything off pretty well. Theres do-able voice acting, good 2D sprites, great music, an intriguing battle system, and a really good story once it gets rolling. Probably more for die-hard jrpg fans than anyone else, but otherwise a decent adventure. Part 2, sega? Maybe this time on a home console.

I love role playing games and Sands of Destruction is no exception. Though it starts out a little quirky, the game progessively gets more challenging and a lot more fun. It was kind of nice to destroy a world rather than save it like so many cliche RPGs these days.