Publisher: NamcoDeveloper: NamcoReviewer:Released: October 18, 2000Gameplay: 70%Control: 70%Graphics: 65%Sound/Music: 50%Story: 60%Overall: 62%Dragon Valor is the latest Action/RPG from Namco, the folks who brought us Tekken, Ridge Racer and Tales of Destiny. Namco has certainly earned its name by developing games that would become icons in the arcade gaming industry for years to come by producing classic titles like Pac-Man and Pole Position. Action and arcade style video games are definitely where this fine company's strengths become evident, but I'm not convinced they have a foothold on the RPG genre by any stretch of the imagination.In Dragon Valor you take on the role of Clovis, a troubled youth with no idea that destiny is about to throw him a major curve ball. The story begins with a dragon battling its arch nemesis, a Dragon Valor.

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Dragon Valors are sworn to protect and defend life against the destructive force of dragons and maintain peace throughout the land. In this fierce battle the tide turns in the dragon's favor and the Dragon Valor is slain, granting the scaly beast a perfect opportunity to torch the small mountain village of Brize.Clovis runs through his smoldering village, not knowing what has happened and finds that his sister, Elena, has fallen victim to the fiery blasts that torched their town. Clovis then spots the blistered body of the Dragon Valor and listens intently as he explains, with his last breath, that the dragon must be stopped. Clovis recovers the magical sword of the Dragon Valor and vows to find the dragon and avenge his sister's tragic death.The fledgling dragon slayer Clovis sets out with bitterness and determination against the creature that destroyed his peaceful home and loving sister.

As the story progresses Clovis marries and is blessed with a child. The years pass and his child matures and is 'passed the torch' to uphold the virtue of the Dragon Valor. The woman that Clovis chooses to marry determines which child will be born and the storyline for the rest of the game, though both ultimately arrive at the same destination. Dragon Valor is a game that spans many generations of dragon slayers and culminates in a final battle to determine the fate of humanity.I have seen numerous reviews that claim you get to 'choose' which character you will marry as Clovis, but this simply isn't true.

Either meeting the Princess Celia of Raxis or only encountering the upstart inventor, Caroline, determines the lineage in Dragon Valor. During the game the player is unaware that there is any decision to be made and it is left to chance to decide which path you will follow.Dragon Valor is an Action/RPG, so you can expect a lot of direction pad and button combinations to be prevalent throughout gameplay. Mystery of time and space online.

Most of the game is presented in a 3D, side-screen view (differing slightly in presentation than the flat, side-screen view that many action games employ), and scrolls from each area to the next.On your quest to vanquish the evil dragons you will find very few different item types. Some of the items discovered permanently raise your HP or MP levels and can be passed from generation to generation, ensuring that your children will inherit the same strength and stamina that you possessed.The most common items you will come across are recovery items that take effect immediately. Having the inability to stock items or choose when to use them will come as a major disappointment to most gamers. One of the most abundant items found in this game is also the worst. I'm talking about Magic Mushrooms.

I'm not really sure what's so 'magical' about these useless fungi because they take hit points away, temporarily poisoning your character, and replenish a very small amount of magic points that don't even make it worth the trouble.There are no random battles in Dragon Valor, but enemies can be spotted clearly. To initiate a battle you simply walk up to an enemy and start slashing away. Techniques for battle are very easy to master and involve the normal type of button combinations to invoke different types of attacks that are used in most action-oriented games.

Blocking in this game is a no-brainer, requiring no button input at all. Performing a block will only guard against physical attacks, not magical, unfortunately. There are also a few puzzles to be encountered, but shouldn't present anything that perseverance cannot conquer.After defeating enemies it's pretty much a potluck to what they will leave behind. Sometimes enemies leave either nothing or possibly a Valor coin (equivalent to GP in this game).

On some occasions, though, you may receive magic spells or even loathsome Magic Mushrooms. In many scenarios you must defeat all the monsters in an area to be allowed to move to the next stage of the game, while at other times you can avoid enemies completely and just zip right past them if you don't feel like fighting.When fighting the boss battles you will most likely die a number of times initially, but like most action games you have the option of continuing where you left off. If you choose to continue playing, then your character is revived and your HP and MP and is completely replenished.

Even though it's a nice touch to be able to avoid bludgeoning your way through dungeons again it doesn't offer much of a challenge because you can continue, at full strength after each continue, until you defeat the boss or your thumb falls off, whichever one happens first.In between locations you are sometimes given the option to shop, which I think could possibly be the most frustrating and pathetic presentation I have seen in an RPG. Each time you enter a shop you do not have a choice about what items to purchase, sell or trade, but must instead follow a predetermined script. Each shop only specializes in one type of transaction and will not allow any deviation. If you enter a shop that is buying items then you can only sell trinkets you have picked up along your way, but fume at the fact that you cannot purchase anything.Every shop is different and you never know which type you're visiting until you enter it. If you do enter a shop that you can purchase items from the choices are extremely slim and limited to three different items.

Most of the time these items are HP or MP refreshers, which aren't worth spending the Valor because you will find the exact same items for free throughout every level if you just look around.Using magic in this game is a complete waste of time and MP. There are eight types of magic (Heal, Fire, Thunder, Stealth, Defense, Ice, Mine and Vortex) that can be raised up to three levels during the course of your journey. The game will not allow you to earn a very high MP level and severely limits the number of spells you can conjure.The casting cost of magic in Dragon Valor is extremely high and the spells, themselves, are difficult to use with any degree of effectiveness. Even with a high level of MP you can still only cast a handful of spells before being completely depleted.

Also, the nature of the game will not allow you to max out every spell and will only let you raise them to a certain level, depending on whom Clovis marries.Dragon Valor offers very little exploration of the world around you and requires that you don't 'lead the game', but instead let it lead you. Many RPG purists will be disappointed to find that freedom is not a luxury in Namco's extremely scripted and linear tale of dragon slayers. Throughout your journey you will not be given the option of visiting previously explored areas or deciding which locations to visit next, but must follow strict guidelines that do not incorporate choices.The opening CG sequence for Dragon Valor looks great, with Dragons screeching and baring deadly talons, and then suddenly.cheesy heavy metal music destroys it. My initial hope was to see some more great CG scenes like the intro (especially since Dragon Valor is a two-disc adventure) but I was sorely let down.The characters in the game are extremely blocky and amazingly distorted. Many of them look as though they have hydrocephalus, with heads bigger than their bodies and crowns that a ten-gallon hat couldn't even begin to cover. Namco tries to use a blurring technique during cut-scenes in an attempt to smooth images over and obscure the sharpness of the characters features, but fail miserably. Many dialogue sequences look out of focus and poorly done by using this technique and only succeed in being annoying.

I'm still not quite sure why Dragon Valor was on two discs to begin with other than the, sometimes lengthy, cut-scenes of monotonous and diluted dialogue between blocky polygon characters.The story in Dragon Valor is a nice idea with a fresh approach, but poorly delivered. I like the notion of battling the forces of evil throughout each successive generation; however, I think I could do without characters that come across devoid of any likable qualities. I believe adults will find the dialogue very childish and most teenagers will even think it is laughable.With musical themes that sound like a two-year old clanking on a toy piano or a carbon copy of typical battle music I was very unimpressed by the small selection of tunes by Nobuhiro Ouchi and Ayako Yamaguchi. Although sound effects were not impressive, but adequate for the most part, I doubt there was much difficulty to reproduce the clanging of a sword, which was about the extent for sound effects in this game.Dragon Valor is fairly easy to control, but unless you want to walk everywhere you must hold down the L1 button to run. After a couple of hours doing this you will be blessed with a nice, shiny blister on your index finger. I highly suggest that you learn from my experience and change the button configuration in the setup before becoming too accustomed to it.As I stated earlier, magic spells are not only as close to being useless as possible, but they are also very hard to control where they are aimed.

When casting spells you have no target icon and must take an educated guess as to which way you're actually pointed and where the spell will end up hitting.I would have to say that overall Dragon Valor is a nice idea with extremely poor execution. It ends up being about as entertaining as watching paint dry. I searched the credits in the instruction guide so I would know who to blame for my extensive six hours spent defeating the game, but only found the producer's names grossly outnumbered by a whole slew of testers. Upon discovering the lack of acknowledgement to the rest of the staff in the booklet I decided it would be the prominently displayed testers that would be responsible for the end product and held in fond remembrance for their lack of 'testing'.Dragon Valor is one Action/RPG that, sadly, is not worth bothering to acquire new, used, traded or even free. In the meantime, I think that Namco needs to do some serious research on RPGs and should probably consider hiring some testers that actually play RPGs as well.Dragon Valors don't like dragons.It's all about action in this game, no active time battles here.