As promised, the Legends of Dragoon Rant continues...

Apparently Sony does not know how to properly go "back to the basics," cause their fundamentals are very lacking in some areas. Don't get me wrong, they did do some things right. They got the same hint that Squaresoft got after Final Fantasy 8, that gamers don't need a freaking 5 minute animation ever time they summon, no matter how much damage it does. Even still, the animations are still painfully long, though its more of a slight burn as opposed to the red-hot poker jammed into the gamer's eye that was the load/wait/animation time on Eden. The "innovative battle concept" (okay, maybe that's paraphrasing) of LoD is that you can perform what are called 'Additions.' Which mean, if you press the X button at the right time(s), you can do a cute little combo whereby your character gains a bit more SP (which are how you turn into a Dragoon) than often and (in true anime style) shout the combo's name. Now the cute part of this is that you don't start with Dragoon powers, meaning that SP aren't really useful (ie: they're worthless). The other fun fact is that the game's major female, who it appears is in love with our intrepid hero, Dart, doesn't even have any additions to begin with. She just shoots a single arrow, and for very little damage. The final great irony is that all these combo's have their own rhythms, and in the case of the party's spearman, that rhythm isn't very constant. Well, it's constant in a way. You start with Lavitz, who has a nice slow combo rhythm, and then he gets replaced by Alfred, whose additions (while being the same one's as Lavitz's) require the same kind of inhuman reflexes that can be aquired only after a month of DDR training. As if the little Addition concept wasn't bad enough, enemies can break your combo's. To do this, all the enemy has to do is make a little red flash, and then you have to press O instead of X. Fail to do so and your combo will break And you'll take damage. Which is a great way to get killed, since you effectively get hit twice for the price of one enemy attack. Dragoons are nearly as much fun (fun in the sadist's way of thinking mind you) since their attack strength is set by hitting X at a certain moment, with decreasingly long intervals between them. I had to press less buttons playing Kirby Golf for God's sake. Fortunately, after Final Fantasies Six and Ten, button combos are a forte of mine, but the average gamer will be hard pressed to pull them off, and thus very challenged to win any battle. Well, it's decent for a first attempt at an RPG, but sometimes I have to wonder what Nintendo and Sega know that Sony doesn't.