Publisher: Blueside
Developer: Microsoft
System: Xbox 360
Genre: RPG
Release date: Available now
Review by: Michele White

Vellond, Hexter, Ecclessia: the familiar landscapes of home. I couldn’t wait to journey back there. The game begins in the same fashion as its predecessors. Choose a character and head out for battle, but this time was a little different. There weren’t, or at least there didn’t appear, to be any characters that I would unlock through my skill and determination of conquering the easier ones. Choices of both old friends and some I’d never heard of made this a little difficult. Kendal, the poor knight who had placed his sword in the service of a corrupt papal official; Leinhart, the vampire boy who would be king; Regnier, the mutant human who served Encablossa and started all the trouble last time in the first place; and two I didn’t recognize: Celine the high elf and Duane. My first impulse was to go for the elf, but her profile didn’t impress me. Low hit points aren’t how I usually like to start a game, so I went for Kendal. I’d always felt kind of sorry for him, so I hoped perhaps that this time he would fare better. I chose unwisely.

Like the previous games, each character has their own storyline and their own part to play in the grander scheme. I’d read that the focus was more on character development here than grand battles, but I’d no idea exactly what that meant until my first battle. All of the characters are still trapped within Encablossa, and trying to escape through their dreams. I guess that we lost after all, as it appears we never made it out alive. Kendal is trying to revive an equally trapped Walter, who seems to have forgotten everything but his son. Leinhart still wants the throne and Daddy’s favor, though his interest in his ex girlfriend and stepmommy Morene seems to have waned. Regnier has returned to human form, and appears to only want to figure out who the mysterious woman and child of his dreams are. Duane wants the girl, and Celine wants to revive her lost love, who’s also trapped somewhere within Encablossa’s dimension.

My first shock was finding myself alone in the woods. Where’s my army? I wander down the path like I would in just about any fantasy RPG, and boom — bad guys. As I begin to summarily get my butt kicked. Kendal is slooooow; I really miss my swamp mammoth and storm riders. At that point, I wasn’t too sure about my feelings for this game. I missed the big battles and the army development, but where this game really shines is storyline and character development. First impressions aren’t everything.

I soon abandoned Kendal after finding it impossible to progress beyond the first few boards and opted to try my hand with Celine. There is a pecking order to the character difficulty levels, after all. Leinhart is for first time players, Celine for novices, Regnier and Kendal for intermediates, and Duane for advanced players. There are more characters available for play later on — Celine’s lost love, Curian, for one — but they must be unlocked by completing the game with one of the basic characters.