If you have ever seen the TV show, read the manga, or played any of the games you know the story of InuYasha. For anyone who has missed this rather large franchise, let me do a little recap. A modern day Japanese school girl falls down a time traveling well and finds herself in feudal Japan. While stuck in the past she stumbles upon a half-demon who wants to take control of a mystical item called the Shikon Jewel. But because of the bungling school girl, the jewel is shattered into a thousand shards and it is up to her and her intrepid friends to gather the pieces. InuYasha: Secret of the Divine Jewel roughly follows this plot, but instead of it following the efforts of the school girl Kagome, it focuses on the new character Janis. Janis, one of Kagome’s classmates, has inherited the power of Kamuitama which grants her the power of a god. It is up to Janis and her new friends to return the Kamuitama to its rightful place in the feudal era of Japan.
In the game you take control of six characters. Each character has their own set of attacks and special attacks called spiritual powers. Every time you attack, regardless of the type of attack, you consume energy points or EP and of course, the stronger the attack the more EP it consumes. If you run out of EP you can recharge the bar by forgoing a turn to “spirit up” and gain more bars. Battling operates as your basic turn-based system and the controls are very simple. Scroll through the menu to choose your action, then you’re prompted to pick who you want to attack, heal, or whatever, and press the A button and you’re done. You can also enlist the help of two of your party members to perform an assisted attack or an assisted defense where the chosen characters take the damage points instead of the targeted character.
While in battle, the top screen shows your enemies, while the bottom screen shows your party and menus. For normal attacks the bottom screen shifts into a wide screen format as the character attacks. When special attacks are used, the top screen will show a small cut scene pertaining to the nature of the attack such as monk Miroku sucking his opponents into his hand.
While outside of battle, the two screens operate a little differently. The top screen serves to show your miniature avatar walking around in the world. While the bottom screen shows your entire party strolling in place, don’t worry, you can also see your party’s stats so the bottom screen isn’t completely pointless.
InuYasha: Secret of the Divine Jewel may share elements of a classic turn based RPG, but it falls short of the standard. First off, you gain your entire party relatively quickly so there’s no hope of getting a better character later in the game. Despite the fact that each character has a varied amount of attacks and skills, the game does not allow you to learn more skills than the ones given to you at the start. Also, there is no way to customize the character with stronger weapons or armor. It is possible to synthesize stat changing amulets and orbs, but they’re pretty much useless. Last, but not least, the story of this game is very straight forward. What kind of RPG doesn’t have a convoluted plot that rivals a day time drama? No RPG of mine.
The main problem with this game is that there are too many random encounters. You won’t be able take more than two steps before you’re thrown into yet another battle. Also, several areas in the game are like giant mazes, and when you combine the maze aspect with the random encounters you get hours of frustration and tedium. Another problem is that there is no map or anything to tell you where to go. Instead, you are given vague directions such as, “the enemy is nearby.” What does that mean? I’ll tell you what that means, it means you have to walk around aimlessly while fighting unwanted enemies until you stumble upon the right one. The excessive encounters might have been forgiven if the battling was interesting or even challenging, but the game only requires the simple tap of the A button to vanquish your foes. When you can watch TV while playing a game and win battles without looking at the game you know there’s a problem.
Bottom Line:
This game was made for InuYasha fans and no one else. Each character possesses their quirky personalities from the show, but the random encounters and lack of a map makes this game almost unbearable to trudge through. Don’t be fooled InuYasha fans, this game could at best be described as a side quest in the InuYasha series or a bland RPG wrapped in a popular anime franchise.
| Pros: | Cons: | Final Score: |
|---|---|---|
|
| 3.8 |
Posted: 2007-08-20 20:39:01 PST