The first thing budding RPG gamers will notice is how much the main character looks like Cloud Strife from FFVII. Though his colour scheme is different he sports big arms, spiky hair and a vengeful temperament. The first of many quests involved saving a damsel in distress, and as the game proceeds Dart (that's the hero's name) will slowly transform into a Dragon Knight in order to seek out and complete his destiny. There are other sub-quests to be had along the way, but ultimately the player's job is to once again save the world as he knows it. Hardly original stuff, but it appears Sony have gone for a "graphics first, originality second" approach.

Sony have aimed at an RPG not all that different from most games in the genre, but with a few variations that don't always add up to a pleasurable experience. The controls are all fairly simple with the player moving Dart across beautifully pre-rendered environments (like those used in FFVII and Star Ocean) which looks great, but does not lend to any flexibility of view (such as in Grandia). Another facet of gameplay "nicked" from the Final Fantasy series is random battles with monsters, as the game decides now and then to just throw an evil creature your way to beat you up. The newer (but not necessarily better) ideas come in the thick of combat itself, as the player must also have good timing to get the best out of his (or her) attacks.

As a character assaults another, a revolving square appears around the character. In order for the player to double (and even treble) the strength of the attack a button on the controller must be pressed when the square is aligned to another smaller square positioned upon the body of the character. As each character gets stronger then more of these "combos" can be mastered and can add up to some devastating assaults. This system can also be very off-putting for those strategists who just want to sit back and watch the battles take place, as normal attacks without the combos are just puny and pointless. Further along in the story the characters gain the ability to turn themselves into Dragoons, which leads to more button-tapping which quickly becomes very tiresome (to the extent that you will cringe with annoyance every time the game announces that a battle is about to take place).

Some fights are also long-winded as the player will make use of their defensive moves in order to restore hit points (in fact this is the main style of healing in the game). Battling some of the later boss creatures gets extremely frustrating as the characters will end up spending more time defending than actually going on the offensive (is this what an RPG gamer really wants?). Some of the spells can get tedious after watching them countless times too, although they don't get as annoying as the overly-long guardian forces of Final Fantasy VIII.

Sony appear to have been determined to fill this game with countless CGI-animted FMV scenes throughout the story. These movies are extremely attractive to look at and could be seen as being one of the game's biggest selling points (certainly anyone watching this game in a store would be immediately impressed). The backgrounds are also very nice in all their pre-rendered glory, but the characters themselves could have been given a bit more detail and had their colour schemes mixed up a little (they sometimes resemble badly painted Citadel Miniatures).