Let's get this out of the way first: Sands of Destruction review. I am not terribly proud of the conditions the review was written under, but I committed to writing it four months ago and that's how it's gonna be. As always, a sample:

Mechanically, Sands of Destruction is both very similar and very different to the standard structure of a Japanese Role-Playing Game. Dungeons are littered with random battles. Battling monsters is done by taking turns until the creature is dead. Completing battles earns you experience points, and earning enough experience will grant you the ability to “Level Up” your power. But what matters is how Sands of Destruction puts its own spin on things: borrowing some ideas from contemporary fighting games, Sands has a “combo” system that rewards stringing together a series of attacks in a chain to maximize the amount of damage dealt. Alongside experience points, you also earn something called “Customization Points”, “CP” for short, which allow you to upgrade existing attacks and unlock the next attack in that combo string. You also have the ability to augment battles through the “Quips” system – as you progress through the game and watch the story play out, characters in your party will say important lines of dialog that can the be equipped and spoken during battle to infer various effects, such as increased defense, increased accuracy, or even double the amount of gold acquired after a battle. It’s nothing terribly revolutionary, but it’s unique enough to be fun – that is until you discover just how pitifully easy the game is. One would expect a game to gently ease you in to its mechanics, but time after time, I found myself not only breezing through most random battles, but even the “climactic” boss encounters – I managed to defeat the second or third boss of the game on my first turn, before he even had a chance to strike. ( Continue reading...)