Technically sound and well-written, but tough as nails.
Covenant of the Plume is deceptively slick for a strategy RPG. It drew me in with its sweet, sweet nectar, got me in a dark alley, and then beat the holy hell out of me with its sudden spike in its difficulty.
GRAPHICS AND SOUND-
Square Enix pulls off one of the coolest introduction videos on the DS to date with Covenant. I don't normally point out cinematics, but sometimes when a good one happens on the DS, it really makes me realize how cool handhelds have become.
The rest of the game features some pretty decent graphics for the genre. Character portraits look great (and there are some male characters that actually look masculine!), everything animates fluidly, and some of the special attacks are wildly over-the-top. The battlefields look good too, with enough variety to keep them fresh.
Sounds are a bit of a mixed bag. What's there is decent, but ultimately fades into the background. The music is great, with tunes suitable to the environment and with a touch of flair. However, the voice work can be atrocious, and I tired quickly of hearing the same battle cries time and time again. This is one of those things that RPG's could do without completely, as far as I'm concerned.
GAMEPLAY
I should have enjoyed the gameplay far more than I did. Technically, it's a superb blend of grid-based gameplay and combo mechanics. There are all the bells and whistles I want in an RPG, like customizable skill sets, shops with plenty to buy to upgrade my characters, and enough unique characters to keep me entertained and refreshed.
But... Covenant of the Plume fails in one basic area. All these parts far surpass their sum. While everything individually is fine, it doesn't make for an entertaining over-all product. Part of this stems from a severe dearth of side-quests, optional combat areas, and a severe and sudden spike in difficulty fairly early on. Although you're given a few characters to play with, you don't have many opportunities to use and develop some of those characters, meaning that if one or two characters fall behind in levels, you're screwed if you want to use them later. It can be incredibly frustrating, especially if you've invested into their equipment, techniques, and skills only to later find the character to be absolutely useless and that the money could have been better spent elsewhere or saved up. There are a few side-quests, but not enough especially in the early stages to allow the player to develop those characters.
One thing I wanted to point out is that this is a really well-written game. Some of the dialogue tries too hard to emulate typical fantasy speech, but the plot, the lore, and the dialogue are all generally superb.
OVERALL-
I want to really like this game. It does so many things right, it's hard to fault it on any technical level. But when it comes down to it, Covenant of the Plume just isn't as fun as many other entries in the genre, especially on the DS. It's a bit too punishing for those without the foresight to develop a few distinctly strong characters. Once I got through the muddled difficulty, I discovered a really well-written game that should have ultimately been better than it was. As it is, I recommend it only to serious fans of the genre.