"A Good RPG-Stands out in the small library of the PSP"

Intro

The PSP has a pretty small library. It's been out well over a year now, and still is lacking a large library of stand-out games. Is Kingdom of Paradise the game that the PSP defiantly needs? It's not exactly a classic, but is very fun and surprisingly good.

Gameplay

Kingdom of Paradise is Role-Playing Game, that has a surprisingly cool sword-fighting style. You collect scrolls to increase your skill in 'bugei'. What that basically means is you collect things from your enemies (or from a gift) that teaches you new fighting styles. Using certain types of scrolls, you can customize your own combo, which is very fun.

Another aspect of fighting is called Chi Arts. Chi Arts are devastating attacks. These attacks stop the gameplay from being perfect. No matter how good your sword attacks are, if you have a high Chi level, then you'll be able to kill all enemies pretty quickly. This upsets the balance making fighting with a sword useless. They attempted to stop this from making you charge up Chi energy before unleashing the attack. It helps, but Chi is still too powerful.

While the fighting is a little unbalanced, it doesn't show too bad. The game features you traveling roads usually going from point A to B. It does have some suprsiei 'Boss" attacks along the way. Also, when you are traveling, there is a random chance of being attacked.

Overall, Kingdom of Paradise provides good gameplay leading to a bunch of fun.

Overall: 8.5/10

Story

I obviously won't give you any details, being an RPG, the story is very important. The basic outline is that there is 5 clans. One of them starts to attack the other ones to gain complete control. That's pretty much the basic outline in the beginning of the game. However there are many plot twists along the way, and it gets pretty interesting. The story isn't exactly spell-binding, but it's interesting and will keep you playing.

Overall: 7.5/10

Graphics/Sound

Obviously, the sound and graphics doesn't have to be great to fully enjoy a game, but they truely are great. The graphics look superb. All the characters look very detailed and the enviornments look great too. It's not great in the way that it's eye candy, it's great in the way that it doesn't hinder the game in any way. You can't control the camera, but I've yet to run into a place where it's a problem.

The sound, is also very good. The tunes go very well with the tone of the game. The voices on the other hand...are great! Unlike some voice acting that really get on your nerves, they sound like it could actually be the person it's coming from.

Overall, I really couldn't find much wrong in this area.

Overall: 10/10

Replayability

Once you complete the game, you get Hard mode, which basically beefs up the difficulty of your oppenonts. Even if there wasn't a Hard mode, I would still play it a couple more times just because it's so fun. Yes, after a while, it will get old, but then again, most games do.

Overall: 7/10

Final Recommendation

If you like RPG's or action games, I'd say go and buy it. I doubt you'll be dissapointed. If you don't like RPG's much, I still recommend a rent. You may find yourself enjoying it.

Gameplay---------8.5/10
Story--------------7.5/10
Graphics/Sound--10/10
Replayability-------7/10

OVERALL: 8.25, Rounded down to 8 for GameFAQ's

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/20/06