There have been many different devices games have used through the years to make the scenarios feel more real and immersive. Some games require you to eat, others force you to sleep - or at least adhere to a daily schedule. Others implement weapon and armor damage and repair systems, while still others allow you to perform duties such as cooking or crafting. Blade Dancer: Lineage of Light offers a deep and robust crafting system that goes so far as to have the phases (colors) of the moon influencing each character's crafting skill. Yet despite the quality of the crafting system, this game should have been called 'Broken Sword', if the name wasn't already taken.

The story, characters and plot progression are the generic kind you get in many RPGs, coming off as simple and clichéd. The interactions between characters don't lead you to care about them very much, and if anything about the story comes as a surprise then you haven't been paying attention. You play as a young boy named Lance, who is out seeking adventure but ends up at the center of an evil plot (stop me if you've heard this before … please!). The opening cut scene lays out the struggle of good and evil in stark turns - and hints at a major plot element with all of the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

The game takes place in third person view, with your party members melding into Lance while they travel linear paths from place to place and back again … and then returning … and then back again. Oh - did I mention that until a certain point in the game there is loads of backtracking? As you travel through areas, you see bunches of colored floating skulls, the color denoting whether the enemy is stronger or weaker than your party - you can also highlight the enemy and get a list of the enemies that make up the opposing group. You can choose to avoid or engage enemies depending on their strength or potential experience, but this can be difficult, because stronger groups will actively pursue you and tend to equal your running speed. The color system generally works well for telling you how challenging a fight will be, but it's not always a good indicator of the amount of experience you will gain - in fact, it is possible to have a trivial fight against a blue enemy give more experience than a tough battle against a red foe.

Fortunately, the combat system is well thought out and contains enough interesting and challenging battles to keep you engaged through the relatively short campaign (by role-playing game standards). While you are lined up against your opponents, you select actions from a menu just like most turn-based RPGs. Battles are in real time, but each character has a clock that tracks when you can next take action. Time doesn't stop while you decide your next move and your enemies act when their time is up. There is a 'Lunability' meter shared among all combatants (including enemies!) that allows for special moves once a certain level is reached - but if you don't use it, your enemies will. For example, Lance has a Lunability called Primal Heat, which requires 50 LP (lunability points). You need to wait at least one round for the meter to build past 50, but if an enemy starts their turn before you and uses a Lunability then the points they use are drained from the meter and you might not be able to use your skill in that round; thus turn order can make a significant difference to the outcome of the battle. There are even moves that can be carried out only when more than one party member is ready to attack, providing a fair amount of variation and potential strategy involved in combat situations.

However, the best thing in the entire game is the crafting system; this deep system provides recipes for practically every item imaginable, some of which are made up from items that are made from other items and so on. The crafting system is influenced by the level of the characters, the difficulty of the item and even the influence of the phase of the moon upon not just the item, but the character as well! It is possible to fail in crafting and special items can randomly be produced when all conditions are just right, but crafting isn't just a great system for creating items - it's a necessity for survival. Every weapon has a durability rating, which is an indication of how much longer you can use it before it breaks. This usually amounts to about twenty to thirty battles - which is even shorter than it seems, and it's why I was constantly thinking that the game should have been named 'Broken Sword'. As a result, you will be carrying around a number of weapons and components, finding ways to construct items that you can sell at a large profit to fund the creation of needed quantities of weapons and healing items to get you through the dungeons, sometimes even taking on enemies bare-handed whenever possible to avoid wearing out your weapons! The mechanics of crafting are simple - you choose a character, then a recipe from a menu and the game tells you what items are needed and whether or not you have them. You then choose to begin creating the item, the success or failure of which will be indicated by sound and visual cues. For better items it is critical to mind the moon phase - which is visually indicated at all times just by looking up into the sky.

The visuals and sounds are a decidedly mixed bag - while the game sports models and animations that are some of the brightest and most detailed on the PSP, they come at the expense of a sparse draw distance and a similarity to many of the areas, plus, of course, lots of loading screens. Fortunately these aren't too long compared to many PSP games, but around the towns and smaller areas you can feel like you are constantly tripping over load zones. In terms of the sounds, what I noticed most wasn't what I heard, but what I didn't hear - while the sounds and music are very good, there are too many areas where there isn't any music. This is a shame, as the soundtrack could have really helped break the monotony of some of the areas.

Multiplayer takes on an interesting twist - you set up a team on local wireless and you explore a dungeon with several possible goals, the maps determined by whoever is hosting. Unlike the normal game, weapons don't break in multiplayer and at the end of a dungeon you are rewarded with a rare item to take back to the regular game - but that item cannot be crafted, so it is reserved for special use. I only got to play a single dungeon with another player, but it was fun and a big relief not worrying about breaking weapons all of the time! It's just a shame that this 'realistic' feature exists in single player, as it without doubt detracts from the gameplay experience overall.

If the rest of the game was half as well thought out and interesting as the crafting and combat systems, then Blade Dance: Linage of Light would easily be the best role-playing game for the PSP - but after a while it gets tedious, and neither the crafting nor the combat can save the experience from sinking into mediocrity. Even the multiplayer is just a fun little add-on to get a few extra items and some extra hours from the game, failing to add much to the overall experience. Everything becomes bland and repetitive, and you are pleasantly surprised that the game is over in about a dozen hours, making this one yet another missed opportunity for a great RPG on the PSP.

Reviewed by Michael Anderson for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).