Rezel Cross is a PSP turn-based RPG about the lives of five people who suddenly (or not so suddenly) find out they have superpowers. They spend the game running around the map pursuing their own agendas, but fate keeps throwing them together in unexpected ways.
Ail – A young beast hunter seeking revenge on the man who killed his father. When he finds him, will all go as planned? Wait, does he even have a plan in the first place?
Lei Fa – A young woman with mysterious powers and a pendant (it’s always a pendant) that the bad guys are looking for. The bad guys have her sister Gina as a hostage, and Lei Fa will do anything to get her back.
Marion – An ensign on an undercover mission for the Zafnam army that is currently invading the other countries on the continent. Marion hopes that clues left behind by the ancient Rana civilization will help bring about peace. Unfortunately it’s increasingly likely that anything she finds will be used to prolong the war. What is a loyal soldier to do?
Zess – A convict on the run looking for the people who killed his best friend and framed him for the murderer. I like Zess, maybe because his route is the most free from complications so far.
Dante – Unassuming cafe owner by day, daring leader of the anti-Zafnam resistance by night. Would be quite the dashing figure if it wasn’t for that awful green hair.
That’s the main cast, and the game switches from viewpoints between chapters, or sometimes within chapters. The bulk of the fighting was done using a one-man party at first, but where I am now (chapter 12 out of… 21 I think?) two-man and three-man parties are slowly becoming more common. I’ll probably have access to all five Rezels by the end of the game to use as I please.
The battle system isn’t anything too remarkable except for the way special attacks work. They use SP, but instead of draining SP, they actually fill the SP meter up. When the meter is full, the character goes into Overheat status and can’t use special attacks for the rest of the battle. If you’re lucky/unlucky, you’ll go into Hyper Rezel status instead of Overheating. That gives you the chance to do a huge amount of damage to the enemy… or to your whole party if you don’t time your presses correctly. I’ve had nothing but bad luck with the Hyper Rezel wheel so far, but I’ll get the hang of it eventually.
Blurrier = cooler, duh.
Apart from special attacks, the SP meter can also be used with the Square button to completely block enemy attacks. Which means if you have good timing and enough SP you can go through the whole game without ever being hit. In practice it doesn’t work out quite so nicely because the SP cost of blocking and the monetary cost of SP-reducing items are both pretty high. I predict things will get much easier when I have more party members and more money to spread around. I quite like the blocking system. It’s only natural for those with superior powers to shrug off the puny attacks of lesser beings, is it not? If anything more games should have that option.
Characters gain EXP and level up normally (but slowly) from battles. They also get R points that produce Rezel gems that they can put into a Rezel map so they can gain stat boosts and learn new attacks/joint attacks/status attacks, etc. If you’ve played Final Fantasy X, it’s largely the same as the Sphere Grid. Other games like Xenosaga, Unchained Blades and Nostalgia have similar systems, and I love it every time I see it. Maybe it’s the extra bonuses you get outside of leveling up, maybe it’s the surprise factor of not knowing what useful boost you’ll get next, or maybe I just get tired of games where you level up and that’s it for your stat boosts until your next level up. Either way I just like the system and wish more games had it.
That’s the good part of Rezel Cross. The story is still all over the place now, so it’s too early to call it good. It’s not bad at all though. What we know so far is that the Zafnam army is invading other countries and our characters are opposed to their ambitions. Then there’s a second opponent in the form of the Gilmore Mafia family which is up to shady deals we don’t quite understand yet. Then there’s the ancient Rana civilization which, like all ancient game civilizations, was far more advanced than the current one but still went poof for reasons no one knows. Those three strands of story are still separate right now, so it remains to be seen how, and how successfully the writers will pull them all together in the end.
The biggest flaw Rezel Cross has, and the reason why I keep starting and stopping, is the mission segments. All the characters have special powers they can use on the map, e.g. Ail can teleport over obstacles, Lei Fa can stop time for 7 seconds, etc. So you get these mission segments where they have to use those powers to solve puzzles or evade pursuit, that kind of thing. The puzzles are cool because I can just use a FAQ, but the stealth missions are crap. I hate them so much, especially since the camera is so terrible. Sneak past guards A, B and C and oops, there was guard D in your blind spot! Now you have to start all over again. And again. And again! Rrgh. I’ll admit it does feel good when you manage to complete one of the missions, but it’s not really worth the hair-ripping frustration.
Right now I’m in the middle of a very annoying push-the-statue puzzle, thanks goodness for FAQs. If I end up quitting Rezel Cross (and it’s getting more likely by the second) it won’t be because the story was bad or the combat was no good but because puzzle RPGs and I just don’t mix. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
