Legend of Alon D'Ar

The hero from Central Casting

   While it's hard to throw a rock without hitting a medieval-themed RPG these days, Stormfront Studios' Legend of Alon D'Ar (formerly known as Eternal Blade) might have enough tricks up its sleeve to set it apart from all the rest.

   In the first place, while it doesn't have the Dungeons and Dragons license, the character and enemy designs are the next best thing. Standard character classes such as "fighter," "amazon," and "swamp creature" are well designed and should translate well to PlayStation 2 graphics. The enemies are similarly inspired, and Stormfront looks to be giving landscapes their due, making sure that environments have atmosphere, rather than serving as nondescript backdrops.

   The game looks to play much like Secret of Mana or Phantasy Star Online (without the online elements.) There are four characters to a party, and each character is either controlled by computer AI or a human controller (a multitap is required for four players). Battles will be handled in action-RPG style rather than with selectable menus, speeding up the pace of the game. The storyline will be fairly linear, with only one possible ending, but Stormfront plans to include a plethora of sidequests.

   Nothing about Legend of Alon D'Ar screams originality; but on the other hand, the execution looks to be top-notch. Unfortunately, like many promising PlayStation 2 titles, the title won't arrive until 2001.