There are also some strange quick-time event sections, which felt like a forced attempt to add more gameplay. Fittingly, thereвЂ™s an area called the Maze Isles. I felt like a lab rat searching for the boss in every level, which became dull after I completed the first one. The dungeon-like areas (mostly islands, in this case) are built like corridors, and all you have to do is walk until you see treasure, get the treasure, and then move on - thereвЂ™s no real exploration to speak of. The biggest missed opportunity is the bland level design, which is linear and completely unengaging.

It has a rather static format structured around important plot points (of the typical cutscene-dungeon-boss-cutscene variety). Outside of the story, Romance Dawn feels like the bare minimum that an RPG should be. After about an hour of playing, I was really tired the dialogue scenes - they can be several minutes long, and knowing that a better-animated version of the same story exists made it seem pointless.

Character background, justification for battles, and even main story events are told this way, which leaves little time for One Piece-style goofiness and makes the dialogue a little dense. The storytelling (or retelling) in Romance Dawn is done through manga-style speech bubbles and minimally animated character portraits, with only a few oddly selected cutscenes shown in high quality.

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