Dark Law: Meaning of Death

Dark Law, SAS Sakata's late-SNES RPG, went even further than SaGa in its CRPG-leaning gameplay: Character creation (of 1-4 party members) with stat-assignment, narration, minimal guidance, modest character progression (via quests as well as battles), job classes + abilities, complex magic-learning, etc. Rounding out the format is a non-linear structure made up of brief, gated scenarios and a menu-based hub town, alongside tactical AP-driven fights that use areas as battle maps (almost like Arc the Lad before them). Alas, their penchant for backtracking, talking to and examining everything to make progress (sometimes in a specific order and sometimes in multiples) gets rather irritating, and the level prerequisites of quests lead to stale grind-sessions within its central dungeon. Their attempt to wed CRPG traits with the storytelling, graphics and dungeons of JRPGs is admirable, but the end result is often either plodding or exasperating.

To their credit, a number of heavy moments here evoke the tragic firepower of the past. By putting the tagline into focus, its best scenes achieve emotional peaks (or more appropriately - nadirs) that wouldn't be felt again until Valkyrie Profile.