7th Dragon III Code: VFD Review

Weird and very Japanese title aside, 7th Dragon III Code: VFD is a game that borderline sits on compelling gameplay and weird mundanity. Featuring turn-based combat in a strategy JRPG, you control members of a new team under the name Unit 13 that had defeated the previous Dragon that decimated the planet in 2020. With the threat of the 7th Dragon appearing, your task is to find a way of beating it and saving the world. Containing predictable plot points if you’re used to the writing of the classic hero’s journey, nothing will surprise you. Is this bad? Not really, since I tend to go into games for the mechanics with sound and story being second priorities. This is a relatively short game lasting for the review around 40 hours, which would probably be 30 hours without my constant backtracking and grinding. So that works for and against as I’ll get into later.

Mechanically the game is simple, but can allow for some really great moment-to-moment gameplay that can leave you with a real sense of elation. Pulling a three turn combination attack to decimate that one boss is great, until you run into the issue that running the game without actively grinding can leave you in a tight pickle of not being able to take the hits. Part of this issues to the fact that enemies die too quickly, I say three turns because majority of battles didn’t last longer than five turns. Only a few times did I have a boss battle last longer than five and when they did, they lasted at tops twelve turns. However, I will add that one boss fight lasted seventeen turns because I wanted to see how long a fight would last if I were underleveled for the area but with the relevant skills.

Since when did cute creatures become such dicks in Japan?

At the end of the day in this game, skills account for whether or not you win. This is probably why the game includes the ability to change classes - effectively resetting their skills altogether - at the cost of levels. There are eight classes, nine if you account for single and dual wielding swords skills with one of them, which are unlocked as you progress through the game. Starting with four classes: Samurai, Agent, God Hand and Duelist. The rate they’re unlocked is okay, but not brilliant because when you unlock the new class and team set (your B and C team) they start as fresh new team members at Lv1. Which is terrible when you’ve already sunk 20+ hours and that new team is required to help clear an area containing Lv40+ characters. Granted there are workarounds to this issue, and that it’s possible to run the game with only one team - just be prepared for a ridiculous challenge.

That’s not to say that the game doesn’t have its positives mechanically, the combat is fulfilling as stated earlier. Animation is barebones basic at times when depicting movements and hits, but it knows when to ham up the action when it needs to really well. The classes synergy is decently balanced and even with a rag tag team, the skills and items you get access to can mean running a full team of Samurai is “viable” - again not recommended unless you know what you’re doing. A couple guide tutorials will follow detailing some of the mechanics of the game to help shave the extra couple of hours that could go into incessant grinding and running around.

Wish he had a bigger story arc, oh well effeminate man.

At the end of the day though, this game is too simple mechanically. Monsters and boss battles don’t fully scale, running into Dragons never felt like an actual challenge, for the most part, more reminiscent of a differently colour sprite of yesteryear’s JRPG sprites. The game does feature auto KO/gameover moves, items mitigate this but RNG isn’t always favourable. And whilst I don’t despise these types of mechanics, they are nonetheless irritating. But picking apart the one mechanic that really ruined the game for me is the damage calculation, I don’t have numbers to back this up, but judging from my 40+ hour playthrough. The number’s don’t scale fully, sure damage sponges aren’t the greatest boss fights but the combat is very samey and doesn’t try to shake the formula slightly. And when the boss fights don’t seem to last longer than five turns, I begin to question am I playing on casual mode??? Which is the difficulty below standard which can be changed on the fly, a nice option but one I question the usefulness of.

Comparing it directly to Bravely Default would give this game undue discredit for what is a solid gameplay experience that doesn’t outstay it’s welcome, maybe leaving too early. But comparing the quality of life and scaling of encounters makes this game feel too amateurish to charge the £30+ on the 3DS store. I understand localisation costs a ridiculous amount, but this game can’t even protect itself with the writing being relatively bland with the side content feeling half fleshed out that feels like tacked on content like someone threw Blu-Tack on a wall to see if it sticks.

Guess someone doesn't like surprises.

This is made worse by how short the game is, maybe playing the previous three titles would help but that’s made irrelevant with the content available being somewhat barebones. Upon researching this game, it’s potentially because of the development studio imageepoch filing bankruptcy. Which is sad to hear due to poor sales, but with SEGA having a price tag of £34.99 on the 3DS eShop at time of writing. It’s hard to fully recommend this game, despite having a lot of fun with it. Containing paid DLC, which would probably bring it to a full £40 game to give you the “full experience” - I can’t recommend unless it’s on sale. But these feelings are entirely subjective since I don’t find value in a game that effectively sits at a £1 an hour for a game without replayability in the form of harder difficulty or NG+. Music is nice, but as I’ve made complaints about music on a 3DS with my Corpse Party 3DS review. Music on a handheld gaming device being ignored for the most part due to average player travelling whilst playing this, meaning some of the songs for boss battles are sadly ignored. Although the constant looping of battle sounds do wear thin fast with the battles being really short as they are.