Draglade

Draglade - (DS)
Developer: Atlus
Format: DS
Genre: Anime

Anime magic comes to the little screen

Quest heroes, spiky-haired fighters, acrobatic fighting, colourful knockouts and a plethora of power-ups and music note inspired combo setups mark out Draglade. That's about as much sense as you'll probably make out of this intuitive and fun fighting title.

Directly ported over from a huge Japanese hit, Draglade has the familiar anime backstory. A young disillusioned fighter seeking to be the best. Into a variety of arenas then and armed with your handy G-Con watch computer thingy, you can conjure up moves, select the combos, add a little individual flair from the four fighters' characteristics and battle it to be that best, to be the Major Grapper.

This simplistic and addictive set-up works really well on Wi-Fi with multiplayer, worldwide ranking systems, the ability to upload your leveled-up character and the chance to challenge and swap beat combos you've created give a real sense of taping into a cultish arena fighting experience.

Honed down, the combat becomes very fluid with its action meaning you'll really only ever need programmed three buttons with your chosen fighting techniques, allocated off the main screen in between fights. Battles are short and sharp to keep your attention, graphics are really as you'd expect from the Japanese anime genre, and the longevity of the title is pretty high. It might appeal to die-hard fans only but even a curious first-timer to this type of set-up can whittle away several hours. And, with the great fun to be had on co-op, WI-Fi and over in the multiplayer world, there's a real sense of signing up to an exclusive club with this one. Even if it is a little unashamedly geeky.

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