A group of students are headed to school, when all of a sudden – the group is whisked away to another dimension, to a land where time does not exist. Here, they must confront the invading monsters, which bring with them the disruptive concept of time, in order to restore the timeless land and return to their own world.
“Jikandia: The Timeless Land” is a platformer with light RPG elements for the PSP, translated and released in North America by Aksys Games Localization Inc., the same guys that translated Guilty Gear XX for the PS2 and Guilty Gear 2 for the 360 – titles previously only available in Japan. This game then, is something we should have in the North American market too, right?
The concept of the game is sound, randomly generated dungeons create endless replayability. The “Quartz” ability system and a decent variety of items still feel light for an RPG, but it is a platformer first. Run, jump and fight through the dungeon’s rooms, grab treasure along the way, and kill the boss. The only real strategy lies in which of your classmates are in the party, they can be rescued in the various dungeons and have different fighting styles, but you can only have two of them in the party.
The plot is no Chrono Trigger, although it plays more heavily on the concept of time as an actual gameplay element rather than a scene changer, the dialogue is boring and often interferes with gameplay to the point that it is simply ignored. The longer you spend in a dungeon – from three to thirty minutes, the better the loot, but since the item system is quite simple it is pointless to do so beyond a certain extent.
The retro graphics, on the other hand, are smooth and look good, but the lack of diversity in the enemies and boss fights negates this. Some games you play because you enjoy killing the enemies and leveling up in the randomly generated dungeons, leaving behind only a trail of bodies, where the different classes, the skill system and the large variety of items in town gave you a real reason to be thorough – on top of the engaging gameplay (“Diablo II” comes to mind). “Jikandia: The Timeless Land” lacks many of the elements set as standard by titles over a decade old and is just too repetitive to play for long periods of time.
Despite this, as a platformer, it is quite good. In fact, the entire game becomes a lot better when you drop “RPG” from the description and just play. But considering some of the other titles Aksys has localized for the North American market, their time could have been better spent translating a more interesting game.
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