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chuckroThe Fallen One has awoken. Long ago, it took six Paladins to seal him. Now, there's only one young swordsman who is blessed by Soul Power and up to the task. As you control the actions of both the devil Rukyu and the hero Falco, you decide if good or evil will triumph.
The game alternates chapters in which you control the bad guy and the good guy, who have slightly different game mechanics and concurrent storylines over the week the game takes place in.
The graphics are odd--weird isometric view, "grainy" pixilated graphics--though I'll give them credit that a lot of the atmospheric effects do work well. they tried to give people more normal proportions than most games and it ended up looking really weird. (Tiny heads! Really broad bodies!)
This game was fan translated by the good folks at Aeon Genesis, who did their usual excellent job. The reason this didn't get a US release is clear: You spend half the game playing as Satan, and when you talk to anyone you kill them and absorb them for "soul power".
And that soul power is critical, because every step you take uses some of it. You get more from the save point guy, but saves are limited. You also get some with every monster you kill, but the encounter rate is such that grinding is pretty much always a losing proposition. Rukyu's chapters are fairly easy, despite the step limit, as the Fallen One is strong, has a good magic selection, and can recruit powerful monsters to fight with him. Combat is done in a turn-based, pseudo-tactical view, incidentally, and the minion monsters are all on autobattle. There's a lot of waiting around while your minions kill things.
In Falco's chapters, you still have the step limit, but instead of also spending your "soul power" as MP, you have a stock of one-shot spell scrolls. Falco and his human buddies are also generally weaker than the Fallen one, and need to upgrade their equipment and collect "Chaos Orbs" (which randomly drop; there is no XP) to increase their stats.
The thing is, the constantly decreasing soul power means that you always have a time limit, and the limited saving/healing means that you really want to be taking an optimized path through each chapter if you want to survive. (You also need to get lucky, because despite the battle visual style, there isn't much you can tactically effect in combat.) I'm reminded of the semi-rpg nature of Soul Blazer, where you gain levels from fighting, but there's a fairly strict limit on what you gain and when, so the game's difficulty level isn't actually variable and there's no element of customization.
Overall: The concept is clever, but the execution leaves something to be desired. I just didn't find it particularly fun to play, though at least some of that is just my preferences for game style.
The game alternates chapters in which you control the bad guy and the good guy, who have slightly different game mechanics and concurrent storylines over the week the game takes place in.
The graphics are odd--weird isometric view, "grainy" pixilated graphics--though I'll give them credit that a lot of the atmospheric effects do work well. they tried to give people more normal proportions than most games and it ended up looking really weird. (Tiny heads! Really broad bodies!)
This game was fan translated by the good folks at Aeon Genesis, who did their usual excellent job. The reason this didn't get a US release is clear: You spend half the game playing as Satan, and when you talk to anyone you kill them and absorb them for "soul power".
And that soul power is critical, because every step you take uses some of it. You get more from the save point guy, but saves are limited. You also get some with every monster you kill, but the encounter rate is such that grinding is pretty much always a losing proposition. Rukyu's chapters are fairly easy, despite the step limit, as the Fallen One is strong, has a good magic selection, and can recruit powerful monsters to fight with him. Combat is done in a turn-based, pseudo-tactical view, incidentally, and the minion monsters are all on autobattle. There's a lot of waiting around while your minions kill things.
In Falco's chapters, you still have the step limit, but instead of also spending your "soul power" as MP, you have a stock of one-shot spell scrolls. Falco and his human buddies are also generally weaker than the Fallen one, and need to upgrade their equipment and collect "Chaos Orbs" (which randomly drop; there is no XP) to increase their stats.
The thing is, the constantly decreasing soul power means that you always have a time limit, and the limited saving/healing means that you really want to be taking an optimized path through each chapter if you want to survive. (You also need to get lucky, because despite the battle visual style, there isn't much you can tactically effect in combat.) I'm reminded of the semi-rpg nature of Soul Blazer, where you gain levels from fighting, but there's a fairly strict limit on what you gain and when, so the game's difficulty level isn't actually variable and there's no element of customization.
Overall: The concept is clever, but the execution leaves something to be desired. I just didn't find it particularly fun to play, though at least some of that is just my preferences for game style.
