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chuckroIn a world where humanity’s extinction by soul-stealing monsters has only been held off by the prophetic abilities of the mysterious Nemesis and the Soul Cages that he introduced, York discovers that Nemesis’ intentions may not be as pure as he’s always been taught. When his home town is burned and his girlfriend is killed in a deliberate sacrifice by Nemesis, he leaves the order of knights. When he discovers that his wife is still alive and has been held captive by the order, he vows to discover the truth behind Nemesis’ actions.
Clearly, KEMCO divided up their catalog so that games from some developers would end up in the Humble Bundles, while games from others would end up on Amazon Underground. This game is by the same developer as Grace of Letoile and has a similar feel, with only two sidequests (the IAP dungeons), and rare encounters with “Lantern” enemies that drop IAP points. The artwork is similar, and the battle system is as well, being turn-based with a moving action bar. Characters can move around during battle, and each weapon has an effective range of attack, so your position matters. Also, there’s a “tension” bar that fills up as you attack: The fuller it is, the more damage you do, but you also take more damage and healing effects are less effective.
The class/ability system is based around monster souls that you equip in your Soul Cage that grant abilities like accessories do in most games. Which selection of souls you use also lets you get a special ability from your Soul Cage, and determines which classes you can switch into. Each class has 3 levels (and comes with associated stats and equipment options) and each level unlocks a new power that the character keeps permanently. There are three general groups of classes (fighter, scout and wizard) and each character is locked into one of those three categories.
Note that this game, despite having a seemingly-complicated system, is still totally breakable. Just buy an Original Soul at the IAP store—it allows you to set your soul cage to “special attack”, which means your normal attacks hit everything and ignore range.
Beating the game gives access to a New Game Plus and an IAP item that lets you skip ahead through the story. As there’s a major plot branch, this gives a nice opportunity to play through both sides. The only hiccup is that while you keep equipment, souls and class progress, you don’t actually keep your levels, so jumping ahead in the story can be a bit harrowing for your first few fights (even with end-game equipment) with your level 1 characters.
The story here is notably better than most KEMCO games, to the point where I actually cared enough to take detailed notes.
SPOILERS:
The big reveal is that the world these characters live in is an artificial “Sandbox World” created to house the few survivors of humanity after a plague called “the Curse” destroyed humanity in the previous one. Disembodied souls inhabit this virtual world, and an Angel will eventually arrive to lead them to “the Promised Land” aka the real world. Lord Nemesis is the System Administrator, and Fiora’s soul is the key to the Gate to that world. Arioch has a high “clearance level” like Nemesis, which allows him to make adjustments to the world’s settings.
The game branches around the halfway point, allowing you to follow either York or Fiora (and giving you a different ending depending on who you choose). I opted to follow York first, as he was already buffed and good to go. (I was very tempted to go back and re-play the game to choose Fiora from early on, because she dies fairly early on York’s path.)
The next set of reveals is that the Sandbox World has reached its limits and is degrading. The “Angel” system was supposed to be using the souls of people who died in the Sandbox to build a Curse-resistant humanity, but it malfunctioned and started sending monsters to claim more souls. Nemesis couldn’t fix it, so she came inside and set up the resistance. She also used the power of “restoration” to rewind/reset the world, which is how she’d been able to read the future—but those resets were in turn damaging the Sandbox. Nemesis was the real Eris all along, and Fiora was the daughter of York and Eris, who survived through a reset by being placed in a copy of Eris’ body; and her soul was the one the Angel needed to create the new bodies. Arioch was an aspect of the Angel system, artificially-created to manage the system. He dies to upload Fiora’s soul and complete his mission.
In York’s ending, he’s left a broken wreck of a man, with his world torn apart and his wife and daughter dead. Presumably the rest of humanity evacuates back into the real world as the Sandbox World crumbles.
In Fiora’s story, she opts to go with Arioch, but changes her mind when York and Nemesis catch up with them. Ibis is stabbed with the sacred dagger while protecting her and dies. The party kills Arioch. Nemesis reveals her identity as Eris. Arioch is revealed as an AI created by the Angel system, which goes out of control without him. The party then retrieves the flying machine so they can shut down the Sandbox World’s terminal connection and seal it off from the Angel. The Angel proves too strong, but Arioch reappears, and by killing him again the party is able to self-destruct the Angel, which forever cuts them off from the real world. In that ending, the world is doomed, but Fiora and Olber go in search of a new way to save it and York and Eris get to live happily in the time they have remaining.
But there’s a third path, Arioch, that opens once you’ve beaten the other two. It starts almost identical to Fiora’s path, but then Nemesis starts revealing her identity to everyone. And Arioch reveals…that he’s York! Nemesis had been using the restoration function to save York’s life by rewinding the Sandbox World. Arioch was made of fragments of York’s soul, left behind with the Angel every time he was restored and then combined with various administrative functions. After much debate, Fiora opts to sacrifice herself but everyone else survives.
York’s interactions with Arioch make is very clear how much he hates himself. Once again, Arioch dies to upload Fiora’s soul into the Angel system. But then the refugee groups in the Promised Land start being attacked by monsters, and the party travels through to a new world.
The Arioch program/soul still exists, in the administrative tower. He explains that Eris’ father’s true research was the “Angelic Evangelism Project,” trying to build a better humanity. When it was shut down for ethical concerns, Eris’ father created the Curse, to shut humanity away into the Sandbox World and then force them to evolve. The Angel system is now out of control, because even though the new humans can withstand the Curse, they aren’t as evolved as it wants them to be. Hence creating monsters to kill them in the real world. Turns out that Eris’ father loaded his own soul into the Angel before dying; and he’s gone from Evilutionary Biologist to full-on Genocidal Maniac. They destroy him and the system, and retrieve Fiora’s soul in the process. Some time later, humanity has been relocated to the real world, the Knights are clearing out the remaining monsters, and Eris is pregnant with a new body for Fiora’s soul. A messy, but happy, final ending.
Overall: This is short and decent from a gameplay perspective, but I think it actually manages to have one of the best plots of any KEMCO game—lots of things happen with relatively little filler (besides replaying the multiple paths, and those are both fast and worth it for the plot), and it doesn’t all wrap up neatly. Nice!
Clearly, KEMCO divided up their catalog so that games from some developers would end up in the Humble Bundles, while games from others would end up on Amazon Underground. This game is by the same developer as Grace of Letoile and has a similar feel, with only two sidequests (the IAP dungeons), and rare encounters with “Lantern” enemies that drop IAP points. The artwork is similar, and the battle system is as well, being turn-based with a moving action bar. Characters can move around during battle, and each weapon has an effective range of attack, so your position matters. Also, there’s a “tension” bar that fills up as you attack: The fuller it is, the more damage you do, but you also take more damage and healing effects are less effective.
The class/ability system is based around monster souls that you equip in your Soul Cage that grant abilities like accessories do in most games. Which selection of souls you use also lets you get a special ability from your Soul Cage, and determines which classes you can switch into. Each class has 3 levels (and comes with associated stats and equipment options) and each level unlocks a new power that the character keeps permanently. There are three general groups of classes (fighter, scout and wizard) and each character is locked into one of those three categories.
Note that this game, despite having a seemingly-complicated system, is still totally breakable. Just buy an Original Soul at the IAP store—it allows you to set your soul cage to “special attack”, which means your normal attacks hit everything and ignore range.
Beating the game gives access to a New Game Plus and an IAP item that lets you skip ahead through the story. As there’s a major plot branch, this gives a nice opportunity to play through both sides. The only hiccup is that while you keep equipment, souls and class progress, you don’t actually keep your levels, so jumping ahead in the story can be a bit harrowing for your first few fights (even with end-game equipment) with your level 1 characters.
The story here is notably better than most KEMCO games, to the point where I actually cared enough to take detailed notes.
SPOILERS:
The big reveal is that the world these characters live in is an artificial “Sandbox World” created to house the few survivors of humanity after a plague called “the Curse” destroyed humanity in the previous one. Disembodied souls inhabit this virtual world, and an Angel will eventually arrive to lead them to “the Promised Land” aka the real world. Lord Nemesis is the System Administrator, and Fiora’s soul is the key to the Gate to that world. Arioch has a high “clearance level” like Nemesis, which allows him to make adjustments to the world’s settings.
The game branches around the halfway point, allowing you to follow either York or Fiora (and giving you a different ending depending on who you choose). I opted to follow York first, as he was already buffed and good to go. (I was very tempted to go back and re-play the game to choose Fiora from early on, because she dies fairly early on York’s path.)
The next set of reveals is that the Sandbox World has reached its limits and is degrading. The “Angel” system was supposed to be using the souls of people who died in the Sandbox to build a Curse-resistant humanity, but it malfunctioned and started sending monsters to claim more souls. Nemesis couldn’t fix it, so she came inside and set up the resistance. She also used the power of “restoration” to rewind/reset the world, which is how she’d been able to read the future—but those resets were in turn damaging the Sandbox. Nemesis was the real Eris all along, and Fiora was the daughter of York and Eris, who survived through a reset by being placed in a copy of Eris’ body; and her soul was the one the Angel needed to create the new bodies. Arioch was an aspect of the Angel system, artificially-created to manage the system. He dies to upload Fiora’s soul and complete his mission.
In York’s ending, he’s left a broken wreck of a man, with his world torn apart and his wife and daughter dead. Presumably the rest of humanity evacuates back into the real world as the Sandbox World crumbles.
In Fiora’s story, she opts to go with Arioch, but changes her mind when York and Nemesis catch up with them. Ibis is stabbed with the sacred dagger while protecting her and dies. The party kills Arioch. Nemesis reveals her identity as Eris. Arioch is revealed as an AI created by the Angel system, which goes out of control without him. The party then retrieves the flying machine so they can shut down the Sandbox World’s terminal connection and seal it off from the Angel. The Angel proves too strong, but Arioch reappears, and by killing him again the party is able to self-destruct the Angel, which forever cuts them off from the real world. In that ending, the world is doomed, but Fiora and Olber go in search of a new way to save it and York and Eris get to live happily in the time they have remaining.
But there’s a third path, Arioch, that opens once you’ve beaten the other two. It starts almost identical to Fiora’s path, but then Nemesis starts revealing her identity to everyone. And Arioch reveals…that he’s York! Nemesis had been using the restoration function to save York’s life by rewinding the Sandbox World. Arioch was made of fragments of York’s soul, left behind with the Angel every time he was restored and then combined with various administrative functions. After much debate, Fiora opts to sacrifice herself but everyone else survives.
York’s interactions with Arioch make is very clear how much he hates himself. Once again, Arioch dies to upload Fiora’s soul into the Angel system. But then the refugee groups in the Promised Land start being attacked by monsters, and the party travels through to a new world.
The Arioch program/soul still exists, in the administrative tower. He explains that Eris’ father’s true research was the “Angelic Evangelism Project,” trying to build a better humanity. When it was shut down for ethical concerns, Eris’ father created the Curse, to shut humanity away into the Sandbox World and then force them to evolve. The Angel system is now out of control, because even though the new humans can withstand the Curse, they aren’t as evolved as it wants them to be. Hence creating monsters to kill them in the real world. Turns out that Eris’ father loaded his own soul into the Angel before dying; and he’s gone from Evilutionary Biologist to full-on Genocidal Maniac. They destroy him and the system, and retrieve Fiora’s soul in the process. Some time later, humanity has been relocated to the real world, the Knights are clearing out the remaining monsters, and Eris is pregnant with a new body for Fiora’s soul. A messy, but happy, final ending.
Overall: This is short and decent from a gameplay perspective, but I think it actually manages to have one of the best plots of any KEMCO game—lots of things happen with relatively little filler (besides replaying the multiple paths, and those are both fast and worth it for the plot), and it doesn’t all wrap up neatly. Nice!
