Or, the thread I wanted to start for three days but was never able to begin due to a writer's block. Let's hope everything will get moving this time.
So, Summon Night Twin Age on the DS...I've only played the first Swordcraft Story for the GBA, which should be some sort of spin-off from the usual Summon Night fare as Swordcraft story was a little nice action game while most Summon Night games are strategic RPGs.
Twin Age is more or less a dungeon crawler with dungeon battles, or that's what it has been for the first two or so hours, a village has been named multiple times but it's not on the map, the only non-dungeon location are the a shop and your starting location (house).
At the start of the game you can choose between Aldo, a guy, and Reiha, a girl; respectively, they specialize in hand-to-hand combat and magic.
Just for the record, I choose Reiha, which uses a staff that shoots purple magic bullets while flashing purple wings very much like Nanoha, so I'm pretty pleased.
This choice mainly affects the storyline, as during the dungeon crawling you can switch between the two freely.
Aldo and Reiha are the only two characters that are directly managed by the player, as all other characters that will join the party are completely independent except for a general behavior setting.
As per standard Japanese style, all characters gain levels based on how many enemies they kill and are rewarded with increased stats and skill points for each level they conquer; skill points are used on a relatively complex skill tree to power up passive skills (like elemental resistance) or special attacks; each skill tree features several paths to follow and the initial idea that you'll be able to learn all skills at maximum level is quickly dispelled after a few levels, as many skills have prerequisites that sometimes are impossible to satisfy unless you focus on a single path.
For example Aldo can use swords, axes and spears, but you cannot freely spend skill point on all weapons as you'll end up with no points for the most powerful techniques of a single weapon.
Dungeon crawling is fun, even if it's a bit on the easy side, especially when you have extra party members. The first bosses, more than hard are resistant, meaning they don't dish out a lot of damage but they take a lot to go down, nor there is any particular strategy involved.
This is not necessarily bad as the party members not controlled by you simply tend to charge enemies and there is no quick way to change their behavior, if not go to the menu, then a submenu and change settings for each character.
This does not mean that AI party members are dumb: they will use special attacks (including healing techniques) wisely, they will seek out enemies on their own and are able to follow you in all dungeons with minimum lag, as well as being able to dodge most dangerous obstacles (like poisonous swamps) most of the times; when attacking they will also switch target when they know that your next attack is imminent and will kill the enemy...it's like FFXII, but with an overhead 2D view of the battlefield and no need to buy new slots for tactics.
The game is controlled entirely via touch screen. Each tap is context sensitive and clicking on a attack spell and then on the ground for moving won't cancel the spell, as it will be executed only when an enemy is clicked. Also, moving the cursor at the edge of the screen switches it into what I call "auto mode", and you character will continue to move in that direction until you move the cursor away, so that you won't need to keep clicking around to move; once an enemy is clicked the character will continue to attack until it's death and will even follow it...this is a good thing, especially if you like to switch between characters during the numerous encounters to keep the whole situation under control.
Not that you should really be worried, your characters dish out a lot more damage than the enemies, and a well placed spell can usually reduce even large group to a single enemy with ease. Maybe if the game gets a little bit harder it would be better, even if it's fun to go around and beat all enemies down, things can get boring quickly if all enemies are that easy, especially as there are a lot of recolors.
At first, the game requires a double tap on each icon to navigate through the menus, but this can be changed into a single tap in the option menu - this is great to let beginners know what the icon means and to make things quicker for experienced players...it might not be the most revolutionary option of all times but I'm glad it's there.
Graphics are nice, the detail is quite impressive for the DS' small screen and it's always easy to understand what's going on, even when sprites overlap during large battles. The interface is clean and makes a good use of the double screens.
Music is...uhm...normal I think, theres nothing really that stands out, except for the few spoken lines, which I'm glad to say they are actually good, with few exceptions (Reiha's "boooooh!", for example). However, with the game making use of voice overs only at the beginning of sentences for one or tow words, often unrelated to the written line except for the general feeling of the two, I sometime thought that it would have been better that there were no voiceovers at all.
As Swordcraft story, Twin Age is turning out to be one nice action game; there are two main storylines (one for Aldo and one for Reiha, even though 99% of the time they are together) and each should feature an ending based on which character has the highest support level, the simple structure is fun and the story is rather easygoing.
So, Summon Night Twin Age on the DS...I've only played the first Swordcraft Story for the GBA, which should be some sort of spin-off from the usual Summon Night fare as Swordcraft story was a little nice action game while most Summon Night games are strategic RPGs.
Twin Age is more or less a dungeon crawler with dungeon battles, or that's what it has been for the first two or so hours, a village has been named multiple times but it's not on the map, the only non-dungeon location are the a shop and your starting location (house).
At the start of the game you can choose between Aldo, a guy, and Reiha, a girl; respectively, they specialize in hand-to-hand combat and magic.
Just for the record, I choose Reiha, which uses a staff that shoots purple magic bullets while flashing purple wings very much like Nanoha, so I'm pretty pleased.
This choice mainly affects the storyline, as during the dungeon crawling you can switch between the two freely.
Aldo and Reiha are the only two characters that are directly managed by the player, as all other characters that will join the party are completely independent except for a general behavior setting.
As per standard Japanese style, all characters gain levels based on how many enemies they kill and are rewarded with increased stats and skill points for each level they conquer; skill points are used on a relatively complex skill tree to power up passive skills (like elemental resistance) or special attacks; each skill tree features several paths to follow and the initial idea that you'll be able to learn all skills at maximum level is quickly dispelled after a few levels, as many skills have prerequisites that sometimes are impossible to satisfy unless you focus on a single path.
For example Aldo can use swords, axes and spears, but you cannot freely spend skill point on all weapons as you'll end up with no points for the most powerful techniques of a single weapon.
Dungeon crawling is fun, even if it's a bit on the easy side, especially when you have extra party members. The first bosses, more than hard are resistant, meaning they don't dish out a lot of damage but they take a lot to go down, nor there is any particular strategy involved.
This is not necessarily bad as the party members not controlled by you simply tend to charge enemies and there is no quick way to change their behavior, if not go to the menu, then a submenu and change settings for each character.
This does not mean that AI party members are dumb: they will use special attacks (including healing techniques) wisely, they will seek out enemies on their own and are able to follow you in all dungeons with minimum lag, as well as being able to dodge most dangerous obstacles (like poisonous swamps) most of the times; when attacking they will also switch target when they know that your next attack is imminent and will kill the enemy...it's like FFXII, but with an overhead 2D view of the battlefield and no need to buy new slots for tactics.
The game is controlled entirely via touch screen. Each tap is context sensitive and clicking on a attack spell and then on the ground for moving won't cancel the spell, as it will be executed only when an enemy is clicked. Also, moving the cursor at the edge of the screen switches it into what I call "auto mode", and you character will continue to move in that direction until you move the cursor away, so that you won't need to keep clicking around to move; once an enemy is clicked the character will continue to attack until it's death and will even follow it...this is a good thing, especially if you like to switch between characters during the numerous encounters to keep the whole situation under control.
Not that you should really be worried, your characters dish out a lot more damage than the enemies, and a well placed spell can usually reduce even large group to a single enemy with ease. Maybe if the game gets a little bit harder it would be better, even if it's fun to go around and beat all enemies down, things can get boring quickly if all enemies are that easy, especially as there are a lot of recolors.
At first, the game requires a double tap on each icon to navigate through the menus, but this can be changed into a single tap in the option menu - this is great to let beginners know what the icon means and to make things quicker for experienced players...it might not be the most revolutionary option of all times but I'm glad it's there.
Graphics are nice, the detail is quite impressive for the DS' small screen and it's always easy to understand what's going on, even when sprites overlap during large battles. The interface is clean and makes a good use of the double screens.
Music is...uhm...normal I think, theres nothing really that stands out, except for the few spoken lines, which I'm glad to say they are actually good, with few exceptions (Reiha's "boooooh!", for example). However, with the game making use of voice overs only at the beginning of sentences for one or tow words, often unrelated to the written line except for the general feeling of the two, I sometime thought that it would have been better that there were no voiceovers at all.
As Swordcraft story, Twin Age is turning out to be one nice action game; there are two main storylines (one for Aldo and one for Reiha, even though 99% of the time they are together) and each should feature an ending based on which character has the highest support level, the simple structure is fun and the story is rather easygoing.
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