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Poor old DS... some hugely entertaining games released of late and no-one who actually posts here seems to be paying them a blind bit of attention. Anyway! With that in mind... anyone else playing this?
Soma Bringer was developed by Monolith Soft - the makers of Xenosaga, not the Western FPS developer. It's basically a 2.5D Roguelike/Diablo - a third-person ARPG with 3D characters over hand-drawn 2D backgrounds. Whilst my written Japanese is non-existent, I can decipher tiny little bits of the story here and there, enough to know it seems to be ticking off a fair few of the usual boxes - fantasy kingdoms, lost technology, long-buried ancient labyrinths, mysterious girl from the past, bad guys who seem to be some kind of theocracy...
You pick a party of three from the lineup of eight different characters; one primary, two AI support. Every stage of the game features your ship docking at some location that functions as a hub - you run around, talk to NPCs, advance the story, get principal tasks or sidequests then head out into the "dungeon" maps to slap monsters around a bit in order to complete whatever missions you've just accepted. You activate teleports as you progress through the dungeons - saving only records your status and what teleports you've unlocked, you're dumped back at your ship whenever you reload. Level up, assign stat or skill points. Collect gold, phat lewts, buy better equipment, slap stronger monsters around... you know the drill.
Only it's a very competent - sometimes a bloody good - Roguelike, which helps. Combat uses A, B, X and Y - you've got one standard attack and up to three skill slots, which can be any of a number of different moves or powerups, all with different costs and recharge times. The gimmick is trying to whale on your enemies enough with repeated attacks or skilful combos to break through their guard, at which point you can do much more damage, knock them around something fierce, juggle them, push them back... all of which they can do to you. I've only been trying out close-range melee (as opposed to magic, guns or long pointy weapons) but it's startlingly visceral for a portable game at times - screw up and let three enemies play tennis with you and your health just evaporates. There's a lot of room to experiment with setting up skills, not to mention picking the right AI partners to help you out. The allied AI is pretty sharp, rarely doing anything utterly stupid - obviously it's a fairly simple game but still, their pathfinding's pretty solid, they fight well by themselves, they heal you and lend a hand relatively consistently. There's a whole lot of equipment slots; there's crafting of sorts (powering up items with magic crystals you can blend for fun and profit); there's not too much backtracking (the teleports, plus enemies stay cleared out as long as you haven't reloaded).
And it's gorgeous. Seriously gorgeous. The character designs are great, both the 3D models and the 2D conversation art (a world away from the garish mess of Lost Odyssey). The animation's pretty fluid - which also helps make the combat that little bit nastier. And the backgrounds are fantastic, all of them so far with this wonderful storybook feel... visually the game really does some neat stuff within the limitations of the DS. There's a surprising sense of scale at times - it's hardly Shadow of the Colossus but you can zoom in and out and some of the bosses are literally ten, twenty times your size. Audio's pretty snappy, too - as far as I can tell Yasunori Mitsuda did the score, and whether it's the man himself or not it's a great blend of regular synth stuff with some wonderful orchestrated pieces (the theme song is a particular highlight).
On the downside? It does feel a little easy at times, though some way into Act 3 this is gradually changing. Very little of what you pick up from enemies is actually useful past a certain point in the game - you'll find yourself selling off 95% of what you farm. While it looks amazing, it does its have technical limitations... framerate glitches, no hordes of enemies (maybe eight or ten things on screen at once) and the backgrounds do not scale when you zoom in. And it doesn't really do anything that original; apparently Monolith Soft had all kinds of wild plans for the game but had to settle for making it a simple Diablo clone.
But it's still fantastic. I fully expect everyone to ignore me right at the moment, but I'll be pretty disappointed if this doesn't pick up some praise when it turns up in English. It's far, far more fun to play than Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, looks prettier, sounds better... I haven't tried multiplayer (three player local wifi), but I can only imagine it making things better.
Hugely recommended if you've got even the slightest interest in hack'n'slashers and/or Japanese action gaming. A nice, definite 8/10 and one of the jewels of the DS' lineup so far.
Poor old DS... some hugely entertaining games released of late and no-one who actually posts here seems to be paying them a blind bit of attention. Anyway! With that in mind... anyone else playing this?Soma Bringer was developed by Monolith Soft - the makers of Xenosaga, not the Western FPS developer. It's basically a 2.5D Roguelike/Diablo - a third-person ARPG with 3D characters over hand-drawn 2D backgrounds. Whilst my written Japanese is non-existent, I can decipher tiny little bits of the story here and there, enough to know it seems to be ticking off a fair few of the usual boxes - fantasy kingdoms, lost technology, long-buried ancient labyrinths, mysterious girl from the past, bad guys who seem to be some kind of theocracy...
You pick a party of three from the lineup of eight different characters; one primary, two AI support. Every stage of the game features your ship docking at some location that functions as a hub - you run around, talk to NPCs, advance the story, get principal tasks or sidequests then head out into the "dungeon" maps to slap monsters around a bit in order to complete whatever missions you've just accepted. You activate teleports as you progress through the dungeons - saving only records your status and what teleports you've unlocked, you're dumped back at your ship whenever you reload. Level up, assign stat or skill points. Collect gold, phat lewts, buy better equipment, slap stronger monsters around... you know the drill.
Only it's a very competent - sometimes a bloody good - Roguelike, which helps. Combat uses A, B, X and Y - you've got one standard attack and up to three skill slots, which can be any of a number of different moves or powerups, all with different costs and recharge times. The gimmick is trying to whale on your enemies enough with repeated attacks or skilful combos to break through their guard, at which point you can do much more damage, knock them around something fierce, juggle them, push them back... all of which they can do to you. I've only been trying out close-range melee (as opposed to magic, guns or long pointy weapons) but it's startlingly visceral for a portable game at times - screw up and let three enemies play tennis with you and your health just evaporates. There's a lot of room to experiment with setting up skills, not to mention picking the right AI partners to help you out. The allied AI is pretty sharp, rarely doing anything utterly stupid - obviously it's a fairly simple game but still, their pathfinding's pretty solid, they fight well by themselves, they heal you and lend a hand relatively consistently. There's a whole lot of equipment slots; there's crafting of sorts (powering up items with magic crystals you can blend for fun and profit); there's not too much backtracking (the teleports, plus enemies stay cleared out as long as you haven't reloaded).
And it's gorgeous. Seriously gorgeous. The character designs are great, both the 3D models and the 2D conversation art (a world away from the garish mess of Lost Odyssey). The animation's pretty fluid - which also helps make the combat that little bit nastier. And the backgrounds are fantastic, all of them so far with this wonderful storybook feel... visually the game really does some neat stuff within the limitations of the DS. There's a surprising sense of scale at times - it's hardly Shadow of the Colossus but you can zoom in and out and some of the bosses are literally ten, twenty times your size. Audio's pretty snappy, too - as far as I can tell Yasunori Mitsuda did the score, and whether it's the man himself or not it's a great blend of regular synth stuff with some wonderful orchestrated pieces (the theme song is a particular highlight).
On the downside? It does feel a little easy at times, though some way into Act 3 this is gradually changing. Very little of what you pick up from enemies is actually useful past a certain point in the game - you'll find yourself selling off 95% of what you farm. While it looks amazing, it does its have technical limitations... framerate glitches, no hordes of enemies (maybe eight or ten things on screen at once) and the backgrounds do not scale when you zoom in. And it doesn't really do anything that original; apparently Monolith Soft had all kinds of wild plans for the game but had to settle for making it a simple Diablo clone.
But it's still fantastic. I fully expect everyone to ignore me right at the moment, but I'll be pretty disappointed if this doesn't pick up some praise when it turns up in English. It's far, far more fun to play than Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, looks prettier, sounds better... I haven't tried multiplayer (three player local wifi), but I can only imagine it making things better.
Hugely recommended if you've got even the slightest interest in hack'n'slashers and/or Japanese action gaming. A nice, definite 8/10 and one of the jewels of the DS' lineup so far.
- it's a fun game, and very impressive in certain respects but as a single-player experience Soma Bringer beats it hollow.
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