Soulbringer

"One of the longest, most intricate RPGs available on the PC"

Intro:

I bought this game with PlaneScape: Torment for 10$, I wasn't expecting this game to be any good, so I figured that the 10$ would be spent on Planescape. boy was I wrong.

Story: 4/10

the story is kind of shakey. It starts out with you, the nameless hero, getting off a boat to visit your uncle. you then find out you are a soulbringer, and then, well, I'll let you find out. There is really no strong point to the story, but this is mainly an action/RPG, so the lack of story is made up by the great qualities of the gameplay.

Control: 7/10

the controls take a while to get used to, but nothing too complicated. It's all point and click, with grouped hot-keys that you can use in conjuction with the mouse. All of the menus are drag and drop, and it seems complicated at first, but really it is very easy and it just takes a while to get used to the camera.

Graphics: 8/10

This game asks for a lot. 16mg of video is required for non-grainy graphics, but really 4mg is required to play the game smoothly, albeit the graphics are a little grainy. don't get me wrong, I play this on a 32mg card, and the graphics are fine, but they seem bland in places and the backgrounds are usually just a black sky or something along those sorts.

Sound: 9/10

the game has great voice acting and music. the ambient sounds are also great, just be sure TO HAVE DISC 2 IN THE CD TRAY WHEN YOU PLAY IT

Gameplay: 8/10

This is a long game, way longer than the 25 hours I put into FFX. this has 5 chapters, and each of which has you doing different things. you just basically go on quests for people, keeping a 'journal' until you finally beat the end boss and beat the game. Along the way, you can build up your character to your liking, and you can even create fighting game-style combos to attach to your weapons. pretty neat idea, and it is great. the only gripes i have are the bland story, which doesn't captivate me the way interplay's other rpgs have. Also, the fighting engine can take a while to get used to-when you fight more than 2 people onscreen, things can get hectic and you can die pretty easily early on.

Overall: 8/10

It's an above-average game and it's worth a shot.

Buy or Rent?
Obviously since you can't rent a PC Game, you should buy this. But who should buy this? Action gamers (believe it or not), light RPG gamers, medium RPG gamers, (hardcore RPG gamers may find the bland story a turn off), or anyone just looking for a cheap game to consume their time when they are bored, or those that need a new game.

I bought this game mainly for Planescape, and thought that the extra game Soulbringer would be just a bonus, but I was wrong. This is a really good game that deserves more than what people are saying about it.

JUST BE SURE TO HAVE DISC 2 IN THE CD TRAY WHEN YOU PLAY THE GAME!!!!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/27/02, Updated 05/27/02