"A pretty rare bargain bin find"

Soulbringer is not a game you will likely find on best selling lists or most popular game lists, but it’s a pretty good “sleeper” hit. I personally purchased this game bundled with Planescape: Torment. The total package only cost $10, and I was acting like I was just buying Planescape: Torment and was only getting Soulbringer as a cheap freebie. As it turned out, Soulbringer turned out to be much more than just a small bonus.

Gameplay: This game’s gameplay sounds simple, just point & click or click & drag to do everything. This is fairly good, but the game has some problems that range from annoying to possibly dangerous to your character. For one, the main character’s movements are very jerky and slow at times. This can be very aggravating, especially when all you want to do is pick up a minuscule item off the ground or attack an enemy. Another problem is that it is difficult to click on enemies to select them, especially when they are moving around. Another gripe is that combat with multiple foes is made extremely hard with the slow combat system. The combo attack system is almost useless, as if you are too powerful, you may kill your opponent in a single blow then continue swinging at thin air like a crazy madman.

The “RPG” portion of this Action/RPG consists of vague stats and classic delivery quests. Your main character in Soulbringer has 5 main stats, Strength, Speed, Combat, Health, and Magic. Strength increases damage and carry weight. Speed increases your armor rating. Combat gives you more attacks with each weapon. Health obviously increases your health. Magic gives you more mana while also giving you more spells. The quests in Soulbringer are derivative and lame, but they don’t overwhelm you with quests as in some other games, and the quests in Soulbringer are usually pretty hard and detailed.

The magic system is one of the most confusing parts of this game. You have to find the arcane rune of any spell book you find and want to read, and then you have to open it at the proper “hex” in order to be able to use the book. Then, the spells that you can use from the book are determined by your Magic stat. It uses a system of elemental magics, and specializing in one decreases your resistance to its counterpart. For example, if you favor fire spells and use them substantially, then you would gain fire resistance but be weaker against any forms of water magic.

The action portion of this game consists of your weapons and your skill in using them. Placing points into combat unlocks new attacks with different weapons. For example, you might have a club with the attacks bash and bash low. If you raised your combat skill enough, eventually you will unlock more powerful attacks such as smash, underarm smash and two-handed crush. As previously mentioned, combat can be hard and tedious because of the movement system, but once you get used to it you’ll learn to live with it.

There are many items to help you on your quest. In addition to dozens of weapons, this game features many different kinds of armor and other gear. All of the weapons and armor in Soulbringer deteriorate with use, and have to be repaired frequently. This game has classic RPG items such as HP and mana potions, food, sacks, herbs, and mushrooms, but it also has original items like the arcane runes or different types of compasses. The only types of map in this game are item maps, and they are generally very vague. In order to navigate in Soulbringer, you’ll probably depend on your compass.

Even though it seems as if I don’t like this game, I really do. All of the previous issues go away once to try to “get into” the game of Soulbringer. The game is simply fun to play. It’s never so fun that you would call it the best game in the world, but it’s not so bad that you could even compare it to the worst in the world. It’s just a steady flow of enjoyment.

Graphics: Good occasionally but mediocre to horrible most of the time. Most of the outdoor and indoor environments look good, but clipping problems occur all too frequently in this game. Also, pieces of the environment disappear for no apparent reason. The people don’t look that great either, they are blocky and their faces are extremely vague. There are good graphical elements in the game. The spell effects are especially notable, as they look very good on the computer. The cutscenes are extremely corny and funny, but that is a plus not a minus. They look so fake that you may kneel over in laughter, and laughing increases your lifespan. Overall, the graphics are good enough, but not as good as they could be. Note: Be sure to have a system capable of meeting the recommended requirements, because on computers that only meet the minimum requirements, the graphics are terrible!

Sound: Very good. The music is wonderful and matches the scenes where they play. The sound effects are good also. The voice acting is a little exaggerated and funny at times, but it does its job well enough. The one thing I don’t like about this game is the fact that every time you quit, the game emits a loud “death scream” followed by the sound of a sickening crash into the ground. Personally, I didn’t like this little feature, as I found it very morbid and sick.

Story: Very bland and very vague. This Action/RPG doesn’t really have much of a good story. Unlike the other popular Interplay RPG’s like Baldur’s Gate and Planescape: Torment, Soulbringer doesn’t weave an intricate tale for the player to experience, it instead forces you to figure most of it out by yourself. If you like engaging and very interesting stories with your RPG’s, Soulbringer may disappoint you in that category. One redeeming part of this section is the fact that Soulbringer has a large amount of mysterious books that you can read to learn more about the world of Soulbringer. These are fairly interesting, even though they can strain your eyes because of Soulbringer’s small menu text.

Replay Value: Very low, as with all RPGs. After you play this game and beat it, it is very unlikely that you would want to play it all over again. This is not a very bad thing considering it is an RPG and even wonderfully created RPG’s like Baldur’s Gate and Planescape: Torment have low replay values because of their linear gameplay masked under quasi-freedom.

Pros:
- Massive game world to explore almost freely
- Tons of gameplay (40+ at least)
- Good clear graphics, crisp sounds and music
- Dozens of speaking npc’s and main characters
- Neat and comical cutscenes
- Fun

Cons:
- Low replayability
- High difficulty, especially early on
- Confusing magic system
- Difficult movement, targeting
- Poor graphics at times
- Low brightness
- Can be annoying or aggravating

This is a superb game for the price that it is sold at. Rarely do you find bargain bin games that are as fun and as engaging as this one. If you can find this game with the extremely high quality game Planescape: Torment, then I recommend that you buy them both. This game is worth it.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/03/02, Updated 09/03/02