Saiyuki: Journey West

"A great tactic game with chinese myth theme."

Introduction

Sayuki: Journey to the west is a tactic game that is similar to Final Fantasy Tactic, as you probably know. If you don’t, let me quickly explain: you have characters on the screen and the enemies. You have one turn each for the characters to move around and obliterate your opponents. It is exactly like a chess game but more complex and interesting. Want to know more? Read on.

Story

The story is basically about a young monk (male or female, depending on your selection at the beginning of the game) who had a dream that a deity. She had spoke to the monk about prophecy about religious scrolls. And if he got the Buddhist scriptures from Indian and bring it back to China and teach the doctrine to the general public that it would ameliorate society as a whole. That is the mission the young monk must embark on.

The next day the king of China went to the temple where the young monk inhabit. The king as if there is any volunteer to travel to China and get the Buddhist scriptures. Everyone was afraid because it was hundreds of miles from China to India. And there are monsters and bandits who roam around that path.

The young monk heard that so he volunteered for the journey… to the west. So that’s how the story goes. It’s a pretty straight forward story.

Game play

The game play for this game is fun. It takes patient to play this game – and not to mention skills. You have a selection of characters in which you need to control in the battle field. They’re equipped with weapons, spells and “were” powers in which you use to destroy your copious enemies before they destroy you.

The magic spell consist of earth, water, fire and iron. Each nature element is strong or weak, depending on your opponent. If your adversary is a water creature then obvious fire is a more power spell then water. The more you use the spell the more powerful the spell becomes. Magic is an important element in this game because it can hit multiple opponents and can turn the table of the game if you know how to use it right.

There is also the special were transform power, in which your characters turn into big powerful characters for a limited amount of time. During that turn they can unleash extremely powerful blows. This is also another important element in the game. The more were power you use, you will gain new skills.

Strategy is of paramount importance in this tactic game. You need to carefully position your characters so they can defend each other and have a strong defensive / offensive position. Is your men close together? Are they in close reach if one of them needs to be heal? You need to consider those factors when you’re in a battle.

All those things mentioned above adds to the complexity of the game and it is very interesting. Your characters can face an huge strong army and still win because of the strategy you utilized during the battle.

Game play is fun and is not tedious as you might think. It is like a chess game.

Graphic

The graphic of this game isn’t that impressive considering it was release late in the life of PSX. It looks like Final Fantasy Tactic. When you zoom out of the scene it looks like because you can’t see the individual pixels – but if you zoom too close, well, you see the pixels. Which isn’t very “eye candy”.

The characters design is interesting and accurate according to the Chinese myth. You see the monkey with his tradition clothing and the other characters as well.

The battle zones are good because it varies depending on where you are. Sometimes you’ll fight in the water or land. The area is detailed and is appropriate. For example, when you fight in the mountains you’ll see plenty of trees, mountain, and dead logs.

The special effects in the game such as the spells isn’t that impressive. Most of the time when you summon fire spell, you’ll get an unsatisfactory spark instead of some MASSIVE FIRE BALL. I thought it would have been better if they spells were a like more graphically eye catching.

Music

The music for the sound tracks is mediocre. The instrumental music seems to be annoying at times and isn’t that very catchy, which would set the mood to battle a ton of bad guys. But it is music none of the less.

Buy or Rent

The reason why I brought this game because I loved the Journey to the West movie. I when I played the game I found out it isn’t good as it suppose to, because the game story isn’t close to the literature it self, but hey, its still fun. Since this is a tactic game which requires long hours of commitment, I would suggest you buy this game if you’re into FFT and tactic games. Obviously there isn’t much use if you rent this game for a few days because you can’t really accomplish much.

Have fun with this game.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/12/03