Sudeki

"The Good, The Bad, and the Ailish"

A world torn in two, four brave warriors fighting to save it , fulfilling there destiny........ OK, how many times have we heard stuff like that to introduce a video game? Basically, Sudeki is another mystical journey to save the world while killing monsters and leveling up. Let's see what so great (or not so great) about it.

When I bought Sudeki I knew nothing about the game and got it strictly for what was on the box (and I am not just talking about the sexy anime-ish woman "Ailish" on the cover, but that did not hurt). I saw that it had some RPG elements to it, good graphics and an interesting real-time combat system.

The game is hard to judge. This I think is because of the mix of genres it involves, a sort of PSO-meets-FPS-but-without-online-play sort of experience. But in fairness to the developers of this game, I must say that they did do a pretty good job of it considering just what they were trying to do. It could have been done better, yes, but it also could have been done really poorly but wasn't.

What makes this game similar to other RPGs is that you have a party of characters with various abilities going on a quest to save the world, etc. On the way they get more new weapons and abilities, slay tons of monsters, and have opportunities to go off the main path of their quest and do other things so that they can gather new weapons, gain new abilities, and slay even more monsters and even more effectively until reaching journey's end and thus revealing the final outcome and ending the game.

The usual ironies of RPG are totally there also, like the warrior who just jumped 40 feet into the air in one battle can't seem to lift himself over a 6-foot high box during the puzzle sequence. He of course has to have another character go to another room to flick a switch or something like that. There is a lot of that sort of thing in this game, but luckily I did not find the puzzles too difficult.

As an Action RPG, you could call it a "Star Ocean 2" with better graphics but not anywhere as deep in gameplay.

The game is shorter than other games of its type. I completed it playing in the most casual manner in a little over 20 hours. I am sure that there are many who have done it in much less time.

The leveling up is very simple. When you gain your level you decide what attribute you want your character to improve and/or what new technique to learn.

Nothing too complicated about figuring out where to go and what to do. If you forget what you are doing and why, just follow the arrow on your mini-map on the screen and you will get to where you want to go and the game will explain itself.

Some of the things that made it different than other RPGs that I have played that I liked were:

-You don't have to take a long time to study this game. There is an in-game tutorial that smoothly takes you through and also there is gameplay advice, although you sometimes have to be a speed reader to get it, right on the screen as you are waiting for the next level to load. I referred to the directions ONCE during the entire experience.

-Controlling a character in first person mode was fun sometimes. Seeing an RPG battle from that perspective was a new experience for me.

Some different things that I did not like:

-You can't sell your weapons.

-You cannot escape a battle once it has started.

-You cannot choose your party. You are limited to 4 different types of character and that's it.

-The AI options were way too limited for an action-RPG.

Gameplay gets a 7/10 for being good but repetitive.

Graphics gets a 10/10 for being nearly flawless.

Sound also gets a perfect 10 as there was not a thing that was not believable in it.

Story gets a 6/10 as I was more excited about leveling up and the battles than I was about the fate of the 4 heroes, the world they were saving, etc. The ending was abrupt with no real epilogue, unfortunately. I still felt happy about finishing the game, though.

Controls gets a 9/10 as I think the melee could have been more involving, But otherwise it did not feel uncomfortable.

As far as replayability is concerned, I don't think I am going to play it again even though I chose not to do a lot of sidequests. And that pretty much summarizes how I feel about the game. It was fun, its over, and I will forget about it soon and move on.

RENT this game as 1) You can complete it in a short time, 2) You don't really need instructions (as most rental games don't come with them) and 3) Once you play this game it is doubtful you will want to do it again.

Don't get me wrong, I liked this game a lot, but once was enough.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/15/04