"A great MMO (except not Massively Multiplayer or Online)..."

Loosely speaking, the gameplay reminds me of a typical MMO's. The stylus acts as a mouse, clicking hotbar abilities and moving your character. Combat is very dungeony, with different characters acting in the role of melee/ranged/healer/etc. It has been very refreshing to play, a lot of fun, and keeps giving me this nastaulgic feeling of the good-ol-days of WoW, minus the obnoxious 12 year olds. I know I'll get a few bad looks for comparing it to WoW, but I just can't shake that feeling.

You alternate between the two main characters, and have a third assist character that follows you around and acts independently. In addition, you can summon a monster that will help you out, and can eventually summon groups of them. This part for me has been the most rewarding part of this game; the AI is incredible. I'm also a sucker for having your party visually follow you around and not just ride in your pocket until combat begins (a la FF). I was considering getting Chrystal Chronicals DS for the group dynamics until I read that the AI just collects dust and waits for you to change characters. This game is nothing like that; your partners help you and need very little handholding. If I were playing this game with human players I would expect them to play in a similar fashion, attacking enemies, choosing spells, healing, etc. This alone would have sold this game to me had I known how well your partners work with you, but this fact is oddly missing in any review I've read. Hrmmm...

Graphics are pleasing to look at, but nothing that pushes the hardware. Aside from a pretty lackluster intro, the production value is fairly good. The characters' sprites and profiles are crisp, animate nicely and move fluidly, and their expressions are suitable and varied enough that they fit the moment, even more so than my beloved TWEWY. Someone put a lot of attention to detail making sure that the sprites moved with a lot of fluidity and with extra animations for something as small as reading a scroll. It's also worth noting that even when the screen is flooded with monsters, party members, and summons (and it will be often) the frame rate never stutters. The music is OK, but nothing to write home about. The little voice acting does give you a sense of the characters' voice, but could have been omitted entirely as they just remind us that we're reading everything else. The lead female character's "BOOOOO!" will strike you as odd a few times.

The story serves as a fine vehicle for the great gameplay, but it probably isn't going to wow you the way TWEWY might. I must praise the game story, though, for giving you something to happen between stages, and not just rewarding you for beating levels with more levels. Every level begins and ends with some story, which is a great incentive to beat "just one more level." There are even optional and "hidden" conversations that let you learn more about the characters. Well done, Atlus.

Lastly, I must address what a lot of people have noticed so far and I fear will make them call quits too soon: the difficulty. I'm the first to say that a game absolutely should NOT require me to dumb down my equipment or spell progression for the sake of difficulty or enjoyment. The US version, however, starts the characters off each with a high level spell and a few strong summons. This means for the first few hours you and your AI buddy will 1hit kill mobs, and even kill bosses within seconds. Often times, my AI buddies would wipe out a room before I could even run up to a mob to slash them with my sword once. Thankfully, there are a few measures you can take early on to better simulate the JP version without manually gimpping your character.

First of all, you start off with both leads having a high level ability. I would recommend simply not assigning these abilities to them until later on. For the girl its the firewall spell, I forget which it is for the male.

Secondly, you start off with a few high level summons. Just sell these or use them up real quick so that you're left with level appropriate summons.

Lastly, you start off with 50 strong HP and PP potions. Again, sell 'em and just keep the low level healing items.

Whether you take these measures or not the game will pick up in difficulty after a few hours. Even at its least challenging though, the game is fun and rewarding, while the more challenging bosses will have you kicking yourself for not saving at the last save point. I hope this helps some people in deciding whether this game is for them or not. For the rest of you, I look forward to reading "tl;dr." If it matters, I've never written a review for a game before, so I hope that shows just how much faith I have in this game. I know the lack of advertisement or hype can dishearten a lot of us from wanting to shell out $30 hard bucks on a game that may or may not be good, but I don't regret it one bit. Not yet, at least. Happy gaming, and see you in Marbado!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/09/08

Game Release: Summon Night: Twin Age (US, 06/03/08)