"Atlus Continues to Bring Us Great Titles!!"

Summon Night Swordcraft Story
If you think the GBA is dead, think again! Atlus continues to bring us some very cool games from Japan, and they have made many good choices in selecting titles, Summon Night: Swordcraft Story being one of them. It's about time this series made its way over to the North American region!

This is a neat little RPG that is quite fun, despite having its flaws. But first its good points. If anyone has ever played the "Tales" series (Tales of Phantasia, Tales of Destiny, etc.) then you may have an idea of how this game's battle system works. If not I will explain that it's real-time fighting, and you look at your character from the side (like you would in a 2D fighting game) rather than behind or overhead, and physical attacks and blocking are done with the A and B buttons. During the real time action, you can switch between any 3 weapons you're holding (weapons can be elemental, so naturally you wouldn't want to use, say, a wind weapon against a wind monster) or have your Guardian Beast cast a spell or use an item for you that you choose with the shoulder buttons. Your Beast can only hold a limited amount of items or spells in battle, so you should set things up ahead of time. Once you're in battle you can't change the set-up. If you're really getting pounded on, calling up your Guardian Beast for a spell might get interrupted a few times. This is a pain, but it doesn't happen enough to be all that annoying. Battles, even with bosses, aren't very long or drawn out, and even the tough ones are over pretty quickly, so nothing ever gets dragged out unnecessarily. All through the entire game it is just you and your summoned Guardian (monsters in this game are referred to as "summons"), and even though you interact with a LOT of other characters, you never actually fight side-by-side with any of them, only your monster buddy. You can chose between being male or female in the beginning. I've only played the female one, so I'm not sure if there is anything majorly different in the story for choosing male, but I suspect any differences are probably minor. I'm not sure if gender effects what Guardian Beast you get, either. There are several you might get as your partner and I don't know if it is picked randomly or if it has to do with any decision(s) you make. Once you have your beast, s/he's with you for life.

The best aspect of the game is that the storyline is very involved, and the characters are interesting and more fleshed-out than most NPCs in RPGs. You actually will start to feel for them, and you will make many friends who join up to help as the story progresses. The story isn't complicated; you're the typical son or daughter of a dead hero, trying to live up to your father's name all the while discovering more and more about how he died, who was involved and what it was over. It begins to tie in with a mess of foul play that's going on in the present, so your adventure is multi-faceted. Yet because the characters are so interesting, it shouldn't matter much if the story is a little rehashed. For newer gamers they might not notice, but for old school RPGers it will be blatantly evident. But I'm an old schooler and it really didn't bother me that the story wasn't exactly new. It was more like a fresh take on an old theme.

One of the focal points of the game is that you're a Craftknight-in-training on his or her way up the ranks, and as the game progresses you acquire more and more techniques. A technique allows you to manufacture your own weapons; you will learn most techniques from Master Bron, but you get a few special ones in other ways. However, you can't just make a weapon out of thin air, so you must spend some time exploring and killing stray summons in order to collect items and ore to melt down for materials. Only when you have the technique and the required material can you forge a weapon in a furnace; you will use the one in your own quarters the most, but there are other places in the game where you're allowed to use a different furnace. You can even melt down old weapons for materials. There is a possibility your weapon can break in battle from use, but there is a meter that shows you if your weapon is near breaking point, and all you have to do is switch over to another weapon before the meter's gone. There is a super-rare chance it can be shattered with a hard strike from an opponent, but it only happened to me once. All you have to do is forge a new one. The break meter is fully restored by your next battle and the weapon will get tougher the more it's used.

Instead of wandering around a map of the world, you are instead given free-reign to roam around the town you live in and the underground dungeon in order to collect experience, money, and materials. The dungeon is 50 levels deep, and THANKFULLY it is NOT randomly generated. You cannot blast through the whole thing in one shot, as the levels get progressively tougher, and at certain points you will be blocked so that you can't continue until you do a certain event. The game basically guides you wherever you need to go, but even if you forget, you can just push the Select button and you will be clued in as you character converses with his/her summon partner. In that sense, people who like to figure out what they must do next might find the game a little easy...I don't think I was ever at a loss where to go or what to do next. On the other hand, in between trigger events, you're free to do whatever or go wherever you want. The entire game does not center on just the town and dungeon; you can leave town at certain points via boat to travel to other towns and dungeons. While all this is happening you are also competing in official tournament (exam = battle vs. another Craftknight) to make rank. At some points you are given the option to pick your reaction, or who you want to talk to, and outcomes are different depending on what you choose (since I made a save and redid some parts, picking the alternate, just to see), but in general the story stays on track and the decisions you make seem only to effect small side-quests. More decisive to the ending is what people you choose to talk to when you go out for your occasional night walks. You are given a list of your friends and you can pick one (an only one) at that point to have a visit with. There are an adequate number of save points and health restore stations throughout the game, spaced far enough apart to present a challenge but not so distant that you die too frequently, and you can easily enough find a warp point and return to your own room to rest and save as well. You can temporary-save anywhere in the game if you have to stop playing suddenly.

Now for the bad points. I don't really have too many complaints...the main one is that the random monsters (er, "stray summons" I mean) are rather lackluster. They're all basically the size of your character, although there are a few bigger ones. In the beginning you run into a lot of those blob/slime-type monsters that show up in just about every RPG in existence, and then you run into yet more later on, that are tougher and merely a different color. In fact all the monsters have tougher, differently-colored counterparts, which is just a cheap way of making a "different" monster without having to design something. I believe there are 77 monsters in total...considering each monster has an alternately-colored higher level version, that's not even 40 original designs. Most battles involve 3 or 4 monsters of (typically) 2 different types. There are some monsters that are cool, like ghost armors and such, but random encounters come fast and furious, and after fighting 1000 of the same thing, you might feel more than a twinge of repetition. Which brings me to my 2nd complaint, the frequency of random battles. You barely take 10-15 steps and you get hit with a battle. The battles are fast and over quickly, but they get REALLY annoying when you're trying to work your way through the more maze-like area of the dungeons. If you don't remember what a room was laid out like, you will probably feel frustration as the random battles constantly distract you from trying to figure out where to go and you end up backtracking by mistake. At least after the battle is over, your character will still be pointed in the direction he or she was heading. You CAN reduce the frequency of random monster encounters, for a certain amount of time, with a potion item you can buy at any time from a shop; however until you're higher level and have a bit of money, the item is expensive and you probably won't be able to afford more than one, if any at all. You can run from a battle fairly easily, but if you try to do it repeatedly, the random encounters become increasingly more frequent, so that trick only works for so long.

The other thing that kind of sucks is that you can equip up to 3 weapons and ONE item to wear on your person, but nothing else. There is no armor or anything you can wear. There are various rings, bracelets and shoes you can wear that give some nice bonuses to your attributes, but you're only allowed to don one at a time. Just because you're wearing a ring, why can't you also put on a pair of shoes? Logically that doesn't make sense, but oh well. You can choose what techniques (spells) your summon buddy can use during battle...basically he has a certain amount of slots and those slots can be either items or spells or any combination, and he does collect quite a variety of abilities in time (leveling up along with you, but at his own pace), but it's a shame you can only take 4 of them into battle. The other thing that kind of bugged me was that you never have a party. I really like controlling NPCs, and while they ARE a detrimental part of the story, when you go into battle they're never there. There are times when you or your friends shout, "ok! let's fight them together!" and it goes into a battle that's just you vs. the enemy...I guess you are to assume that you're just seeing your part of the bigger fight going on.

The game will last you a solid 30-40 hours, depending on how much time you take messing around to collect stuff and level up, and forge weapons, and the story is rewarding. Personally I like RPGs to last a little longer and I couldn't help thinking of Golden Sun that was also a good game that was too short. It is not just a hack-n-slash dungeon crawler, but it's not puzzle-heavy, either. If you liked Golden Sun and having to figure out what to do next, this game might be somewhat disappointing. There are some hidden treasures but no puzzle-solving to do. But if you like a strong storyline and interesting characters (like the Lunar or Breath of Fire series), you will enjoy this game. Seasoned gamers will probably see Summon Night as easy, and as long as you level up properly, you will not have any problems with bosses or stadium battles. Regardless, I still had a lot of fun playing the game. You have plenty of time to level till your heart's content, and the only time I lost a battle was in the beginning, when I didn't train enough. Summon Night is simple enough that new RPGers shouldn't have any problem delving right in, but well-rounded enough that oldies can appreciate it too.

I did not play the multiplayer option so I won't comment on it.

THE SCORECARD
Let's recap quickly......

Story: 8
Rehashed storyline, but then again what RPG isn't? It makes good use of it, though, and because the characters are so in-depth, you won't mind that the story's your average coming-of-age boy/girl trying to live up to his/her father's heroic legacy while saving the town/continent/world/universe from baddies plotting evil vengeance/control.

Graphics: 8
Pretty good for 2D. Not spectacular for 2006, but then again this is a little older game that originally came out in Japan in 2003. Monsters need more variety, spells are a tad lackluster, but otherwise looks great with a lot of detail. It looked great on both my Micro and DS, as well as on tv with Gameboy Player.

Sound: 5
The music itself sounded okay, nothing original, but worst of all it was repetitive as hell. Each new area or event had its own song, but you spent so much time in your hometown and the dungeon, that was all you heard. After 15 hours of the same song loop, it starts to get on your nerves. Songs were cute, average and forgettable.

Characters: 10
The game's strong point. Fleshed-out characters with a lot of emotion. You actually care about them and will want to find out how they turn out. They play crucial roles in the storyline. I have to admit, I didn't feel this attached to video game characters since I played Lunar!

Gameplay: 8
Very fun to play. Random battles are a bit too frequent, but they are over quickly, and optionally can be avoided. Forging your own weapons is a cool feature. Some customization, but not as much as I would like. Not being able to control a party was a disappointment, but there is a LOT of NPC interaction, and decisions you make control the outcome of the game. Replay factor is high because you can play the opposite gender and choose different responses. Tournament is added fun. Free to roam and explore and spend as much time as desired to level up & create weapons in between events.

Overall: 8
RPG fans, this is a must-have for your collection. This series is long overdue in North America, and despite its flaws, the game was an enjoyable little fantasy, even if it was over a little sooner than most gamers prefer. Don't just rent or borrow it, buy it!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/11/06