Let us know what you think when you have a chance to play.
Ok, put about six hours in.
Amazing game. I’m completely blown away by it.
Imagine if you took Ultima Underworld, then combined it with Diablo, and threw in the best parts of Dark Messiah of Might and Magic.
It is absolutely gorgeous, the production values are through the roof. The combat is extremely challenging and well done.
The basis is you go into various worlds and fight monsters. However, these worlds are dark and terrible and scary. Every time you kill a monster, you get a bit of soul energy, and sometimes a loot drop. This soul energy can be used as currency or to improve your characters attributes.
Where the Ultima Underworld comes in is that everything is so oppressive and horrible. Things are jumping out at you all the time, and the sound design is creepy as hell. Dark corridors, amazing lighting and shadows, and very good creature design.
Combat is four buttons- Light attack, hard attack, block, and parry. If you parry at the right time, you can riposte an enemy and cause a lot of damage. The coolest part of the combat system is every weapon behaves differently. The long sword is a slash attack, but a thrust for the power move. It models every surface in the environment, so if you swing your sword in a tight corridor, it may glance off the wall making your blow not hit.
The world is also chock full of destructible objects. These smash into satisfying physics chunks when you break them up… but the thing you start to realize is, they get in the way of your sword too. So, if an enemy is coming at you, it’s a good idea to smash any tables/chairs/racks/bookshelves around you to make room for the encounter.
There are also great physics-based traps that are either sprung against you or that you can spring on your enemies. At one point I was on top of this castle wall, and there were about 4 fighters and 5 archers along the top of it around a corner. I noticed there was a framework with large cannonballs in it next to me, so I swung my sword into it, and the front shattered off causing all the balls to roll down the castle wall pathway and crush all the enemies.
Some of the monsters I’ve seen so far are -massive-. In the first part of the first dungeon, there is a huge dragon that flies around, and at one point dives onto a bridge your crossing spewing fire at you.
The game also seems very, very deep. Tons of items, spells, and customizations. There are I believe 8-10 base character classes to choose from… knights, thieves, mages, etc. I chose a knight.
I still haven’t acquired any spells yet… so I can’t comment on the magic system.
Another thing is, it’s TOUGH AS NAILS. It’s almost Rogue-like in that respect. When you die, you lose all the souls you collected and are returned to the hub area. You can then re-enter the area you died in and try to recover your corpse and get all your souls back, but the area will have respawned all it’s enemies.
You do revisit areas a lot in the game, basically doing a run as far as you can go, running back and spending your souls on equipment and repairs. After the six hours I put in, I just finished world 1-1. That’s the first part of world 1. I believe there are 4 “sections” to each world, and there are a total of 8 worlds. That’s a pretty damn big game.
Multiplayer is extremely bizarre. You play the game online at all times (you can play offline too, but it defaults to online), and see “ghosts” of other players in your world. You can’t interact with them, but you can see what they’re doing. You can also place notes on the floor using a pre-determined set of phrases. Things like “careful around here” or “ambush ahead” or “jump down here”. These appear as dark red glowing glyphs on the floor. Reading them is optional… but once you do, you can “rate” the message. The idea is some people may leave false notes to distract you, while others are true. These usually have higher ratings.
Another crazy thing the game has are “blood stains” that you can activate. This is where other people playing online died. If you activate them, their ghost appears above the blood stain, and it reenacts the last 10 seconds before it died. It’s good for seeing if there is a trap, or a monster waiting in ambush. A very strange feature, but oddly compelling. I tend to watch a lot of them as I’m adventuring around.
Now is where it gets really bizarre. You’re a spirit, and that’s why you see other spirits walking around. However, once you kill the first boss in the first section, you become human again. You remain human until you die again. At this point, you can actually interact with other humans that are around you. This can result in co operative play, or PVP. I don’t know what benefits you get from doing PVP, I assume you get a big soul drop from the guy you kill. Maybe all the souls he’s carrying? Anyhow, what makes this so bizarre is that as soon as you die you’re a spirit again, and the only way to get back to human form is to either kill another boss (which don’t respawn) or use an item that turns you human again. As far as my friend knows, these items drop as random loot… he hasn’t seen anywhere to buy them yet. It makes the idea of co-op play extremely hard to coordinate, almost to the point that I definitely wouldn’t buy it thinking you’re going to co-op, at least not right off the bat.
If you want to get this, the full english version is available from ncsx.com (you want to buy the “Asian” version, not the “Japanese”… and the manual is in Chinese, but the entire game is in english including the voiceovers). It’s region free, so it works fine in US PS3s. It comes down to about $70 with shipping.
Seriously, if that at all sounds appealing to you, and you have a PS3, you need to pick this game up.
thanks for the write up flyingj. i am now 70 bucks poorer, but the game sounds like nerd heaven.
Is there a version with selectable English and Japanese, preferably with text and voice selectable independently?
I see it typically referred to as a spiritual successor to King’s Field, which if you ever played the original on the PSX had the whole oppressive, last person on earth vibe nailed down. It was my first RPG on the PSX so my love of the game is probably colored by some unrealistically tinted rose colored goggles so I don’t want to wax on too much about how great it was. But really, it was awesome. Even my typically non game playing friends at the time started it, some to completion.
Don’t think so, or I would have ordered the Japanese version. If it is possible then I need to cancel my Asian order.
Googling around a bit, I found some claims that the voiceovers are in English, even in the Japanese version. Hrm. If that’s true, then there may be no reason for me not to just get the Asian version.
Or maybe I just should get the Japanese version. I could use the kanji practice, anyway.
Damien is right, the voiceovers are in English no matter which version. It seems YesAsia has the Asian version for 66.99 versus 73.99 for the Japanese version. For English speakers, there’s really no reason to go for the JPN edition unless it’s something like Damien’s situation.
This is the reason I hesitated for so long in ordering the game, but my knowledge of Japanese is so rudimentary that I didn’t want to end up with an endless slog of translations. I know the first 3/4 of the Joyo set as put forth by the Heisig method and should have the rest knocked down within the month, but I know zero Hiragana, Katakana, or anything else.
Ug. Now I am debating whether to cancel my Asian order.
I have the Japanese version and am using it to practice too. For what it’s worth I’m defnitely playing less because of this. I suck!
The game is great. It’s easily one of my favorite games this gen. I haven’t played anything quite like it.
Can you elaborate on this bit? The game sounds awesome, but the game play videos I found didn’t really sell it all that well. Maybe the players weren’t that good, but in the videos they just spammed what looked like two different sword strikes over and over. Also, they often seemed to have trouble facing the opponents, and ended flailing all around.
Thanks a million for the write up! That sounds amazing (I’m a huge UW fan). I didn’t know it had such a high production value and unique multiplayer setup. Why the hell isn’t this coming out to the US? Ah well I’ll just import it.
don’t buy it from yesasia.
it’s still on backorder for me, been almost 3 weeks. and you can’t cancel it.
Also dont buy it from this game consultant company on EBay, they claim they have it in stock in canada, but all they do is order from some HK store and then put add $10 and have the HK store ship to you.
The combat is very tactical. Every opponent behaves differently. For instance, when facing a skeleton, it’s best to go in, hold your shield up, let the skeleton hit you, then wail on him with a heavy then a few light attacks. If you’re facing a soldier with a pike, your best bet is to step in, then roll back as he strikes with the pike, then run in and attack twice, then roll back, recover stamina, and repeat. If you go in and let him strike your shield, it will take off almost all your stamina and you won’t be able to attack. The pikeman also has further reach than other archetypes.
Also, there are many different types of weapons in the game… I believe that there are 8 damage types that can be delivered. A few examples are slashing, piercing, bashing. On lightly armored enemies, it’s best to use a piercing weapon such as a foil-type fencing sword… whereas on unarmored you want to use a slashing weapon.
I’m convinced. Order placed on NCSX.
I want this game so badly now. I assume a western release still seems unlikely?
Edit: Bought a copy on ebay, I’m so weak.
Yeah, there probably will never be a western release. The problem is the high level of difficulty, and the fact that you can only have one save, an autosave at that. So if you die, you can’t load from a previous point in the game, you just continue and must deal with the penalties that come with death.
Hell, couldn’t resist. Bought it from some South Korean dude via eBay.
Dude, make sure it isn’t the Korean version, because there’s also one and this one has no English text. It absolutely must be the Asian version with Chinese.
Hmm. The item description said “Korean + English text” and according to the seller’s history he has sold the same item several times in the past (all with positive feedback).
EDIT: found this
The korean version comes with both english and korean text.
The only difference is it does not come with the english instruction sheet whereby the Asian version has it.