Mattcrampy
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2388
Registered: 05-29-2003
IP: Logged

I have been hearing a lot about this game, and it seems to be right up the alley of the sort of people who like DROD. It appears to be a PS3 game, however, which rules me out. It also appears that there probably won't be a European release - I'm not sure if European PS3 owners will be able to connect to the North American server, but if not it does mean you'd miss out on the excellent online features.

Essentially it is an RPG which shares some similarity with a roguelike. Like that genre, your survival depends on your ability to know exactly what to do in any particular situation and death is swift otherwise. Unlike that genre, areas are pre-designed (although you can manipulate the mood of an environment, and doing so changes the content of the area and the strength of the enemies) and your character becomes stronger and retains that strength over the course of the game, so long as you can survive long enough to spend the titular souls on upgrades for your character.

The combat is based around managing your stamina - every attack, and more crucially block, wears your stamina down, and you don't have much. Without careful planning, you'll leave yourself exposed, and you'll soon die. This makes it a game about positioning and efficient use of abilities rather than making numbers bigger. The other critical mechanic is that there are five different areas to the game of equal difficulty, and so the further you go in one area, the more likely it is to kill you. There is a risk/reward aspect to the game that makes it more interesting than a linear RPG.

The appeal of the game is that, despite its ruthless difficulty, it's incredibly fair. You always know why you died, and if you die to a stupid mistake you can work your way back to your corpse and pick up the souls you lost when you died (but if you die a second time, they're gone for good). In that way, it's much like DROD, in that only once you truly understand what you're supposed to be doing do you make any progress.

Apparently it's also got some neat online features - you can leave warnings and notes for other players, which they can vote on (positive votes giving you a health boost), other players' deaths get acknowledged in your game via little bloodstains that can be examined to see a short replay of their death, and other players can invade your game and take over from an enemy, and if you kill them you take their souls.

Again, I've only heard about the game, not played it, but it seems to be very well received, and I know a lot of people around here like roguelikes, so it's quite possible that some of you might have a PS3, not be aware of the game, and would find it interesting. I wouldn't be surprised if other developers took notice, considering that mainstream players aren't against the goals of the roguelike genre but have significant objections with the way it's implemented, but they don't appear to have any problems with the way a spiritual cousin does things.

____________________________
What do you call an elephant at the North Pole?

---

[Last edited by Mattcrampy at 10-14-2009 10:48 AM]

Snacko
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 448
Registered: 06-08-2006
IP: Logged

I've played it. I haven't gotten a handle on (or even unlocked most of) the role playing features yet, but I have experienced its incredibly technical, demanding combat, and crushing difficulty.

You will die a lot. For the first 20 or so minutes of the first non-tutorial dungeon I've managed to get to, you will run into choke point after choke point, likely dying each time, and new enemies are introduced with great rapidity (a practice I've heard continues through the entire game). You will learn, through these very frequent deaths, that you must be cautious. To force you to be cautious at all times, you lose all of your souls (which function as both a currency and as experience points) when you die, and can regain them by touching your bloodstain. If you die again, the bloodstain will be replaced with your current one. There is no place to keep your souls besides in your cache, stats or in Boldwin the blacksmith's pocket. After a few cycles, you'll be able to buy a new weapon or become more powerful, and then you'll move on and repeat the process.

It would be aggravating, frustrating and disheartening if the combat wasn't so involved and entertaining. You can only get about four hits in with your normal attack without running out of endurance, something that removes your ability to block, parry, attack or dodge, and considering that most enemies will be able to kill you in one hit you absolutely need a way to defend yourself in all cases.

If you're lucky you will be able to get a critical strike, something that can be achieved by attacking an enemy's back or setting up a parry & riposte, which will kill about half of the enemies before the first fog point in the only level I have unlocked, will seriously damage most of the rest and will do about 30 damage to the dark knights right before the fog point (still vital, despite the length of the battle, as you do about 5 damage with normal strikes and 10 with heavy strikes).

Later on, however (and by this I mean about 5 minutes through the first level, I've only gotten through about 20), you will be accosted by multiple enemies, attacked with crossbows and firebombs and be forced to fight on narrow pathways situated high above deadly declines, all of which make fighting much more difficult and dangerous, and all of which make critical strikes almost impossible without split-second timing and a lot of luck. This removes routine, you must take every opening to slip past a spear to attack an enemy from behind, carefully choose basic strikes, balance ranged attacks, using them only when you are sure you have time to let an arrow or bomb loose before an enemy reaches you, be aware of every obstacle and enemy in the area, and what type of obstacle or enemy they are, and always make sure your shield is exactly where it needs to be at all times. Even range is important, as your sword will glance off walls, giving your enemy a very brief opportunity for a critical strike, as though they had parried the strike. This amount of consideration needs to go into each and every encounter if you mean to survive.

I haven't unlocked the actual multiplayer, but I know how it works, and I have access to some of the features. By pressing select you can write a message on the floor by combining an abundant amount of pre-set phrases (likely to avoid abuse beyond the rare suggestion that a player roll off a cliff to reach a treasure chest), which then appear in other player's rendition of the world. This gives an odd sense of community, and it makes the learning curve a tad easier to swallow, like a built in FAQ. You can then rate each message, and the average determines how long it will stay on the ground, and may reward the person who wrote it. You can also view brief footage of another player's last few seconds of life, for a more blatant, darker warning.

If your character is alive (which is rare, you enter spirit form after one death and can only return, often very briefly, to your body form), you can summon other players in their spirit form to form a party of up to three. There is also an ability to invade another player's game, which apparently involves giving rudimentary orders to enemies and attempting to stay out of sight as the other player hunts you down. It is all organically integrated into the interface, which means that everything stays a bit anonymous, but gives the sense of being in a hostile world, where other player's games are nebulous, mysterious shadows that can be deadly, that you must reach out to constantly in order to survive.

Honestly, this game is amazing. It's frustrating and I simply can not recommend it to casual gamers, but it's worth a try for fans of action games, western style RPGs or rougelikes.

____________________________
Director of the Department of Orderly Disruptions

Mattcrampy
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2388
Registered: 05-29-2003
IP: Logged

One of Atlus' localisation editors informs me that the game has hardcoded servers, but they're not region-locked. If you have the North American copy of the game, you'll play on the North American server even if you have a European or Australian account. So this game is apparently import-friendly, as the PS3 doesn't have region locking.

____________________________
What do you call an elephant at the North Pole?

Snacko
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 448
Registered: 06-08-2006
IP: Logged

I just beat the first world, Boletarian Palace 1-1. Despite the high difficulty (which I'm sure will get even harder), the game is entirely possible, or at least the first level was. Everything clicked, so to speak, when I realized that different weapons have different animations, so while a cutlass might be a good idea if you need a wide slash to hit multiple enemies, the range of a short sword is perfect to counter an attack you manage to dodge. You can have up to four weapons equipped at one time (two for each hand, your left hand is controlled by the left shoulder buttons, right by the right, you can switch the active weapon in each hand by pressing left and right with the d-pad. Note that a shield counts as a weapon), and by pressing /\ you can wield your right hand weapon with both hands, allowing you to use shields you aren't yet powerful enough to use in one hand only (like if you need something to block a dragon's flame breath) and increase your attack power by 50% and add guard breaking properties to a weapon.

Also even if you are in the hub world, jumping off a balcony will kill you. Don't do it.

____________________________
Director of the Department of Orderly Disruptions

Bobpie
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 54
Registered: 04-26-2007
IP: Logged

You're prediction is quite correct Snacko, the game gets harder.

Snacko
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 448
Registered: 06-08-2006
IP: Logged

Hey, a semi-sequel just got announced! There's really nothing else out there like this, and I'm personally psyched for what has confirmed to be an even more unforgiving game.

____________________________
Director of the Department of Orderly Disruptions

lakibuk
Level: Delver

Rank Points: 93
Registered: 03-26-2006
IP: Logged

Finally got around to play it. And i love it! It's so much better than Oblivion and Bioshock, two other games i've played on the PS3.

____________________________
Karl
Blueskied Games (main site) - Gratis Spiele (german site)