Prolefeed

So after some adventures I finally found a DS station that was playable. Unfortunately the demo isn’t actually available for download and you are forced to use the demo unit to play. Considering a lot of these demo units are used and abused daily it’s not too much fun.

I played a few minutes with around 3 characters, and managed to get to the boss with the Einsatz character. He was equipped with 2 swords and it was really easy to pull off combos with him. His attacks were flashy and had quite a bit of variety. I didn’t get to finish the boss because the DS demo unit decided to reset for some reason, but even the boss in the demo was impressive looking. A big serpent carrying a badass sword. It was fairly easy, but isn’t that how all demos go recently?

The combat system is exactly what I want, simple but customizable which lends it to have a little more depth than some of the more recent ARPG offerings. One thing I didn’t know is that it allows you to have two different attack setups mapped, and you just switch between them with R button(you also switch to your item layout with L). So you are actually able to have around 8 different attacks mapped at one time. Not sure if you are required to have the basic attack mapped or not though.

The Break system is probably my favorite addition. Being able to combo enemies until you break their guard is a nice feature and really adds some flair to the normal hack and slash formula. I also like the fact that certain attacks allow you to knock back or send enemies into the air, giving you more combo opportunities. Another interesting tidbit is the fact that some enemies also have this ability and especially on the boss I found myself in the air quite a bit.

Next I spent a few minutes with the Jadis character, who carries a huge axe and has access to black magic. The spells had nice effects and looked pretty nice. It definitely seems that the various characters will give the game a lot of variety, because the two characters were completely different. Jadis was a slow character but a lot of his attacks had knock-back properties. Completely different play style from Einsatz.

And as everyone can tell from all the videos, the game looks amazing. It has a great style to it and the animations are some of the best seen on the DS ever. Definitely no complaints in that compartment. The ability to zoom in with the select button is also nice, and allowed me to drool all over the animations for a few minutes.

So my next game purchase has been decided and it is Soma Bringer! I have decided to bite the bullet and hope for the best come next week. I never really paid any attention to the game until they finally updated the official site last week. The videos for the game alone have gotten me hyped. I have recently been pining for a good Action RPG, especially one with co-op and this seems to fit the bill perfectly. But it doesn’t seem too far-fetched to believe the game will be good as the people responsible for it are Monolith Soft, known for their work on games such as Xenogears and Xenosaga.

The official site can be found here with several videos spread throughout the site. The trailer is on the bottom button which says Touch-DS.jp and then some videos under Battle and Keywords. I can’t help but be excited mainly because of how good the 3D engine looks. The animations are incredibly smooth and are beyond anything else I can think of on DS. The combat also seems fairly customizable which is something important in making an Action RPG interesting for long periods of time. So far I am also digging the music in the trailers and videos. I am hoping to get the soundtrack with my reservation. 

The only gripes I have at the moment are the character designs which just appear a little too cookie cutter and mediocre, and the lack of wi-fi play.There will be a demo out today that I will be picking up after work, so I plan to get back with some impressions after trying it out.