Review Review - Summon Night: Swordcraft Story (GBA)

[TheGreat2nd]

Atlus' newest GBA game, Summon Night: Swordcraft Story, is a typical RPG. It is your typical dungeon crawler, with a 2D real time fighting battle system, rather than the standard turn based. If you like RPGs, this is a perfect add to your collection.

Gameplay
First off, the main concept of the game is to collect minerals and iron ores to forge weapons. Either an axe, sword, drill, spear, or knuckle. These are the weapons you'll be using against the hordes of enemies in the surrounding dungeons. Accompanying you would be the summon creature, who can help you cast spells, healing and attacking. Most of the game takes place underground, below a tower castle, which is a labyrinth of enemies. Without spoiling the story, the game involves, well, going down there and defeating stuff. It's not an awesome story, but one to keep the game going nonetheless. On the side, you have a tournament where you can fight other competitors, where you can become to the king of the arena. Lots of leveling up, dungeon crawling, and basically all of the RPG stuff that comes to mind when you think of an RPG. The fighting style can be compared nicely to Tales of Phantasia. The fighting is excellent, though very repetitious due to random battles. On a side note, you can start the main character as a girl or boy, though it doesn't have too much of a difference.

Graphics
The graphics are cartoony. The colors are vibrant. In fact, it is bathed in the style of Tales of Phantasia, it's stunningly similar. The game offers a top down view during dungeon and town play. Surprisingly, there is only one town, so there IS no world map, only one large dungeon and a tower in the middle of the town. The whole thing is tile based, nothing new for an RPG of its kind.

Sound
The sound is nothing spectacular. There is no voice acting, but the background music makes up for most of it. The music makes the ambiance in the dungeons and creates a different feeling for the town. There's nothing spectacularly different in terms of sound either. It's not bad, but it's not great.

Lasting Replay
The replay value is kinda stunted. The game does give an option to continue to progress in the arena for money, but there is almost no point in doing so because the only enemies you will find are in the dungeons below the tower, which will never get any stronger. You do get the option to try and forge every weapon available, but it's mainly for the 100% completist.

Overall, if you like RPGs, you'll love this game. If you don't like RPGs, I would suggest borrowing it from a friend, or trying it out before you buy it. This is definately a good alternative to Tales of Phantasia.

Gameplay - 8/10
Graphics - 7/10
Sound - 7/10
Lasting Replay - 5/10
Overall - 8/10 (Not an average)