Sword crafting Adventure (Summon Night: Swordcraft Story)

06-13-15 05:35 AM

TheAdventurer is Offline

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TheAdventurer

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Summon Night: Swordcraft Story (Craft Sword Monogatari) Is a Spin off game of a Japanese Exclusive Series of the same name. The game is a RPG, though unlike the game it's named after, it was made in the stylization of the "Tales of" series which is more familiar to us Americans. This game was made by Banpresto in 2003 and the English Translation of the game was produced by Atlus in 2006. How does this game do? Well lets take a look into and find out.

GRAPHICS

   The Graphics for the game, while nothing really to spectacular for something that would of came out for the GBA in 2006 looks very well defined for a 2003 game. Some of the graphical effects are quite nice and take some good use of the GBA's Hardware. There are some occasional graphical hiccups when playing the game, though other than that its a pretty nice looking game, even for today's standards. That's pretty much saying something. For the Graphics, I Give it a 9

SOUND

The music in this game I believe sound pretty good and has some quite nice tunes with only a few that I didn't in particular really remember all too well. The Sound Effects are pretty nice, nothing to grating or harsh either. Yet again it's nothing spectacular since this is a Early-Mid GBA title, but it does well in what it is, so what I'll rate this game is a 9

ADDICTIVENESS

For a game of this structure, it did such a wonderous job for how much fun I had as a kid back in my younger years. I used to play this game all the time during those days, and when everything was done and completed, I was thriving for more. (Good thing the sequel came out months after, but that's for another time)

   The game had a lot going for it and I usually would play the game annually and get everything unlocked. (I know it's unhealthy but don't judge me) For that alone, it definitely deserves a 10. Though for people out there who are possibly trying this game out for the first time, let me just say this. The game might not be exactly for you, especially if you aren't too keen on "Tales of" games. Though with that out of the way, 10

STORY

Oh boy, this has got one hell of a story. Also, no spoilers will be put into here cause I don't know how to do the spoiler button of any sort as of now and I'm sure likely not going to search it up because I'm pretty lazy.

   So you are the son or daughter of your Father who passed away 3 years ago and you don't know the whereabouts of what might of happened to him or what he may of been like. Though the beginning of a new day dawns and you are awoken by your mother, calling you as it's your first day into the guild and you must head your way to the meeting to hear about the tourney being held by the guilds. You are taken into the guild to be given your first Summon Creature which is made by an amulet given by your father. This Creature is now your partner and will fight by your side to help you in the many Tournament Rounds and Dungeons that'll lie ahead to become a Master Crafter! *Cough*

   Anyways, great stuff. It provides a lot of context into the world you are in, and along your way, you'll meet more fellow crafters who will most likely help you along your journey. It adds a feel for where this world is and does a lot to help keep you interested on what you're trying to do. With that all said, I'm giving this a big fat 10

DEPTH

   Woo, now we get into the juicy content of the game. What exactly does this game provide for the player? First off, I gotta say the Game Mechanics of this game work wonderfully and add a good amount of strategy with the added in gauge for Weapons called TEC which if depleted far enough, it'll shatter the weapon with no real way to repair it, you'll just have to make another one of it.

   With that being said, there's also a Weapon crafting system where you'll have to gather material in order to make new weapons, and the other thing is you'll have to collect recipes or Techniques as stated in the game. There are four types of synthesis material including Mystic ores which is only obtainable by few enemies and some other tasks. These will give your Weapon a element attribute usually helping or making it worse depending on Enemies elements.

   Speaking of which, a variety of  enemies are able to be found in this game, even though this does have a few re-colors of other enemies, there is usually quite the big array for you to look at. This being said, there is also many different Techniques for weapons as well, and there are also five types of Weapons. The Drill, Sword, Spear, Knuckles, and Claws are different classes of weapons you can change from, each acting differently dependently.

   Now besides the Main game, there is also a post game once you beat the final boss and such and you'll be able to get new things you weren't able to before, including some new techniques only able to be gotten in the new Section of the area which adds more to the dungeon for you to explore. Keeping this in mind, there was about 50 dungeons in main game and with that being said, another 50 dungeons are added, given a fresh coat of pain to distinguish them from the top 50. Like I also said, New Items and Techniques are able to be found here so look out for them.

There is also a new Time attack mode which allows you to face off against every Tournament boss, but for a small fee. This probably rubs off as easy though because you don't loose any TEC when beating a Tourney Boss, with that being said, they don't really gain a boost from their previous encounters either with just comes off as lacking, but it's a boss rush, so I don't mind it all too much, though it would of been great if they had a difficulty setting.

   All in all, there is a lot of post content stuff to do and it really does do the job. Just a few minor complaints, but eh, what are you going to do? With that all in mind, I'd say this is well worth a 10

DIFFICULTY

   In all fairness, The difficulty in this game was good, though at times seemed a bit... Unfair in some way. I'm not going to lie, if you don't do a tad bit of grinding in this game, you'll get yourself in a terrible amount of frustration due to one boss having too much health or your weapon breaking. Along with that, getting a random encounter isn't going to be fun when you don't have much health and you'll need to escape.

I'll give it credit though, it does appeal to newcomers for it's not all to difficult to level up. You can maybe find a few instances where you'll need to get to a higher level, but you can't due to the lackluster amount of exp a enemy will give you, though all in all, think they do a pretty good job balancing things out on the spectrum, especially during the middle with some Tourney bosses.

In short, at times it feels like you'll have a unfair disadvantage, but that's rare and doesn't occur too often, so for this game, I'll be giving it a 7

SUMMARY

This is a very dear game to me, one that I have kept close to me all these years and never had gotten bored of it in the slightest. The game, sure a Spinoff, I think could of been a successful game if only Atlus had released the game somewhere near the Mid-span of the GBA's library, though however, that never came to be. This game, along with two other Spinoffs of the Summon Night series were the last things released to the North American audience.

What exactly makes this game a gem is how much of an obscure game title it is, and it's a rarity for many people to hear about others talking about this game or it's two other series spinoffs, however this does really place dearly to my heart. It's more than what you call a game, it's a adventure many can enjoy and have fun with. It's got a lot of charm and I respect what it's brought us.

Although the game was the last of the GBA's lifespan, this does and will be one of the best of the system. As my final Rating, I'll be giving this game a 9.5/10

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REPLY TO POST

07-15-15 05:08 PM

janus is Offline

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janus
SecureYourCodeDavid

Level: 124

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POST EXP: 565097
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While your review is well-structured and has a lot of details, I feel like they were not well-distributed. What are some of the nice graphical effects you talk about? What are some of the tracks/sound effects that stand out? But I will nevertheless give it a 4