Topic: Soma Bringer: MonolithSoft's Latest RPG

[Bill Aurion]

Yes, from impressions it's worth getting a DS, plus another two copies of the game for your friends to enjoy and play co-op with you...

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

I'm still on the fence on this one.  It'd mean I'd have to become one of you non-gamers and get a DS.

Is there a music sampling of the game available?

[vudu]

How do you not own a DS yet?  What is wrong with you?

[DAaaMan64]

How do you not own a DS yet?  What is wrong with you?

miscarriage return

[Terranigma Freak]

Soma Bringer has arrived and I was able to play a good 2 hours of the game. I guess that should be enough for a quick little hands-on preview. I stayed away from all information so I could experience a minty fresh game. Despite the short playtime, the gameā€™s focus on customization was immediately apparent.

To begin, you choose from a selection of characters. All of them will be a part of your team, so youā€™re just picking who youā€™d like to control. The characters are Crono, Sephiroth Jr, Jay Leno on steroids, and a couple of other characters. They look rather uninspired, so I didnā€™t bother naming them. Thereā€™s suppose to be another girl too, but for some reason, sheā€™s greyed out. Oh well, I wanted to play as Crono anyway. Once you pick your character, you get to pick their class, weapons, and even adjust their starting stats a bit. After that, I was treated to some beautiful music while watching a meteor crash into the forest.

Sephiropth Jr wants to hold a big orgy party, but the team has an uneven male/female ratio, so they decided to go into the woods and hunt for an extra female. It is here that a morbidly obese sabre-toothed Care Bear appeared to explain the game. Most of it was pretty basic ā€” except for the ā€œBreakā€ function in combat. I know what it does, but I donā€™t know how to do it, or the intricacies involving this function. The combat plays like Secret of Mana. You only control whomever you picked, while the computer controls the other two members. At least they arenā€™t as brain-dead as the idiots of Mana. The camera zooms in whenever you swing your weapon at an enemy. My only concern right now is the speed of my swing. Thereā€™s a delay after every swing. Luckily, there appears to be skills thatā€™ll increase the speed of each swing, but by how much, I still donā€™t know.

So far, I havenā€™t seen any unique uses for the touch-screen. You play on the top, while the bottom displays a map and your custom moves (more on this later). The map itself is very useful and detailed, so itā€™s very handy. I donā€™t know if there are other uses for the touch-screen, but I suspect this map is there for Wi-Fi multiplayer co-op (donā€™t know if this is actually a feature, itā€˜s just my guess).

As I said from the beginning, this game focuses heavily on customization, and boy, did they ever load up on options. When you level up, youā€™re given stats, but itā€™s up to you distribute them. Not only that, but you also get points to level up your combat skills and magic. Increasing them to level 1 will allow you to assign some combat skills to the Y, X, and B buttons. Right now, I only have the low ranking skills available for level up, but I also saw plenty of high rank skills available for me later. They were also organized by weapon type giving me a total of 64 different skills ā€” although some of the skill slots are empty.

After much exploring, we finally found a huge glass container. Our heroes ponders the possibility of a naked girl confined in there. As if the heavens heard their cries, it unleashed a power with the might of a hundred sumo wrestlers after gouging on pork and beans. The mighty explosion shattered the glass tube, releasing a nude maiden a la Ace Ventura When Nature Calls. ā€œItā€™s orgy time,ā€ exclaimed Jay Leno on steroids, as they all gathered around to celebrate.

When I finally reached the first chapter, I am given the freedom to explore. My first order of business was to kick the crap out of the local flora and fauna. I have a hunch there is no over world to travel through in this game. I saw what I suspect to be a teleporter/travel point on the bridge of the ship. It could be there just for quick travels, though. Itā€™s only a hunch, so I could be very wrong about this. I know there are teleporters that allow you to go to town and other areas quickly. By the way, it seems that all the villagers have a habit of locking their doors to keep you out. So no pillaging homes for treasure. You buy items from vendors in a marketplace, or in your ship.

After adding a mondo penguin into the endangered species list, I happened upon some mortally wounded people, and I processed to pilfer their wallets. Or at least I wish I could have done that, but my stuffed up nose was bothering me, so I decided to stop playing for the day. What Iā€™ve played so far seems to be a fairly decent game. It has good atmosphere with a nice soundtrack, and sweet graphics. I donā€™t know if there is more to the customization, but what I saw was already fairly extensive. All this game needs now is an engaging plot, and the skill level ups to not turn this into a monotonous grind-fest. Oh, and in case you still havenā€™t figured it out, I was making the plot up as I go along.