Wandering World Eaters
First details of the Disgaea team's next PS2 Strategy RPG, Soul Nomad (hint: it's not Disgaea. Well, not really).
Published: April 3, 2007
As video game titles go, Soul Nomad & The World Eaters actually sounds pretty cool. The last world eater we knew about was Galactus, and that dude's pretty boss, if we do say so ourselves. The ones in Soul Nomad, though, are of a considerably smaller scale. Luckily, that just means Nippon Ichi's now-infamous brand of Strategy Role-Playing Games get to grow a little to match this kind of storyline.
But wait, let's back up a second. Call it stupid high optimism, call it a marriage of all the stuff that made the Disgaea series so much fun with an expansion of those concepts to a level no SRPG has taken them. Plus, you get to play as a bad guy. A bad ass bad guy with the powers of the god of destruction, allowing you to steal from anyone in the game, fight nearly anyone in the game, merge units in your party into a new character, cause someone to level-up by 1,000 instantly -- hell, you can even beat the end boss 20 minutes into the start of the game... for a price.
Again, though, we're getting ahead of ourselves here. Like Dragoneer's Aria, we really only got the chance to peek at Soul Nomad in video form at a press party last week that publisher NIS America threw here in San Francisco, but we were able to ask some questions and get a little more back story, which is what we'll use as filler here before we start freaking out about the potential of the battle system.
It all starts with a bunch of goodie-two-shoes finding out that three once-slumbering golems are now walking the planet, eating... well, everything. Being good guys, they ride off to save the day, using the power of good and the might of justice to... um... get their asses handed to them by the golems. The only way out is to ask the god of destruction, Gig -- the very dude who once controlled the golems before being imprisoned in a sword -- for a little help. Now Gig has been freed (it's why the golems are running around wrecking stuff, after all), but he has no real body. He makes a deal with our hero to pass along enough power to stop the golems, but every time the power is tapped, our hero loses a little more of his soul, eventually becoming the vessel for Gig's return to corporeal world.
And there's the rub; the nameless hero of our tale now has the power to stop these things from destroying the world, but once he uses all his powers, his mind, body and soul are gone and Gig -- quite the evil dude -- gets to shack up in his old form. Bummer. The balance, then, comes in using these powers for the greater good... or just using them to seriously mess with people, since you can pickpocket or fight even common townsfolk, even pulling them into service in your anti-golem army.
Speaking of, now's probably a good time to explain the concepts behind creating those armies. Like Disgaea, you can craft your own party, though in this case scale is far, far larger due to the upgraded battle system (more on that in a sec), picking units from a 25+ strong list of basic unit types and more than twice that many classes. Placed in teams, these groups can then be imbued with one of 40+ team abilities, and these abilities can be further augmented with more abilities to create custom variations. If it sounds like a lot of busy work to just spend endless hours of grinding to level up, take heart; you can instantly create characters that are at the same level as your main character. No more grinding!
With a proper army, exploration of the countryside and even pre-battle scouting can show you exactly what you're up against in armies. Since battles are split now between a traditional chess-like grid-based system for launching attacks and defense with up to eight squads, and a new side view perspective for the actual fights, it actually pays to scout and then build armies with team abilities that complement the terrain or enemy weaknesses, hence a whole lotta strategy.
None of this really explains the concepts as well as watching the video, so it's probably best to check out the screens and the tiny trailer at the top of the page here. Watch that, geek out a little and tell us it doesn't seem like something special. The PS2 may be on its way out, but Soul Nomad's destruction of some of the staples of SRPGs while still sticking with the truisms that the Disgaea team is known for has us all kinds o' hot and bothered. When we get a chance to go hands-on in a little bit, we'll be sure to let you know how things actually play. Check back soon!
But wait, let's back up a second. Call it stupid high optimism, call it a marriage of all the stuff that made the Disgaea series so much fun with an expansion of those concepts to a level no SRPG has taken them. Plus, you get to play as a bad guy. A bad ass bad guy with the powers of the god of destruction, allowing you to steal from anyone in the game, fight nearly anyone in the game, merge units in your party into a new character, cause someone to level-up by 1,000 instantly -- hell, you can even beat the end boss 20 minutes into the start of the game... for a price.
Again, though, we're getting ahead of ourselves here. Like Dragoneer's Aria, we really only got the chance to peek at Soul Nomad in video form at a press party last week that publisher NIS America threw here in San Francisco, but we were able to ask some questions and get a little more back story, which is what we'll use as filler here before we start freaking out about the potential of the battle system.
It all starts with a bunch of goodie-two-shoes finding out that three once-slumbering golems are now walking the planet, eating... well, everything. Being good guys, they ride off to save the day, using the power of good and the might of justice to... um... get their asses handed to them by the golems. The only way out is to ask the god of destruction, Gig -- the very dude who once controlled the golems before being imprisoned in a sword -- for a little help. Now Gig has been freed (it's why the golems are running around wrecking stuff, after all), but he has no real body. He makes a deal with our hero to pass along enough power to stop the golems, but every time the power is tapped, our hero loses a little more of his soul, eventually becoming the vessel for Gig's return to corporeal world.
And there's the rub; the nameless hero of our tale now has the power to stop these things from destroying the world, but once he uses all his powers, his mind, body and soul are gone and Gig -- quite the evil dude -- gets to shack up in his old form. Bummer. The balance, then, comes in using these powers for the greater good... or just using them to seriously mess with people, since you can pickpocket or fight even common townsfolk, even pulling them into service in your anti-golem army.
Speaking of, now's probably a good time to explain the concepts behind creating those armies. Like Disgaea, you can craft your own party, though in this case scale is far, far larger due to the upgraded battle system (more on that in a sec), picking units from a 25+ strong list of basic unit types and more than twice that many classes. Placed in teams, these groups can then be imbued with one of 40+ team abilities, and these abilities can be further augmented with more abilities to create custom variations. If it sounds like a lot of busy work to just spend endless hours of grinding to level up, take heart; you can instantly create characters that are at the same level as your main character. No more grinding!
With a proper army, exploration of the countryside and even pre-battle scouting can show you exactly what you're up against in armies. Since battles are split now between a traditional chess-like grid-based system for launching attacks and defense with up to eight squads, and a new side view perspective for the actual fights, it actually pays to scout and then build armies with team abilities that complement the terrain or enemy weaknesses, hence a whole lotta strategy.
None of this really explains the concepts as well as watching the video, so it's probably best to check out the screens and the tiny trailer at the top of the page here. Watch that, geek out a little and tell us it doesn't seem like something special. The PS2 may be on its way out, but Soul Nomad's destruction of some of the staples of SRPGs while still sticking with the truisms that the Disgaea team is known for has us all kinds o' hot and bothered. When we get a chance to go hands-on in a little bit, we'll be sure to let you know how things actually play. Check back soon!
