Soul Survivor
Soul Nomad proves that being evil can be very, very rewarding.
Published: November 4, 2007
It can be an incredibly deep process -- especially later in the game when you have access to more than two dozen different character classes, each with separate attack types based on where they're placed -- but therein lies the game's insanely addictive quality. Yes, you have to sacrifice a little control to the randomization factor when creating a new room (a further wrinkle: some rooms have a slot taken up by a stat-changing object, itself with randomized effects), but you're given keys that will lock the room, effectively saving that layout and those characters from being swapped out when you create a new room or reorganize the characters in it.
Squads at the ready, you can then charge into the top-down grid-based battles that use terrain as the baseline for all parties' effectiveness (some characters fight better in the mountains, for instance, than they would in water), and it's in how you place your characters that determines how effective they are against the enemy. See, some characters can only attack specific rows, and this of course changes based on where they are, so magic users in the back row can hit other back row enemies, but if they're put in the front, not only are their magic attacks negated, but they can only hit front-row enemies. By the same token, stick a melee fighter in the back and they'll have their weapon effectively neutered, relegated to just lobbing rocks at the other guys.
Ah, but the how and where of troop placement also comes into play when dealing with attack order. See, if you use a special ability (and there are a bazillion of them, almost all of which involve a good 15 second build-up, and others can go for well over a minute), that's triggered after your attack, and since there are combo multipliers, it's not always a bad thing to get a free hit in. This is Nippon Ichi going all out, with damages that can reach into the millions if you want, and thanks to some Gig-assisted shortcuts, it won't take 100 hours of power-leveling to see it.
Arguably the game's biggest strength, however, is the storyline -- or rather the characters and their interactions as the story progresses. Gig is such a delightfully pompous guy that it's worth playing through the game just to hear what he'll say next. Coupled with a fantastic translation and localization (though you can listen to the Japanese voices if you want), the voice work in the game really does sell the characters. I can't remember the last time I laughed so much at a strategy game, but it's been years.
The game is also something of a visual departure from previous NIS titles. It's not just the top-down battle arenas or the side-scrolling actual fights, but the character portraits, while definitely sporting the familiar style of other games, seemed more prevalent and varied. There's quite a bit of chatter in the game, and even minor characters are at least given a portrait. The sprites, though, are the real treat here. Thanks to the excessive special attacks, you'll get to see some absolutely killer sequences that not only heap on tons of special effects, but showcase unique animations. It's nice to see NIS keeping 2D alive in such an impressive way.
Though the game isn't without its own ridiculous levels of replay value (for those that really want to go evil without repercussions, a complete side story is unlocked that lets you just tear stuff up as a baddie), it's actually kinda nice to play an NIS game that doesn't take 100 hours to finish. Yes, there's a bit of leveling that needs to be done, but there are shortcuts and with all of the Inspections, the insane number of endings and the general thrill of just leveling up a bunch of mini-armies, not to mention the mix-n-match aspect of finding where certain classes work best (remember, because of placement and even attack order, one class can fill multiple roles quite easily), there's enough here to provide plenty of play time. And that, friends, is the definition of value.
