Jewel Restore
Monster Kingdom: Jewel Summoner breathes life into the stagnating PSP RPG pool, but it's not quite a killer app.
Published: February 22, 2007
Once you've amassed enough points by simply fighting around, you can also just pour raw Amalgamy Points into beefing up a monsters... well, everything, from levels to attack to HP to JP (Job Points, more on those in a second) and so on though you have use a specific Meister to build up certain stats. Because it'll take more than a little while to accrue these points, though, this is something that happens later in the game, which is good, since it sort of forces you to learn the full details of Amalgamy.
It's a lot to take in, sure, but wait -- there's more! Raising monsters is all well and good, but you're still going to be fighting with favorite three pals (a limit that is sadly even early on far too low since you actually get a little attached to your critters), but there's a fair amount of depth in battles too, and once again it all comes back to elements (so, uh, make sure you read that preview already). By smacking enemies around with opposing elements you can push them back in the turn order, but do it too much and they'll get pissed, overriding future attempts to push them back while boosting their attacks. Bad news.
Saddled with all this info (that's at least provided piecemeal for a while), it can be a little daunting, but the pacing of the game, manages to throw equal amounts of storyline and action in a way that slowly works its way into you, but to be honest, this is one of the first games where the official site actually helped a little. There's little in the way of backstory to help thicken up the characters, though Atlus' localization is, once again some of the best in the industry, so you at least get an early idea of who the characters are, if not the why. The site actually helps explain that a little more, and it's a nice touch.
In fact, the storyline as a whole is the glue that sort of binds the whole experience together, and it takes it beyond your average Pokemon clone into something that feels inherently more mature and deeper. Part of that, again, probably has something to do with the voice cast and the translation, but the presentation as a whole is just pulled of with the kind of production values that really sells this as a console-level experience on a handheld, which is something the PSP has been sorely lacking amidst all the shovelware RPG ports that have hit since launch.
If the voice work is solid, the music is a collection of slabs of granite. Culling the talents of a host of big name composers like Yasunori Mitsuda, Keiji Ito, Masaharu Iwata, Yoko Shimamura and... y'know, those names probably don't mean much unless you're a card-carrying ubergeek that actually pays attention to soundtracks, but just know the folks that donated tracks for the game worked on everything from Chrono Cross to Front Mission to Final Fantasy Tactics to Final Fantasy XII to Shadow Hearts II -- with plenty more games between. Despite having all these different artists, the soundtrack still manages to remain covalent, swapping themes and styles freely in a fantastic way.
There's plenty for your peepers to lock onto too, from high-res 2D character portraits with a handful of emotional states (and loose, anime-style lip synching) to full 3D battles that actually give you clear visual feedback on how your monster is doing -- both in terms of HP and how far they've evolved and to what elemental direction they're heading. It's more than just a fresh coat of paint; the already details forms warp to become something familiar, yet different from the original design. The monsters themselves are wonderfully imaginative and detailed, and though there is no real overworld (just a set of simple old-school icons to jump between) nor a terribly detailed set of dungeons to explore, it all still seems to feel polished.
It would be easy to call Jewel Summoner a good PSP RPG simply because there have been so many blah ones over the past couple years, but it really does stand as a solid beginning for what is planned to be a fairly ambitious take on a new Okada universe. Whether or not it approaches the level of spin-offs and mythos associated with the MegaTen games is still very much up in the air, but as a monster-rearing RPG, it's one of the best -- if not the best -- in the genre the PSP has seen so far.
