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Shaman King: Legacy of the Spirits-Sprinting Wolf (GBA)

• Developer:
• Publisher: Konami
• Genre: Role Playing
• Official Website: http://www.konami.com
• Score: 4 of 5: Niche

This is a tale of two games-two nigh identical games, actually. They're based on the children's animated series, Shaman King. In fact, the story in the game is the same as that of the animated series, save for the few differences and exceptions that result from compression of a 64-episode television series into a single game. This story follows a teenaged boy named Yoh, a shaman with the ability to command the spirits of the dead in battle. It's his goal to win a once-in-500-years tournament against every other qualifying shaman in the world, thereby earning the title of Shaman King and staving off global annihilation in the form of a massive comet headed towards Earth. Of course, this doesn't really faze him at all, and he manages to maintain a more or less jovial, laid-back outlook despite it all.

The gameplay is RPG-lite. Players collect spirits, level them up in battles, merge them to create new spirits and so forth. Players have one spirit that never changes when merged with others and can't be disposed of, and that's their personal spirit, Amidaru. New spirits are collected by weakening them in battle, followed by the use of a mortuary tablet of the appropriate level (as determined by the spirit's strength). Clearly, there are certainly a few similarities to the Pokemon series of games. This is also the only place where the different versions of the game-Soaring Hawk and Spring Wolf-come into play. The story is identical in both games, and so are all of the characters, including Amidaru. However, some of the spirits players will encounter and some of the merge results are different. The games do not come with any charts or booklets to list the spirits contained within, though, and there's really nothing in the game that would compel one to "catch them all," as it were. There is an in-game album that tracks which spirits have been collected throughout the game (represented by a percentage of completion), but there's no carrot dangling from a stick. The result of this is the game link functionality seems somewhat superfluous, as it only allows players to trade spirits. It's somewhat disappointing that players can't run custom shaman tournaments over Game Link, as that functionality would have introduced an entirely new dimension of gameplay.

In terms of the single player component, the game itself is a highly linear romp. The game world is divided into different areas accessible from a world map, and each area is broken down into a series of connected screens. The camera does not follow Yoh-it remains stationary-and players walk Yoh from screen to screen. This wouldn't be an issue had it been made obvious which screen edges could be crossed, but players will frequently wind up walking up against each of the four sides of a given screen to find out which one allows passage to a new area. That's a fairly minor gripe, but stranger still is the random encounter system. Only some screens in some areas allow these encounters to transpire, but no system is in place to indicate when a screen will or when it won't. When a screen is a random encounter screen, it tends to throw a "random" encounter at players every two steps until they've had three or so, and then stops completely. Luckily, most of those screens can be avoided, as they're really just an annoyance. The enemies encountered never scale in difficulty, so the main issue is the inconvenience.

Battles are turn based: Players have one spirit up at a time, and then choose from a variety of options-such as a spirit action, the use of an item, switching to another spirit or fleeing. Spirits are aligned to different elements and pseudo-elements, and they gain new abilities as they level up. The different elements determine the efficacy of the various attacks based upon the element of the opponent. The problem, though, is there are many, many different spirits available, and it's nearly impossible to know which spirit will have a strong attack against a given opponent. This is one more reason it would have been nice if the game came with a chart listing this type of information. Since switching spirits costs a turn in battle, it's generally not feasible to rotate through an entire team looking for one spirit that works better than the others. For this reason, it's generally best to maintain a very diverse team, as players are given an opportunity to replace defeated spirits in battle without losing a turn.

Item management is very simplistic. There are a few different grades of mortuary tablets, a few different grades of healing potions, and an item to cure each status. The game generally leaves players with enough money to maintain a sufficient stock of items, and a large supply of healing potions can help players make it through the most difficult battles without sweating too hard.

The game mostly consists of forced conversations followed by trips to and from the next battle to advance the story. There are side quests available for those who look, but completing them yields no benefit aside from a proverbial pat on the back granted by the game. Luckily, given the intense linearity of the game's design, the story is very well written, particularly for a game based on a children's cartoon. I've found that I spent about as much time playing the game as I spent reading through conversations, yet it remained interesting enough that skipping through to the next task was rarely very tempting. On the other hand, there is definitely no reason to play it more than once.

Graphically, it's a very attractive game. It doesn't push the limits of the system, and it's not even the most impressive RPG on the system, but it does a very good job of executing the artistic style of the cartoon. The game's sound is good, but nothing special-much like the rest of the game. It gets the job done without being obtrusive or offensive, but it won't leave players humming along to the background music.

Overall, it's definitely a neat little game, but there's nothing about it that demands an immediate purchase. It has no real replay value, and the trading/collecting aspect isn't compelling. Fans of the cartoon won't be disappointed, and those looking for a decent light RPG should certainly check it out. It will pass a few hours and players don't need to worry about getting too hooked. I couldn't grant it a higher recommendation than what a score of 74% warrants, however.

Mar 3, 2005 | 0 comments
Ryan McPherson