Roleplaying games are a dime a dozen now a days. Innovations are always being made in order to keep up with the big names like Square-Enix and BioWare. Every so often a game offers something so different that it really deservers the 30 plus hours of game time. The Playstation 2 has been the benefactor of the majority of the roleplaying games with the Xbox recently making big waves in the genre with Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Fans of the Xbox wondered if Knights of the Old Republic would open up a door for roleplaying games on the Microsoft console. Microsoft Studios developer Climax delivered a new title to the Xbox RPG fans called Sudeki. Promising amazing gameplay, fans of the RPG genre were salivating waiting for it to hit shelves, would it stand up to the standard set by games with the word Fantasy in it?

You have a lot to live up to

Sudeki has a lot to live up to, right away RPG fans are welcomed to a beautiful world. Though set in the cliché surrounding of a bustling kingdom, with a princess, and a gallant knight there is something to be said about following a time tested formula. The world painted by Climax is very colorful and rich with texture although the characters seem to lack the same depth as their environment. The cast of characters consist of a self reliant Princess mage named Ailish, a broad shouldered hero named Tal, your gizmo freak named Elco, and the sultry cat chick Buki. Each character has their own background and personality but what separates them is their playability and how you utilize them.

Button mash with confidence my son

The gameplay is really the difference maker in Sudeki. You can only control one character at a time with the rest of your party left in control of the computer. You can hop in and out of each character at any point of a battle and use his or her special strengths to help in a brawl. Your fighters Buki and Tal both rely heavy on attack combos with timings of the X and B buttons making some impressive attacks. The twist is with the mage and gizmo nerd. You control both Elco and Ailish in first person mode with cool guns and spells via a staff respectively. At first, fighting as an FPS is very strange due to the fact that the two genres are have not been associated with each other too often in the past. However, after a few battles the first person modes fit in rather comfortably, though not as fluid as a straight up FPS. Either way you have to constantly baby sit as your computer controlled allies get in trouble a lot.

Another addition to having a set of interchangeable characters is that out of battle each character has an ability the whole party can utilize. Elco can fly, Ailish can reveal hidden magic items, Tal can push objects, and Buki can climb with her claws. Each ability is very important to solving the many puzzles in the dungeons of the game. Good stuff here.

What's an RPG without a cool looking special move

Sudeki has special moves in check. As you level up you can learn new amazing special attacks or spells. They do a variety of things from curative, protective, status inducing, or simply to lay the smack down. Each move is taken as time slows down and you chose the area of attack and maneuver it for the special moves best effect. When time catches up to you, the move is unleashed, and looks great. The spells are big, the attacks are massive. Can you say limit break? (I had to throw that in)

Where is Brutus?

Shades of the horrible character design in Brute Force come to mind once you see the appearance of the characters in Sudeki. Either this was done on purpose for the anime inspired look, or the design team is separate from the environment team. Personally I think there is no excuse, it is plain, uninspired, roughly textured, and quite frankly terrible. All the clichés are achieved with the heroines in skimpy armor-less outfits and the hero in armor with muscles a plenty. This game fails in the character design department more so then any game in recent memory, save Brute Force of course.

The World the rest

The storyline of Sudeki isn't too bad, though nothing I have not seen before. You know the story, ancient evil beat down by good, ancient evil will rise again, good ready to beat it back down again. The struggle between light and darkness spawns a chosen few to help lay down the law and make everything hunky dory again. As you go about the world you are free to talk to just about anyone, though they really do not have much to say. There is a map leading you from one way point to the next which is rather helpful. The dialogue between the characters is torture as the voice actors seem to have been pulled out of a community college.

It's unfortunate that so many of the development issues pull away from a new and exciting gameplay style. An action oriented squad based kinda thing, whatever you call it, it's very fun once you get it down. I have a hard time really looking toward the good things, but I can see Sudeki as an exciting foothold for future RPGs that will not suffer from the same rookie mistakes. This game is worth playing though; its good points and bad points meet in the middle. It's a good rental and the game itself is not very long, but if you crave an RPG on the Xbox then give it a try. If you are a RPG elitist you will loathe a lot about Sudeki. You have been warned!

Nov 8, 2004 | 0 comments
Mike Carabajal