Summon Night Swordcraft Story
GBA
Release Date: July 25, 2006
RPG
Review by Sirus
Breath of Fresh Air: 7;
Summon Night doesn’t really do anything new as far as dungeon crawling rpgs go. It has a pretty typical 2d tales type battle system without the skills. One thing it does do that I don’t recall seeing in other games is the guardian beast (GB) system. You are asked four questions in succession near the beginning of the game by the GB summoner that decide which of the four GBs you will get. The guardian beast stays with you for the length of the game and although he is soposed to be “fighting with you” he is just used to give the player access to magic and items.
Characterization: 7;
Summon night has a wide cast of characters ranging from opponents in the arena to the different craftlords and of course your stubborn master and all knowing mother. None of the characters are really anything interesting but I found many of them interesting.
Plot: 7;
Again, like characterization, the plot in summon night isn’t much of anything special. Pretty much you have a tournament going on to decide who will become the next craftlord. You happen to be one of the participants in said tournament and thus must fight your way through the ranks, stopping off in the 50 floor dungeon in between to collect materials for stronger weapons. It does get a little deeper as you advance with all sorts of secrets about the death of your father revealed but nothing is really anything new. It should be noted though that the dialogue is quite interesting even when they aren’t really talking about anything epic.
Immersion: 7;
The graphics in summon night, while not impressive by any other system’s standards, are just perfect on the GBA. The game definitely feels like you are progressing in a tournament and many characters act as they should. There are definitely scenes in the game where you feel for the characters who are put into danger.
Controls: 10;
This is where the game shines. If nothing else, the minimal story can be forgiven because here we have one of the most fun pure dungeon crawls I’ve ever played on the GBA. To start out, like I stated above, the game is centered around the battles in the tournament and the 50 floor dungeon that happens to be in the town you stay in for the majority of the game. Thankfully, the 50 floor dungeon is not all open for exploration from the start. Instead, at certain points you will hit a door that is locked and you will not be allowed to pass until someone gives you a key as part of the story. While this is very familiar, it works well enough to keep you from going too deep and dying early on.
There are also a few other dungeons of sorts in other towns that are quite a bit shorter but for the most part if you don’t like the combat you will not like this game one bit. The 50 floor dungeon has warp pads every 10 floors or so that let you warp form the first floor to any other one you have opened. This makes traveling back to that locked door more manageable. You will also find save points and healing points littered throughout the dungeons near bosses. Save points are light blue swords stuck in the ground while healing points are blue triangles that instantly heal you when you step on it and press A.
Of course if you have dungeons, you have to have combat. Encounters in the game are random and some have complained that the encounter rate is quite high. I don’t find it any more or less high then any other game that uses random encounters and if you really find it that bothersome you can always use the cheap items the game gives you that lower the encounter rate. When you get into the actual fights, the battles play out like a 2d tales game. Pretty much you can move right to left and attack the enemies with A and block with B. You also can switch between three different weapons with L and switch to magic attacks with R. Once a magic attack is selected, it is used instead of block. After the spell is done, block is once again selected so you aren’t left defenseless for too long. Magic spells have nice enough animations that they make killing your enemies very pretty. There are some specifically devastating magic attacks you learn at higher levels that fill up the entire screen and are very satisfying. Blocking for the most part will drastically reduce the damage taken by attacks although most magic attacks damage you the same regardless.
One thing that you don’t see very often in rpgs these days is durability on weapons. Summon Night gives weapons durability without the annoyance that is usually associated with it. Unlike other rpgs, your durability is always fully recovered after each battle so you will not have to take your weapons to smiths to get them fixed up. I would assume that if your weapon durability completely runs out you might lose it for good but that’s only happened in story battles where breaking the opponents or your own weapons is victory and losing yours is game over. This adds a layer of strategy because every time you break the weapon of a human opponent, you get the recipe to craft the weapon they wield.
This brings me to the crafting system. At its core, the crafting system is much simpler and less random then a lot of other crafting systems other games have used recently. You have five different materials in the game, wind, water, fire, thunder, and mystic ore. Each weapon requires different amounts of the different materials to be created. Recipes can only be obtained from your master or from breaking an opponents weapon. Your master gives you recipes at specific story points for sword weapons. He also offers you other recipes from spear, axe, drill and glove types at any time. The only thing he requires is that you completed the previous new recipe he gave you. There are a good 20 recipes of each type giving you enough variety to keep the game fresh.
Materials for the weapons are gotten mainly through exploration of the dungeon. Items can be dropped from enemies or found in crates scattered throughout the dungeons, most of which only give you components from one element. For example, you will find fans that give you wind element. To get the element from the item you just take it to your forge and create materials from items and select the one you want to break down. It will always show you which elements you get from each material before you do it although you don’t have to worry because most of the items that give you good materials are not good for anything else. If you cant seem to find enough materials or just get impatient, you can deconstruct any weapon you previously forged into the materials it took to create it. While you will not get as many materials as were initially used to create it, you get enough that it becomes worthwhile when you have older weapons that you are not going to be using anymore.
There is one material you can only get as an enemy drop and that is mystic ore. Only certain enemies will drop mystic ore but those that can drop it always do so it only becomes a matter of running into them and you don’t have to worry about weather or not they drop it. Mystic ores are special in that they don’t have an element and instead are used to imbue other weapons with elemental attack. These elemental weapons are created by selecting a recipe for a weapon you have already created one of again. It will then ask you if you want to use your mystic ores to create the elemental weapon.
Sound: 6;
There isn’t anything that makes the music in Summon Night stand out. It is pretty much standard SNES quality midi music and there is no voice acting to speak of.
Conclusions;
Summon Night is a game for RPGamers who own a GBA or DS and are looking for a solid dungeon crawl with a minimal story. The game is for the most part fairly easy although some bosses do present enough of a challenge to kill you. The game can be beaten in around 13 hours to the end of the main story. After that you open up another 50 floors of the dungeon to explore and another tournament where you are timed. These might bring the game to 20 hours. It should be also noted that you are given the choice of a boy or girl character in the beginning of the game but its doubtful that the game changes significantly depending on said choice.
Final Score: 7.3 (an average)
GBA
Release Date: July 25, 2006
RPG
Review by Sirus
Breath of Fresh Air: 7;
Summon Night doesn’t really do anything new as far as dungeon crawling rpgs go. It has a pretty typical 2d tales type battle system without the skills. One thing it does do that I don’t recall seeing in other games is the guardian beast (GB) system. You are asked four questions in succession near the beginning of the game by the GB summoner that decide which of the four GBs you will get. The guardian beast stays with you for the length of the game and although he is soposed to be “fighting with you” he is just used to give the player access to magic and items.
Characterization: 7;
Summon night has a wide cast of characters ranging from opponents in the arena to the different craftlords and of course your stubborn master and all knowing mother. None of the characters are really anything interesting but I found many of them interesting.
Plot: 7;
Again, like characterization, the plot in summon night isn’t much of anything special. Pretty much you have a tournament going on to decide who will become the next craftlord. You happen to be one of the participants in said tournament and thus must fight your way through the ranks, stopping off in the 50 floor dungeon in between to collect materials for stronger weapons. It does get a little deeper as you advance with all sorts of secrets about the death of your father revealed but nothing is really anything new. It should be noted though that the dialogue is quite interesting even when they aren’t really talking about anything epic.
Immersion: 7;
The graphics in summon night, while not impressive by any other system’s standards, are just perfect on the GBA. The game definitely feels like you are progressing in a tournament and many characters act as they should. There are definitely scenes in the game where you feel for the characters who are put into danger.
Controls: 10;
This is where the game shines. If nothing else, the minimal story can be forgiven because here we have one of the most fun pure dungeon crawls I’ve ever played on the GBA. To start out, like I stated above, the game is centered around the battles in the tournament and the 50 floor dungeon that happens to be in the town you stay in for the majority of the game. Thankfully, the 50 floor dungeon is not all open for exploration from the start. Instead, at certain points you will hit a door that is locked and you will not be allowed to pass until someone gives you a key as part of the story. While this is very familiar, it works well enough to keep you from going too deep and dying early on.
There are also a few other dungeons of sorts in other towns that are quite a bit shorter but for the most part if you don’t like the combat you will not like this game one bit. The 50 floor dungeon has warp pads every 10 floors or so that let you warp form the first floor to any other one you have opened. This makes traveling back to that locked door more manageable. You will also find save points and healing points littered throughout the dungeons near bosses. Save points are light blue swords stuck in the ground while healing points are blue triangles that instantly heal you when you step on it and press A.
Of course if you have dungeons, you have to have combat. Encounters in the game are random and some have complained that the encounter rate is quite high. I don’t find it any more or less high then any other game that uses random encounters and if you really find it that bothersome you can always use the cheap items the game gives you that lower the encounter rate. When you get into the actual fights, the battles play out like a 2d tales game. Pretty much you can move right to left and attack the enemies with A and block with B. You also can switch between three different weapons with L and switch to magic attacks with R. Once a magic attack is selected, it is used instead of block. After the spell is done, block is once again selected so you aren’t left defenseless for too long. Magic spells have nice enough animations that they make killing your enemies very pretty. There are some specifically devastating magic attacks you learn at higher levels that fill up the entire screen and are very satisfying. Blocking for the most part will drastically reduce the damage taken by attacks although most magic attacks damage you the same regardless.
One thing that you don’t see very often in rpgs these days is durability on weapons. Summon Night gives weapons durability without the annoyance that is usually associated with it. Unlike other rpgs, your durability is always fully recovered after each battle so you will not have to take your weapons to smiths to get them fixed up. I would assume that if your weapon durability completely runs out you might lose it for good but that’s only happened in story battles where breaking the opponents or your own weapons is victory and losing yours is game over. This adds a layer of strategy because every time you break the weapon of a human opponent, you get the recipe to craft the weapon they wield.
This brings me to the crafting system. At its core, the crafting system is much simpler and less random then a lot of other crafting systems other games have used recently. You have five different materials in the game, wind, water, fire, thunder, and mystic ore. Each weapon requires different amounts of the different materials to be created. Recipes can only be obtained from your master or from breaking an opponents weapon. Your master gives you recipes at specific story points for sword weapons. He also offers you other recipes from spear, axe, drill and glove types at any time. The only thing he requires is that you completed the previous new recipe he gave you. There are a good 20 recipes of each type giving you enough variety to keep the game fresh.
Materials for the weapons are gotten mainly through exploration of the dungeon. Items can be dropped from enemies or found in crates scattered throughout the dungeons, most of which only give you components from one element. For example, you will find fans that give you wind element. To get the element from the item you just take it to your forge and create materials from items and select the one you want to break down. It will always show you which elements you get from each material before you do it although you don’t have to worry because most of the items that give you good materials are not good for anything else. If you cant seem to find enough materials or just get impatient, you can deconstruct any weapon you previously forged into the materials it took to create it. While you will not get as many materials as were initially used to create it, you get enough that it becomes worthwhile when you have older weapons that you are not going to be using anymore.
There is one material you can only get as an enemy drop and that is mystic ore. Only certain enemies will drop mystic ore but those that can drop it always do so it only becomes a matter of running into them and you don’t have to worry about weather or not they drop it. Mystic ores are special in that they don’t have an element and instead are used to imbue other weapons with elemental attack. These elemental weapons are created by selecting a recipe for a weapon you have already created one of again. It will then ask you if you want to use your mystic ores to create the elemental weapon.
Sound: 6;
There isn’t anything that makes the music in Summon Night stand out. It is pretty much standard SNES quality midi music and there is no voice acting to speak of.
Conclusions;
Summon Night is a game for RPGamers who own a GBA or DS and are looking for a solid dungeon crawl with a minimal story. The game is for the most part fairly easy although some bosses do present enough of a challenge to kill you. The game can be beaten in around 13 hours to the end of the main story. After that you open up another 50 floors of the dungeon to explore and another tournament where you are timed. These might bring the game to 20 hours. It should be also noted that you are given the choice of a boy or girl character in the beginning of the game but its doubtful that the game changes significantly depending on said choice.
Final Score: 7.3 (an average)