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| Soul Sacrifice Delta for the PS VITA, published by SCEA on PSN |
The
first Soul Sacrifice (an action role-playing game) was released for
the PS Vita on April 30th, 2013. It was well received. But it would
appear that it was not as welcomed as it could have been, as Sony has chosen to
release “Delta” the expansion to Soul
Sacrifice as a PSN only downloadable title. I have had a chance to put a
lot of time into the first entry, and I was quite impressed with the experience.
The presentation lacks the furious budgets of larger titles, though who can
tell if this is a hardware limitation or simply, and more aptly, a design
decision; But, even without monstrous graphics, the original Soul Sacrifice captivated the
imagination. With a coherent and readable art direction that communicated the “grim”
world which your sorcerer inhabited.
You
see, monster hunting games tend to bear the title of Monster Hunter clone, this may just be appropriate if said titles
fail to establish their own unique qualities and revel only in copycat,
derivative mechanics that fail to capture the intended audiences attentions and
meet expectations. Monster Hunter is,
of course, the dominate hunting franchise from Capcom that has a strangle-hold
on what some may consider—at least in the U.S.– a niche genre. Within these
games players can co-op and or solo a crafting, resource, technique sensitive
experience, in a land filled with both large and small creatures that range the
prehistoric gambit, in terms of design. Hunting down resources and harvesting
them from monsters and the environment, then crafting armor and weapons this is
the spirit of the hunter genre. A clear lack of narrative is neither an
exception nor a rule, as some games, such as Monster Hunter, lack it, while others, such as God’s Eater, have veiled story arcs and plenty of dialogue.
As
far as Soul Sacrifice is concerned, the new franchise sheds any heavy
technicalities that one may associate with a learning curve in other Hunter
franchises. The game is streamlined to an extent; superficially it is a snap to
dive right in. The water, however, is not shallow. Offerings and the means by
which you acquire them offer up reasons to complete and revisit the multitude
of pacts that are scattered throughout Librom. With Librom being the book—yes the
adventure takes place within a magical text—in which you adjust your characters
appearance and take on quests—pacts—and story missions. The story, in short,
surrounds a prisoner—you—within a bone prison settled within a post-apocalyptic
world, ghastly in its appearance, mirroring the creature and character designs
within the pages of Librom. You must acquire the means for your escape, by way
of defeating your impromptu warden--a sorcerer of devastating power, by reading
Librom and experiencing the tales inscribed within his pages. Soul Sacrifice isn’t revolutionary or by
any means amazing in its writing department, its stories—including the some of its
pacts with narrative breaks—have twists, but it is not simply this alone that
captivated me so, rather the quality
of presentation: voice acting, at times overdone, illustration and music, together
with the pangs of emotional weight that the execution of the writing allows—it does
not fumble its pacing, and it dwells on what is important and sheds excess
prose.
