Wednesday, August 11

Sudeki


The new action-RPG for the Xbox.

The world of Sudeki is a place sundered into two parts- one of light, and one of darkness, thanks to the depredations of an evil god (You just have to hate those evil gods). The world was saved by the coming of Four Heroes, each blessed with the powers of the light god, Tetsu. Now, generations later, the descendants of those four original warriors must find each other and take up arms once again.

The game puts you in the roles of these four heroes-Tal is a swordsman and warrior in the Illumina Empire's army. He's the son of a general but has to fight in the frontlines along with the other grunts. Unfortunately for him, his father blames him for the death of his brother, so that's a healthy bit of angst right there. Ailish is the princess of Illumina and one of the best magicians in the land- she's also a bit of a spoiled little rich girl... sorta like a cross between Zatanna, Lara Croft and Paris Hilton. Elco is the Imperial scientist and genius, and apparently of Latin descent according to his accent. He is a workaholic and dedicated to completing a new gadget that will protect Illumina and its allies from enemy attack. Finally, Buki is your sexy half-beast babe who starts off distrustful of the human races of Ilumina. Buki's priorities set her against Illumina at the beginning, but it's obvious she'll soon warm up to her comrades as the evil plot moves forward to endanger her homeland.

Sudeki's gameplay is a mix of RPG elements (levelling up, talking to townspeople, upgrading equipment) and realtime action. As Tal or Buki you fight in close, mixing it up with enemies using deadly combos and superattacks. As Elco or Ailish, the perspective switches from the usual 3rd person view to a first-person perspective very much like a shooter. Bolstering attacks are special Skill Attacks which are both graphically flashy and incredibly damaging. Sometimes you'll play as one character, but often and into the game you'll have heroes in groups of two to four. You'll only directly control one, while the rest are handled by the CPU AI (whose behavior and patterns you can tweak). Basically though, you'll probably find yourself babysitting your CPU allies since they tend to get overwhelmed by enemies.

So far, Sudeki seems to be a straight-up game... it's pretty linear; almost painfully so. There's always a map with an arrow to guide you to your next destination, and the game pretty much points the way to times when you need to use a special talent, such as Ailish's ability to dispel illusions, Elco's jet pack or Buki's climbing skills. Sorta like RPG for Dummies. Hmm.

Anyway, the game looks pretty good, with hi-res graphics, anime-ish characters and lush places to explore. It's still not as lively or as deep as better RPGs though. The voice acting is a bit on the down side, with Tal sounding like he's reading from a script, and Elco making bad Antonio Banderas impressions throughout. I'd mark it at just adequate.

With good RPGs in short supply on the Xbox, I'd say that Sudeki isn't really half bad. It looks and plays well, but nowhere near the caliber of more serious RPGs. But then again, it has a scantily-clad cat girl so I like it. Hoho...

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