Yes, I write long reviews. Unfortunately I'll probably remember something I forgot or want to change something somewhere in there at some point, but I'll be too lazy to do it at the point I realize it. Feel free to ask any questions though.
Anyone who enjoys the older SNES type games may very well enjoy this. It’s a definitely love or hate type game though. I’d try and recommend at least renting it or picking it up for $20 assuming it doesn’t become impossible to find since it’s by a first time studio. If the game ever gets re-released with fixes (unlikely), I’m going to have to strongly recommend it however.
I tried to be as honest as possible all things considered.
Remember those old retro SNES Role-Playing Games from the 90’s? You know, the ones such as Chrono Trigger, Lufia, Final Fantasy and many others. We’ve always revered them as classics and often prestige them higher than the games of today. Can this newly released game from a brand new unknown developer bring back the nostalgia from the good old days or will it be broken in two from the weight of the classics that it is bound to be compared to.
Black Sigil starts as plain and cliché as just about every single RPG game that we have seen over the past two decades. You have Kairu, the main character, who was born without the ability to use magic in a magic satiated land of Bel Lenora. During the past war against the Curse Bearers, he was adopted by the Duke and is raised in an academy with his step sister, Aurora. Everywhere Kairu goes, he receives nothing but scorn and hostility from those around him. Despite that he trudges on in hopes of one day being able to pull out some latent magic ability that he and his adopted family thinks he may have inside of him. However, things take a turn for the worse very quickly and Kairu finds himself with Aurora in a new land unbeknownst to them.
The dialogue throughout the story and world itself is pretty well written overall and quite engaging. You have to pay attention to what random NPCs say or else you may very well miss out on side quests where an NPC mentions something trivial, but then later on another NPC will end up connecting back to that NPC through a dialogue connection. On top of that NPCs also help give the world a feeling that it’s pretty alive considering the graphical theme the developer decided to go with. Sure it may not feel alive in the way that Rabanastre does in Final Fantasy XII, but it does what many games fail to accomplish by making the NPCs feel a little less random and placed there just to make the game look less empty.
Characters themselves are pretty enjoyable with their dialogue being fairly witty and humorous at times. They have somewhat fleshed out back-stories, but the developers really could have done more on them. Especially one optional character in particular who I have yet to hear any real back-story about and neither has anybody else seemed to of found much story on him. Despite that they could have been fleshed out more, I found the characters quite enjoyable and didn’t really feel any hatred welling up inside of me much like Star Ocean: The Last Hope did.
Actual gameplay on the other hand could use some work and makes this game fall short of being something that could have been great. While running around towns, there isn’t much of a problem as towns aren’t really large to the point where you feel over or underwhelmed. Walking around on the overworld is a bit more problematic however. This is mainly due to the fact there is no ability to run on the overworld and that you will get into battle every 1 to 10 steps, usually it’s not the higher end of the range. This leads to a lot of encounters in the overworld and while you’re exploring dungeons.
Going in depth with battles is a little tricky to properly describe. You have an action bar that will fill up over time, in real time. During this period you basically can’t do anything and this makes the game very slow at the beginning. Once you begin leveling up and your speed stat increases, it becomes a little less problematic. So once a characters turn is available, they are able to select one of four choices from the menu which are attack, skills, combos and items.
Normally I wouldn’t need to talk about the attack button, but this game is rather different than most in the way it conducts its battles. It’s a bit like Lunar, so when you attack you will have the character run towards the enemy to attack them if they don’t possess any long range weapons and of course each character is stuck into their own weapon type. So some characters will need to maneuver around the battlefield using the game AI to reach the enemy. For the most part this is satisfactory and does a good job of it, however, there’s one map in particular where a character can get stuck but thankfully only appears in a single dungeon. Other than that you’ll need to watch character position. A close range character that can’t get close to an enemy is nearly useless outside of a few select skills. Using a lot of skills or combos all the time can be a big drain since you encounter battles so frequently and thus you will likely be forced to run from battle a lot by holding down the B button. Something the game forgot to explain in the game and manual. Thus many others reviewers probably quit the game in frustration due to the high encounter rate
Next we have skills and combos which I briefly mentioned. Skills are broken up to into two kinds, magic and abilities. Each has its own status effect against it with mute blocking magic and cripple blocking abilities. You’ll have up to a combined eight total per every character and each one isn’t learned at a specific level. Combos are much the same with up to four per character duo. Each character will need to learn their appropriate skills and then spend time with another character in battle to learn a combination skill between them. There are a few combo skills and skills from a certain character that will need to be found through side quests. On top of that there is an optional character that has different skills and combo skills based on its equipment.
Items are also slightly different by making characters equip up to four. Then on top of that, different characters cannot equip the same exact item, making you think of whom to give what to. In actual battle though, you can’t go on using items endlessly. Lets say you have 80 healing potions in your inventory, but that specific battle you’ll only be able to use up to six of them. It makes things a little more strategic in the early to mid-early game. However late game there’s less need for items, unless you aren’t going for all the side stuff the game has to offer while at the same time running away most battles.
Another thing you can do in battle that I should mention is manually move your characters with the use of the L button on your DS. This will allow you to properly position character and not let it all rely on the AI to move characters in or out of choke spots on the battle maps. A near thing this game offers in terms of battles is that the maps you battle on are randomized per each area. Meaning there is a set of around 4 maps maybe more that will be randomly chosen. This way you aren’t battling the same way every single time, slightly breaking up the conundrum of frequent battles. Granted if you’re like me, you will end up running from a majority of battles as it’s mostly a waste of SP and time to fight all the time.
Graphically the game fares well for the type of theme they were going for. The towns are beautifully drawn in 16-bit pixel art and not just some copy from Final Fantasy VI like many people thought through the screenshots before the game was released. Dungeons themselves are well drawn and put together with plenty of variation, especially with puzzles. Unfortunately while the dungeons feel around the perfect length, the high encounter rate will make them feel about two to three times longer than they really are. The great thing about towns and dungeons is the amount of extra content they put into them. What I mean by that is the amount of secret areas found throughout these places and side quests you’re able to do.
While so far I’ve mostly praised the game so far, I feel I need to address the games actual issues. First off when you’re playing through the game, the game can freeze at any moment making you lose all your progress since your last check point. There’s no actual guarantee it will actually freeze on you, but the chances of it happening once or twice I think are pretty large throughout the duration of the entire game. Next there are a ton of minor glitches you are likely to find throughout the game, whether you notice them or not. Some of them are things like menus having the wrong text, which is fixed by reloading. Continuing on you may run into some during battle, some of which may force you to reset your DS. Like one particular encounter map, it’s possible for a character to get stuck in a certain position and just continuously exhaust their turn for the rest of the battle attempting to reach an enemy or on a characters turn their action menu won’t pop up or it will and you won’t be able to select anything.
There are also a few other oddities like talking to an NPC who will leave the room, but when you try and exit the room you suddenly can’t or talking to an NPC only to have them look at you and then turn back around without a single text window popup. I’ve also had two issues where entire sequences were skipped entirely near the end of the game for whatever strange reason. Then you have sound effects that are reused pretty often which for the most part isn’t a big deal, but when the game puts you into battle there is no transition difference between battling and walking into a new area.
In the end, the game itself I find pretty fun. However there are numerous issues throughout the game, along side the high encounter rate that really detract from the actual game. There are numerous times that I had also felt the game could have explained things better, such as the random status effects that Kairu will have going into battles. It’s storyline related, but they never really explained the reason, just made very subtle hints towards it. Despite these issues, there will be people like myself who will still enjoy the game. Studio Archcraft did a decent job for their very first game, but if they want the next one to sell well, they will need to step it up a notch in game testing and will hopefully finish out some odds and ends so less stuff is up to player interpretation.
Overall the game will run you anywhere from 35 to 45 hours on your first playthrough more than likely. Due to the games problems however I don’t think many people will really want to play it through a second time if they’re able to get through it the first time. Finally don’t even think about picking this game up if you’re really wanting this to be like Chrono Trigger or else you will end up being disappointed in the end.
8/10 Graphics – For the graphical theme they went with, it does very well. However the world map could have been better.
7/10 Story – The story is pretty well written for the most part, but fails to explain a few key things throughout the game.
8/10 Characters – Personally I found them to be a blast and fairly well explained.
6/10 Sound – The music itself was ok, but sound effects were reused a bit too often.
4/10 Gameplay – While I didn’t hate battles, it needs some improvement. However the low score is mostly due to the glitches and freezing you can encounter. Oh and the high encounter rate.
9/10 Content – There’s quite a bit of stuff to do and for the most part is pretty enjoyable. Unfortunately there were a couple minor problems with some things.
Overall 7 / 10
Anyone who enjoys the older SNES type games may very well enjoy this. It’s a definitely love or hate type game though. I’d try and recommend at least renting it or picking it up for $20 assuming it doesn’t become impossible to find since it’s by a first time studio. If the game ever gets re-released with fixes (unlikely), I’m going to have to strongly recommend it however.
I tried to be as honest as possible all things considered.
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