The story was extremely basic where it only actually went somewhere in the last four or five chapters. Prior to that the game literally went around in circles accomplishing damn near nothing just so it could add in more cast to the game itself. The ending was also extremely abrupt in how they portrayed it, leaving it rather unsatisfying after finishing. Oh and to top it off, it has absolutely zero impact towards the Summon Night universe. It's literally a fan game with no meaning beyond bringing a bunch of previous game characters together.
As for the voice acting, it a wholly unimpressive, unenthusiastic and basically monotone except for a few instances. It's almost akin to Chaos Wars with how incredibly boring it felt, but not quite on that level of so bad it's actually hilarious. There was nothing I could laugh at with this one, causing me to turn the voices off in options about 3/4ths of the way through. Granted that was mostly due to other reasons unrelated to story.
The translation is still
very Vic Ireland. You've got a lot of what
I'd consider poor translation or making
an asshole into a complete and utterly terrible character. I'd also say the editing of the text was not particularly good either. Far too often I'd have to re-read things because the way it was written in a way that did not connect with me at all. Obviously I don't know what the original dialogue was, so I can't say how accurate the actual translation was, but it did not even close to right at all. It felt like the worst Vic Ireland translation from what I remember of his past works.
The graphics are more or less fine. It's a pretty colorful game in general, but that's the way the series typically is. It's nice seeing old characters in 3D as well, which to most of you would be the first time seeing them. They always use
very simple designs that convey a fair amount of personality with just the design itself.
Gameplay is more or less fine for combat. If you're flanking or attacking from their rear, you'll do more damage and they'll have less chance of hitting you/countering. Height matters too, however more than a couple steps and your magic or other ranged attacks won't be able to even attack them. I found that a bit unfortunate as I think it would've added a bit more to positioning for certain maps. For the most part though, maps were pretty bland when it came to strategy. There were even a few interesting concepts were only used a handful of times, most of which were closer to the end of the game.
Spells were somewhat bland too. For the most part it's a typical strength/weakness system. However you could learn Unitization to bring out a physical summon into battle. Although they're entirely useless. They don't seem to be able to cast spells and can only initiate normal attacks. While they're out, nobody can cast spells from that summon either. Only the one who used unitization can call them back as well, using up another turn. They'd make decent fodder if it wasn't for the fact that they cost so much MP to summon.
I think the biggest issue with the gameplay for me was the feeling of everything needing to grind outside of the main story. Fishing? Mash a button to reel in. Enough fish pulled up you get a new rank which could be a new rod or lure. Other "achievements" with fishing will net you Summonite Leaves that can grant you party skills if you collect certain combinations. They had ones that went as far as getting all fish at their maximum weight and minimum weight.
Then you've got the "Endless Domain" that I went through 1/3rd of before I stopped bothering as the perks for going through that was one Summonite Leaf per level (most of the time) and some meager experience/money that slowly went up.
Quests were somewhat interesting, but really lacked any variance to the system. Level didn't really seem to matter in that after a certain point based on the enemies level. For example if an enemy was level 20 but you were 25, you'd deal and receive the same amount of damage as a level 99 character. Anything below 25 would deal less and receive more though. Once again though, the only real reason to do these are Summonite Leaves again, much like Endless Domain and Fishing.
Cooking was entirely useless I felt as was a real grind to actually obtain anything decent. You gain recipes through fishing by earning achievements. I didn't get all of them so I can't say if later ones are useful, but I put maybe two hours into fishing and all I have to show for it was a bunch of food that restored HP and MP for minuscule amounts. What am I supposed to do with food that restores 15 or 30 MP when spells cost anywhere from 15-150? Not even counting combo spells (I forget the term used for them).
I did somewhat enjoy a few random interactions during non-story events, but due to the translation and editing those were far and few between. I just can't recommend this game at all. It's not worse than Valkyria Revolution, but I'm honestly surprised I finished it. I suppose if I didn't let the game auto-play itself to store up experience while I was doing other things, I don't think I would have. If I were to recommend a game between 5 and 6? I'd say go with 5 all the way. It's a better game in every aspect.
tl;dr I did not enjoy it and would recommend Summon Night 5 over this any day of the week.
