Soul Sacrifice can be safely called one of the most depressed and gloomy games of this year. Our hero is none and nothing. Helpless and useless prisoner in a cage. Around – nothing but other cells.
The people imprisoned in them are one at a time to a suspicious look of the sorcerer, the face and hand of which are covered with many eyes – you definitely cannot hide from such a handsome man! A powerful sorcerer draws soul and consciousness from the captives. Blood in veins is crushed from screams. Fears are also the fact that sooner or later our turn will come.
There is no more world
In the cage, a scared biomass is everywhere, and someone’s bones and skulls are scattered along the floor, from the empty eye sockets of which, it seems, maggots come out. The character is so exhausted that it cannot really get to his feet, only crawls along the cell among rot and is desperately trying to crush numerous cockroaches. These are the only creatures from which he is able to take his life.
By a happy chance, one of the prisoners decides to make an escape. It turns out that he knows how to conjure a bit, but not enough to break free. Eye sorcerer instantly suppresses any attempts to escape – a presumptuous captive at several moments turns into a bloody mess, and a weighty volume accidentally lands next to the main character's camera.
[[Bullet]] Everything is very bad. Before us there were four people at least. I don't want to think about what the floor in the cage is covered at all.
The folunt comes to life, showing his amazing essence: touching his pages allows you to transfer to the memories of the owner, the once powerful magician. Having experienced episodes from the life of the author of the diary, the reader gradually learns to witchcraft and acquires special skills, with which it will be possible to confront a person who has deprived the hero of the will.
Hence our adventures in the strange and unfriendly world of Soul Sacrifice. We gradually read notes, try to take possession of new force and understand the reason why we were imprisoned in this fetid place. True, it is worth clarifying that the world on the other side of reality is much worse and more unpleasant than the most smelly cage. It’s good that the hero has a guide – a folio named Librom, in addition to the history of his owner, contains information about various monsters, local mythology and geography.
A fairy tale for the night
All the pages of the diary are impregnated with pain and suffering. Unlike Monster Hunter , Where only superficial knowledge gives about monsters (such a dragon loves to live in caves and therefore a blind, such a freak prefers to live with water bodies …), in Soul Sacrifice even a couple of pages are written about the most ordinary monster.
[Bullet]] Throw the talking book on the floor and listen to what she will say to it – separate entertainment.
Orcs here, for example, descended from cats. Pets noticed that the witchcraft power lurks in small animals, and began to hunt them, gradually acquiring magical properties. But in the end, something went wrong, they mutated into a shapeless something and became scavengers, and then went against people.
A similar situation with the bosses-behind every serious monster there is a real human tragedy in which someone inevitably succumbed to the devilish temptation.
The illegitimate daughter of one count is taken from the mother, a metal horned mask is poured for her and sent to a labyrinth for certain death. Without a native child, a woman goes crazy, and the wife of the count only exacerbates her pain, arranging her injury. A few years later, the girl still gets out of imprisonment, burning from the desire to get even with her offender.
[[Bullet]] over time of offering there are too many: the main spells are divided into several elements.
As by magic, before her, like the Grail, a miracle-cchik appears and promises to give the girl a great force, but in return demands to sacrifice something very important. The former labyrinth prisoner, blinded by a thirst for revenge, offers a native mother, who immediately, writhing in pain, turns into a disfigured ax with a distorted grimace on a blade. The daughter also befall terrible metamorphoses: her body is deformed, and a horned mask is welded to her face.
The newly -minted monster instantly brutally kills the count and his wife, but does not stop there. Mother will not return, appearance either, and therefore only remains to bring the suffering of others in an attempt to quench unusual hatred. Since then, the disfigured girl wanders around the neighborhood and kills happy families.
So, if anything, in Soul Sacrifice explains the origin of the minotaur.
It is not easy to be a sorcerer
It is on large monsters like a minotaur that wizards hunt – that is, we are with you. Our role is exclusively punitive: to cleanse the earth from filth, defeat the demons, overcome evil. To become a full -fledged sorcerer, during the rite of initiation, one has to kill other magicians, tear out and absorb the souls of sinners and, as a whole, behave decisively and cruelly.
The diary contains several stories. Side missions tell how the main character fulfilled the instructions of senior wizards, and the plot is focused on how the owner of the liberty, an already experienced magician, gradually went crazy. So we can see the two sides of the same medal.
[[Bullet]] two identical offers can be connected into one. At first, only the number of uses will grow, and then the power of the spell.
Each head of the diary is a separate set of small episodes with different tasks. Usually you need to kill a certain number of monsters or encounter a particularly large creature. During the battles, all poetry and subtle sadness disappear from the pages of the book: we conjure and kill the monsters, as in any other Action-RPG.
Strict separation into small stages is made specifically with the calculation of portable Soul Sacrifice. Unlike Monster Hunter, the tasks here are much shorter and fight with monsters for thirty to forty minutes from you. The rest of the process of destroying large creatures converges.
Bosses have attacks of attacks that change from time to time. Say, a giant cyclops with a trident who was a blacksmith in a past life, but sacrificed an eye to crawl the perfect weapon, at first very clumsy. But it can be trained in its trident, after which deadly rays will begin to beat from it.
You can choose several different tactics for the monster. It will be easier for someone to dodge the rays and rarely run up with a blow. Far battle lovers can try to break a trident – for this you need to get into the eye several times on the blade. It became completely bad and, in fact, nothing? Then it is better to look into the eyes of death and how to attach a cyclops at the moment when he heerates his weapon. So you get an attack and hold out alive a little longer.
[[Bullet]] The difficulty in Soul Sacrifice lower than in Monster Hunter, but, again, it all depends on your choice.
The above example applies not only to the cyclops, but also to the rest of the bosses. During the battle, you constantly come up with how to avoid response attacks more efficiently, you are looking for weaknesses from the monster.
Unfortunately, sooner or later to perform monotonous quests get tired. Even despite the fact that the bestiary in the game is quite extensive and the adventure list is constantly replenished with free DLC, some monotony (kill the boss, kill n enemies, collect artifacts or all of the above, but with a temporary limit) can still push away.
Fortunately, the player is forced to make decisions not only at the stage of choosing effective tactics.
Evil will defeat evil
Soul Sacrifice has no familiar gaining experience. When killing an enemy, we can make a choice: either let go of his soul, or absorb. If you choose the path of a true madman, turned on violence and power, the hero will turn into a terrifying death machine with powerful spells, if you go to the “bright” side – to the avatar of good. The positive (calling them “kind” language will not turn) wizards with witchcraft things are somewhat worse, but they are stronger than health.
It is better to decide on the style of passage in advance: a balanced approach does not work here, any “multidisciplinary” sorcerer will be mediocrity against the background of highly specialized colleagues.
[[Bullet]] Elf Queen https://sister-site.org/mr-vegas/ is one of the few bosses that looks nice enough. But her appearance should not deceive – a multi -armed woman steals children.
The more experienced the sorcerer becomes, the more his hand is transformed. Special syguel tattoos are applied to it, which improve characteristics and enhance certain types of spells (plus to protection, in the ice attack higher the chance to freeze, etc.D.).
The tattoo is opened gradually and acquire additional effects depending on the owner's worldview. Some signs are useless for “evil” characters, but they doubly work effectively for “good”.
Curses and amulets
Wizards do not draw knowledge about spells from books, but through the offering – objects charged with magic, the use of which will bring monsters a lot of pain. The blood of the martyr will allow the sorcerer to sacrifice his health, spraying the monsters with deadly scarlet liquid, and the phenix egg will make it possible to throw fire balls.
They are watching the balance here – it will not work endlessly to throw conditioned fireballs. Typically, a magical object is enough for 5-6 volleys, after which it will be able to abuse again, but at the same time it will inevitably break. In such a situation, the choice between the absorption of souls or their liberation acquires a new meaning. Evil actions slightly restore the number of use of the offers, and the good – the health supply.
[[Bullet]] Fire balloons in Soul Sacrifice hit the parabola, and it is incredibly difficult to get into a small creature.
In total, you can take up to six artifacts on the task. Ways to harm is an incredible set. The sorcerers can call sharp blades from the amulets and launch them into the enemy or call a protective barrier in front. Nearby lovers can use blades of different elements, allowing to apply reactive blows that the character of any JRPG will envy. In a word, the choice is rich, to use the entire arsenal at once in one battle. But almost every trick someday, but there will be application, useless witchcraft in Soul Sacrifice.
At the most critical moments, you can pronounce the so -called forbidden spell – to sacrifice your skin so that the enemies around it light up with a hellish flame, or part with your hand in order to entangle the monster with a busted chain and hold it while the allies beat it. The magic of this pushing is crippling the character, which is reflected in the characteristics. Without skin, passing the blows is doubly more painful, and without a hand it is impossible to draw magical power from the tattoos-sygils.
All your friends are dead
Places in which the magic can be reloaded are scattered at the levels, to call for a barrier or weapon to help – but to be an uncompromising bastard is most often more effective.
A simple example. Positive heroes can make friends. If you spare any boss, he can become an ally for you. Fight side by side with companions is much easier – they distract the attention of especially strong monsters on yourself, and at this time you can focus on the mass.
[Bullet]] Transformation into a huge cobblestone allows you to imprint in the boss a couple of times with all its might and, with some luck, bring down the attack on him.
But if one day a comrade is crippled, then you will have to decide: either take risks and spend half of your health on his treatment, or go on a cruel betrayal and throw a helpless. In the second case, not only a friend, but all the monsters at the level will pay for your unprincipled act.
As you can see, the choice is very ambiguous, especially since you can throw you yourself – evil allies will not be ceremony. If the companion expresses dissatisfaction with your excessive correctness all the way, know that it will not end with good. Summing up or quit.
Separate interest is the opportunity to sacrifice each other in a multiplayer game. Immediately rethink all the mechanics, try not to lean out again – otherwise you will not eat a boss, but your own. When there is something to lose, the sensations from the game become completely different. Thus, Soul Sacrifice reports simple morality to the player: everything must be paid for everything.
Soul Sacrifice could be called an outstanding game, if not for the fact that all the decisions you have taken can be safely changed. Although our hero sits in a cage, in his power not only to crush cockroaches, but also to rewrite a little diary. Change the appearance and floor of the sorcerer in adventures, it is easy to jump from one branch of quests to another, cancel the levels obtained, turn back the consequences from “prohibited” spells, repair broken offers, and so on. You have to pay with tears for the rewriting of the past – from time to time, Lacrim fluid is dripping from the eye of the liberty diary. You are unlikely to experience a disadvantage in lacrim, which means that if you want to act, you can act rash and impunity, which is why the importance of your choice becomes insignificant.
We would advise playing “honestly” (not to cancel our actions, to act according to the situation), but then you will miss different quests, and the very idea of “forbidden” spells suggests that you will turn effects from them back after use.
But, even despite the monotony of gameplay and the ability to change your solutions, this is one of the best games on PS vita. It has an incredible amount of content, an extremely detailed world and a bestiarization. There are projects in a similar genre on the portable console, but in comparison with Soul Sacrifice, they lose with a bang.
In the end, this is the bold manifesto of Caeii Inafune, the creator Mega Man. Inafune left Capcom , and the series was gradually abandoned. So, to some extent, Soul Sacrifice is a gloomy rethinking of the work of the Japanese game designer. What in it, that in Mega Man, you can absorb the strength of defeated bosses and sacrifice with your hand in exchange for power. You wanted an evil and cruel game? Get it. And most importantly – think: inside the book the hero is a powerful wizard, and in a cage he is a complete insignificance. Interestingly, what Soul Sacrifice about the player thinks?
Reigracy:
Cool plot:
Originality:
Easy to master:
Gameplay:
8
Graphics:
8
Sound and music:
8
Interface and management:
8
Waited?
An unpleasant game of suffering, sacrifices and sins overnight became the best Action-RPG on PS vita.
Mania rating: 8.0
"Great"
