Reviewed on PlayStation Vita
→ January 8, 2014I have to hand it to Aksys: Sorcery Saga: Curse of the Great Curry God is more than it appears to be. Upon first glance, nothing about it seems particularly friendly to western PlayStation Vita owners. Its story is firmly planted in an understanding of Japanese culture and its obsession with curry, its roguelike qualities can mean moments of rage-fuelled frustration, and its quirky humor is, well… quirky. But Aksys saw potential in this strange little Japanese game by Compile Hearts, and the resulting translation is a tasty, if somewhat undercooked RPG that appealed to my western palate.
Our protagonist, Pupuru.
Curry is, of course, at the heart of Sorcery Saga's fairly short story campaign (about 15-30 hours depending on how quickly you progress), which revolves around a young girl named Pupuru and her attempts to keep her favorite curry shop from going out of business by recovering ingredients from dungeons. Along the way she meets both allies and enemies who are interested in finding the recipe for their own purposes, resulting in a sort of humorous race to see who can obtain the Legendary Magic Curry first.
Although it's not the most gripping tale, I found myself laughing out loud more than once at the string of crazy antics resulting from the characters constantly misunderstanding each other’s intentions while looking for the Magic Curry. Some of the humor might be a little fuzzy to western audiences who aren’t fully up on Japanese culture, but Aksys has done a good job of finding English expressions that convey some of the more tricky Japanese idioms while keeping the humor intact. And it's a good thing the laughs keep coming, because Sorcery Saga has some pretty tough dungeons to get through.
I admit I'm not a hardcore roguelike RPG player, so I appreciate that Sorcery Saga follows the rules of the notoriously difficult sub-genre without making it completely inaccessible. There are the usual roguelike features such as turn-based gameplay, the loss of all stats and most of your items if you fall in a dungeon, and randomly generated levels, but I like that Sorcery Saga allows you to restore your health points while walking around and store away extra gear while in town (to avoid losing it when you die).
The combat system (which consists of either hitting enemies with your weapon or using magical items on them) is simplistic but fun, and I like that I could keep my equipped items even if I didn't succeed, because having a strong weapon and a good shield is absolutely essential while in the more more advanced dungeons. The most beneficial feature, however, is the Curry on Demand system. It allows Pupuru to combine three ingredients together to make different curry dishes that will temporarily increase all of her stats – a real advantage in boss fights and against waves of enemies that sometimes appear out of nowhere.
I still died plenty of times in Sorcery Saga, mostly because the developer is terrible at explaining what things are and how they work. It also just assumes you’re already familiar with roguelike games and never bothers to stress things like the importance of sticking with one weapon and shield throughout the campaign in order to build up their stats. I had to learn the hard way that not having beefed-up equipment makes it nearly impossible to get past a dungeon, especially since everything from inventory to magic to the amount of time you spend on a floor level-grinding is severely limited. Worse, magical items can randomly fail in battle, which struck me as an unnecessarily cruel waste.
Time to fight!
There are also some gameplay frustrations that aren’t intentional roguelike challenges. The first and most noticeable is Kuu. This cute little rabbit... thing... is a big part of Sorcery's Saga's story, and is supposed to help out while exploring dungeons. When he does, Kuu is a priceless asset: he'll help take down enemies, store items for you, and beam out powerful spells. But a lot of the time he'll simply wander off on his own, forcing you to chase him down – or worse, rescue him from powerful enemies he's gone and picked a fight with. Kuu's AI is just plain faulty, which makes an already challenging RPG harder than it needs to be. There are other noticeable glitches as well, such as lag in dungeons, the fact that Pupuru's health won't always auto-restore when she's walking around (or decrease when she’s poisoned – an unexpected benefit!).
Even in the face of glitches, it's hard to stay mad at a game so full of silly charm. Not only does Sorcery Saga feature a light-hearted story and likable characters, it boasts vibrant graphics, great Japanese voice acting, and a surprisingly good soundtrack. Add to this the ability to try and conquer more challenges after the credits role and a bunch of silly nonsequiturs between the characters that you can watch whenever you find a rare item in a dungeon, and Sorcery Saga manages to make up for most of its problems.
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→ January 8, 2014I have to hand it to Aksys: Sorcery Saga: Curse of the Great Curry God is more than it appears to be. Upon first glance, nothing about it seems particularly friendly to western PlayStation Vita owners. Its story is firmly planted in an understanding of Japanese culture and its obsession with curry, its roguelike qualities can mean moments of rage-fuelled frustration, and its quirky humor is, well… quirky. But Aksys saw potential in this strange little Japanese game by Compile Hearts, and the resulting translation is a tasty, if somewhat undercooked RPG that appealed to my western palate.
Our protagonist, Pupuru.Curry is, of course, at the heart of Sorcery Saga's fairly short story campaign (about 15-30 hours depending on how quickly you progress), which revolves around a young girl named Pupuru and her attempts to keep her favorite curry shop from going out of business by recovering ingredients from dungeons. Along the way she meets both allies and enemies who are interested in finding the recipe for their own purposes, resulting in a sort of humorous race to see who can obtain the Legendary Magic Curry first.
Although it's not the most gripping tale, I found myself laughing out loud more than once at the string of crazy antics resulting from the characters constantly misunderstanding each other’s intentions while looking for the Magic Curry. Some of the humor might be a little fuzzy to western audiences who aren’t fully up on Japanese culture, but Aksys has done a good job of finding English expressions that convey some of the more tricky Japanese idioms while keeping the humor intact. And it's a good thing the laughs keep coming, because Sorcery Saga has some pretty tough dungeons to get through.
I admit I'm not a hardcore roguelike RPG player, so I appreciate that Sorcery Saga follows the rules of the notoriously difficult sub-genre without making it completely inaccessible. There are the usual roguelike features such as turn-based gameplay, the loss of all stats and most of your items if you fall in a dungeon, and randomly generated levels, but I like that Sorcery Saga allows you to restore your health points while walking around and store away extra gear while in town (to avoid losing it when you die).
The combat system (which consists of either hitting enemies with your weapon or using magical items on them) is simplistic but fun, and I like that I could keep my equipped items even if I didn't succeed, because having a strong weapon and a good shield is absolutely essential while in the more more advanced dungeons. The most beneficial feature, however, is the Curry on Demand system. It allows Pupuru to combine three ingredients together to make different curry dishes that will temporarily increase all of her stats – a real advantage in boss fights and against waves of enemies that sometimes appear out of nowhere.
I still died plenty of times in Sorcery Saga, mostly because the developer is terrible at explaining what things are and how they work. It also just assumes you’re already familiar with roguelike games and never bothers to stress things like the importance of sticking with one weapon and shield throughout the campaign in order to build up their stats. I had to learn the hard way that not having beefed-up equipment makes it nearly impossible to get past a dungeon, especially since everything from inventory to magic to the amount of time you spend on a floor level-grinding is severely limited. Worse, magical items can randomly fail in battle, which struck me as an unnecessarily cruel waste.
Time to fight!There are also some gameplay frustrations that aren’t intentional roguelike challenges. The first and most noticeable is Kuu. This cute little rabbit... thing... is a big part of Sorcery's Saga's story, and is supposed to help out while exploring dungeons. When he does, Kuu is a priceless asset: he'll help take down enemies, store items for you, and beam out powerful spells. But a lot of the time he'll simply wander off on his own, forcing you to chase him down – or worse, rescue him from powerful enemies he's gone and picked a fight with. Kuu's AI is just plain faulty, which makes an already challenging RPG harder than it needs to be. There are other noticeable glitches as well, such as lag in dungeons, the fact that Pupuru's health won't always auto-restore when she's walking around (or decrease when she’s poisoned – an unexpected benefit!).
Even in the face of glitches, it's hard to stay mad at a game so full of silly charm. Not only does Sorcery Saga feature a light-hearted story and likable characters, it boasts vibrant graphics, great Japanese voice acting, and a surprisingly good soundtrack. Add to this the ability to try and conquer more challenges after the credits role and a bunch of silly nonsequiturs between the characters that you can watch whenever you find a rare item in a dungeon, and Sorcery Saga manages to make up for most of its problems.
More...
