A fun, immersive RPG that rises above many
Summon night: Swordcraft Story is about a "Craftknight", who is named by you (although if you choose not to the default name is Cleru, for future reference) who is entering in a competition to fill an empty position to become a "Craftlord", which is basically the "knights of the round table" of Craftknights. Cleru meets various characters on his way whom he befriends and rivals, while trying to work his way up the competitive ladder to becoming a Craftlord. Your characters father was deemed a hero and was also a Craftlord, so the pressure is on!
The most unique feature of this game is the battle system. When you experience a random encounter (which will happen A LOT) you go from a top-down view, to a side-scrolling view, battling enemies much like you would in a castlevania game. Battling is fun, to say the very least. I didn't even figure out I could run away from battles (trying to walk off screen causes this) until half-way through the game. The battle system runs fluidly too, which is a big plus. You can encounter up to 4 enemies at once, which can become tedious if you get caught in the middle.
You can equip up to 3 weapons at once, and may have one accessory equipped at a time. While in battle, you can use the L button to toggle through the 3 weapons, and the R button to toggle through items/magic, not that magic does much of anything... The lack of effective magic is a minus for this game, you have a healing spell that is very effective, and you can add attributes to your weapons during battle, not that THAT matters, because you'll be fine anyways.
The characters are pretty bold, which I like. There isn't too much dialog, this is preferred because you get enough dialog to understand what you need to understand, then you go along with the game.
A fun aspect of this game is that there is no buying of weapons or armor. Instead, you make every weapon you receive. Each day your master will give you a new sword technique, and will give you new techniques for other sorts of weapons as you make them. You then have to go to the mine area and defeat monsters and search around to find materials to make your weapon with. The system works very well and its a joy to try and collect every type of technique to create weapons ( some techniques aren't so easy to obtain).
The game is split into several days, each with its own set of events, and about half of them ending in tournament battles. In a tournament battle, you are pitted against another Craftknight, seeking the position of Craftlord. You can defeat him/her in one of two ways. You can defeat them via HP depletion, or you can break their weapon. Your weapon has an HP level, as well as you (dont worry the HP level is replenished after every battle automatically) your weapon loses durability from hitting enemies or blocking. you lose more for blocking, though. If you manage to break your opponents weapon, you then gain the technique to create their weapon, which is a very nice perk, and reason to try and break a weapon as opposed to a person.
The game looks splendid as far as graphics go. Cleru is a decent size on the screen, allowing you to see just enough of your surroundings to make decisions about where to go in the mining area, and yet still manage to hit an occasional dead end. The characters retain a pseudo-3d-yet-2d model, much like the characters of Golden Sun. Everything just seems to seep charm, the colors are nice and scenes are beautiful throughout the game.
My biggest problem with the game, is that it is too short. While I've logged a bit over twenty hours in the game, it took a little over 11 hours to beat. The game ends like a car going 70 into a brick wall. I enjoyed this game alot and did not want it to be over, the charm is its replay value i suppose.
Nevertheless, Summon Night: Swordcraft Story is a very solid, relatively short RPG for the GBA, that definitely is worth a play through at least once. the charming characters and graphics will submerse you into their world, and you'll like what you see, while it lasts.