Playing ping pong with enemies? Yes please!!
Fiel's village is being attacked by Envoys sent by the Gods. He and his little sister Dorothy tried to escape, but all the children in the village were captured and Fiel got into a fight with Almira, an Oz, a top warrior of the Gods. After knocking some sense into her, she finally realizes what she has done and figures out that the Gods are manipulating the Oz and what the Gods really are plotting. Fiel and Almira knocked some sense into the last of the Oz, Leon, and the three of them and Dorothy's weird talking devilish pet-cat Toto, goes on a journey to find Dorothy and stop the Gods.
The story is quite standard, young mysterious boy with inhuman powers gonna save the world from cruel Gods. Grapchis are nice and decent too. The FMVs are quite unique with soft colours and plenty of dymanic. There are quite the few Castlevania (3D ones) elements in the game such as the music, 3D and grapcics. The voice acting is quite decent and works very well on the characters.
Sadly Sword of Etheria has this "mission" system, which only allows you to save after of before a mission. If you die, you have to run through the whole level again! Luckily you can start from a boss battle if you die during the fight. Alas, it's quite annoying to be unable to save at that moment. This whole mission deal ruins the flow of the game a little. In between the missions you're on this status screen where you can upgrade your things and create items of the Etheria you've collected. There's even a practice option which is very nice to fool around in to practice on the commands, comboes and the functions of the controller.
The battlesystem is something fun, new and unique. When stars appear above the monster you're able to bash is up in the air and send it to one of your team mates. Then that team mate will pass the monster back to you or the third man. You can keep it going til the monster is dead, but beware of the other monsters attacking while doing this. The comboes will build up this power bar on the right of the screen. When it's up in level 1, the character you're playing will be able to use a special attack. A duo attack at level 2 and something really flashy with everyone at level 3! The power bar drops very fast, to keep it up you'll have to play more monster "ping pong". You'll gain extra etheria or life after killing monsters with the special attacks.
It's all about teamwork in this game it's game over when all of you are dead at the same time. You're albe to recover your HP while down by repeatably presing the x or other buttons. The more you die during the game, you'll gain less hp by each recovery and the healing process will slow down. Only the character you're playing will be able to help them recover fast by pressing the R and L buttoms close to them. So keep an close eye on your team mates!
The music is quite nice, if you're familliar with the Castlevania games you'll be able to recognize the composers feel in the music. The BGMs can sound very hectic and loud at times, so it's a good move to adjust the sound settings in the game and on your TV. I have yet to complete this game and is pained by not being able to save during boss battles! The game was a little more difficult than I expected and you'll turn out to depend very much of your team mates which ain't too easy at times. Sword of Etheria is a good game, alas I really don't like that the game is divided into chapters and missions. The game is plenty of fun and enoyable. OZ is quite suitable for people who like games such as Castlevania, Chaos Legion and Devil May Cry.