Not Vita's Killer App But Still Great (Detailed Review)
Story 7/10
The world has been taken over by the evil fiend Magusar, prisoners are being sacrificed daily, all hope is lost. Where do you sit among this chaos? Well your not sitting very well. You are a prisoner of Magusar. An innocent mage about to become subject to his undying hunger for torture and death. Luckily, you are not on your own. Right before your are up next in line to be sacrificed by Magusar you meet Librom. Librom is a book. He isn't just any book though. Librom is a live, talking book. Inside Librom is a collection of stories and past battles between Magusar, a mysterious sorcerer and the archfiends. Librom informs you to read him in order to have a chance of escaping your current situation. As you read the stories you begin to gain the powers that the sorcerer has inside the book as well as begin to understand Magusar and how he has become this terrible tyrant. Don't expect to see beautiful cutscenes though. Unfortunately the whole story is told via text. So yes, you are literally going to be reading the book. On the bright side for all you gamers who don't like to read while you play, it has pictures as well. The story can becoming confusing at times and it is hard to understand completely what is going on especially without a visual aid. There are tons of characters you will meet along the way and allies to help you during battle. Overall the story is well told and obviously Marvelous AQL has put a lot of thought into the plot itself.
Gameplay 8/10
As the title states this game is about Sacrificing Souls or if you so choose saving them. Similar to Monster Hunter you select quest or pacts (as they are called in this game) and there is usually an Archfiend that you have to sacrifice or save. There are tons of spells you can use and upgrade to fit your playstyle. You can play up and close and use axes or swords or you can keep your distance and use projectiles. Even though there are tons of spells, the spells are not what makes the gameplay the unique experience it is. It's all about your Divine/Life and Dark/Magic levels. After you kill an enemy you are given a choice to sacrifice the enemy of save it. Sacrificing increases your magic levels making you deal much more damage. Obviously saving enemies does the opposite giving you more life but costing you your damage output. This is where Soul Sacrifice stands out. There are so many different ways and types of characters you can have. There are a total of 100 levels you can gain but they must be split between your Magic and Life levels. For example if you are level 70 in Magic your highest Life level can only be 30 and vice versa. The difference between your two levels will also determine what sigils you can equip. Sigils are basically stat boosters. You earn sigils by killing enemies as well as finding soul and life shards throughout the current map your playing on.
Soul Sacrifice is all about tradeoffs. If you want a extremely strong character with a ton of DPS don't expect to also be able to take a hit. It's all about finding that perfect Magic and Life level to fit how you play. You will also get Black Rites. Black Rites are extremely powerful spells you can use. As stated before, trade offs play a big role and the Black Rites offer the biggest risk reward factor of the game. For example using Infernus will cause your player to burn off all his skin and unleash a massive spell killing all basic enemies and doing massive damage to the Archfield if the spell doesn't' kill him as well. The trade off being you will lose half of your defense until you pay to get it back. The form of currency you use will be Lacrima which you can get from Librom after every battle.
There is also a multiplayer aspect to Soul Sacrifice as well. You can join your friends online to help tackle some of those harder pacts. The online experience is really no different than playing singleplayer. Well except your AI allies won't take your sacrifices. XP is shared online so you will have to share the XP with your friends. Pacts can sometimes get really hard and frustrating so it is great this game has this feature because the AI allies can sometimes be really aggravating. Combat is really fast paced and smooth in both singleplayer and multiplayer. I have yet to actually run into a bad game lag-wise. Soul Sacrifice gets it right in the gameplay department and you will surely have tons of fun hacking and slashing those pesky archfiends.
Graphics & Sound 8/10
Soul Sacrifice is easily one of the best looking games of the Vita. The few cutscenes that you do get to see look absolutely stunning. Soul Sacrifice really shows off the power of the Vita. The scale of the maps aren't that big so you don't really have a huge world to look at and enjoy but the small few maps that are available are gorgeous and incredibly detailed. Colors are not that bright and don't pop out at you but that isn't bad because the game is meant to have a darker tone to it. I did not experience any graphical hiccups such as framerate drops or freezes at all during my playthrough. The score and voice acting isn't as great unfortunately. The score isn't memorable and doesn't necessarily get you immersed into what is going on. After a few hours you will get tired of hearing your allies say the exact same two phrases over and over again. The voice acting from Librom as well as the narrator of the book stands out though.
Playtime & Replayability 9/10
Soul Sacrifice is a extremely long game. I have just hit my 60 hour mark and I still have a couple dozen pacts to unlock and even more to actually beat. This game is very addicting. I found myself losing track of time on countless occasions. After you beat the main story arc there are more packs as well as spells to unlock. Plan on spending tons of hours in the game.
Final Verdict 8/10
+ Great Gameplay
+ Gorgeous Visuals
+ Trade Offs
- Lack of Cutscenes
- Few Maps
- Bad AI
Closing Comments
While Soul Sacrifice is not the killer app Vita owners have been waiting for, it is still a great, fun game that provides an alternative to gamers who are a fan of the Monster Hunter genre or RPGs in genral. There are tons of hours of gameplay as well as jaw dropping graphics. This is a unique experience and well worthy of your money. Hey it might even make you stop playing Persona 4 Golden for a while and as we all know that is not a easy thing to do.