Gaming Target - Xbox: Sudeki

Written by Ryan Genno on August 11, 2003

First Impressions: Whodeki?

I love my Xbox and all but let's face facts here: there are not too many Role Playing or Fantasy Adventure games on this green and black powerhouse and its starting to get on my nerves. The GameCube has Skies of Arcadia Legends and the Playstation2 has those popular Final Fantasy games. What do we get for Xbox? I didn't exactly go crazy for the boring first person mess of Mirrowind and Sega's Phantasy Star Online was kind of fun but it was only available through on Xbox Live service and the storylines were too generic to get into. Sure, the new Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic RPG was awesome but now we just need an old school/high quality fantasy game like a Secret of Mana to spice things up a bit. Squaresoft sadly, as no plans to release anything for the Xbox anytime soon (if at all) so it is up to the UK gaming developers at Climax to do something to please the many hardcore RPG fans out there. They are currently working away at Sudeki, a game that offers a fun bunch of characters, a deep story line, and a real time battle system. Let's see if this game can open up a whole new audience for people who are use to games like Halo?

To have a good Role Playing game, you need a good story line, right? In Sudeki you lead a team of young heroes who range from a naive but highly skilled swordsman to an underdressed Princess with purple hair who is gifted in magic. This team is called the forces of Light. It's the mission of the forces of light to protect the kingdom of Illumina from your enemies and they are of course, (wait for it) the forces of Darkness. Although the light and dark thing as been done to death in other games, the question raised here is: are the Dark forces really the evil ones? You'll have to play the game to find out.

The developers seem to like the idea of Japanese Role Playing Games because of the fantasy universe but this game will do some things differently. Sudeki has an easy to use magic system where you can do things like customize your buttons to heal on the fly if needed plus you can also team up characters to perform something called the СSpirit Summon'. Sudeki will also have a real time battle system oppose to the standard turn based system found in popular RPG's like Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior. This is both good and bad depending how you look at it. Although I can understand the reason behind not copying the turn based idea (the Сwhy beat a dead horse' approach), the Xbox doesn't even have a real turn based RPG yet and Sudeki WOULD have been the first but its not going to happen. Another thing wrong with this whole freedom in fights is that it can turn into a real mess when you're playing. I don't want this to be another Fighting Force button basher but in an awkward RPG world like the disappointing Shenmue I and II games were.

One of the advantages of having Sudeki on the Xbox is, of course the chance to see some powerful graphics. This game not only sports some well drawn and designed characters but the world of Sudeki is completely 3D and you can also expect to see some advance lighting and shadow technique to bring this world alive. There will also be spoken dialogue and lip syncing just like in Final Fantasy X.