Sudeki

"It's not fair!" If you are a fan of role-playing games (or RPG for short) like me; then you know that the Xbox system just doesn't have a lot of them. Just look what the other rival systems have (Final Fantasy X-2, Tales of Symphonia), eh? Sure, there was the awesome RPG Knights of the Old Republic for the Xbox, but we can't play that game forever and we're hungry for more. It's taken a while, but Microsoft's Sudeki is here to fill in that void. This beautiful looking game mixes both the adventure of a long quest with action-oriented combat. This could either be the game that we have been waiting for, or just another missed opportunity for RPG fans.

The story of Sudeki takes place in the fantasy world of Haskilia. The citizens of this world have lived in peace for many years, but a mysterious army with the power to blacken the sky has started a vicious war. Things have become dire and it's not uncommon to see a landscape littered with blood and corpses (which is why the game is rated Mature). Four unique heroes are ready to defend their homelands from this deadly army, but things are not as simple as good versus evil, and you need to discover the truth. This story can move kind of slowly at first, but the adventure still has a wide range of characters to meet so things never get too stale.

To survive in this unstable world you need to build up the perfect soldiers. Sudeki features a great level up system where the player gets to choose the options they want to upgrade, if you want to increase your strength in favour of magic then that's up to you. It's a fun and addictive way to put your own personal mark on the game play. You also have a great range of characters to play as too. Your two melee characters are great for stringing combos together and doing heavy strikes, while the two other projectile users are great fighting at a distance via First Person perspective. The game has great controls so it's easy to use strikes, magic, and items on the fly, but it's not all good.

Since Sudeki uses a real time battle system, you really have to mash away at the buttons to get anywhere. You can use spells and powerful summon strikes as well by hitting the СY' button, but this only slows down the action and there is still that danger of getting hit. This system is fine when you are fighting alone but later in the game when you are controlling a party, the action gets really confusing. For example: when all of the heroes quickly get surrounded by a dozen or so enemies, it's easy to lose sight of what's actually going on in all the chaos.

One of Sudeki's strongest selling points is the game's stunning graphics. Even though this game was made in the UK, the developers made sure it had a real Japanese anime feel to it. Like in Square's Final Fantasy series; the stylist girls are both cute and half naked, plus the guys are real metro-sexuals (that is guys who care what they look like) too. It's a little too gratuitous when you see a girl in a skintight outfit trying to save the world, but that's fantasy for ya! This game also has beautiful and well-coloured environments with only a few of the combat scenes that are a bit on the dull side. Another impressive thing about Sudeki is that it has a lot of spoken dialogue and each person has his or her own unique accent. There is some over-acting, and I would have liked more soundtracks during the game play, but what is here is well above average.