Review #267: Soul Sacrifice

 It's good for the soul.

 I'm gonna call a spade a spade and tell it like it is, this is a Monster Hunter clone. There's a very vocal minority that gets angry at the term, mostly Vita users, and likely because they can't stand the Monster Hunter franchise not gracing the system. Mind you, 'Monster Hunter clone' is not a derogatory term in any way, but I digress. Soul Sacrifice puts a very original spin on the formula, that might not appeal to everyone, but you can't blame it for trying.

 Here's the gist of it, the world has been destroyed by a tyrant named Magusar, and you are next on his sacrifice list. As you lay inside your cage, a talking book presents itself to you, offering to share the story written on its pages about someone that used to know Magusar. But relieving these stories, or rather memories, you will become stronger in the real world, until you feel confident enough to challenge Magusar and earn your freedom, and maybe, just maybe save the world. For a game of this genre, there's a lot of very intricate, deep lore, if you are into it, and the story offers quite a few surprises. That said, all three endings are kind of a downer, which kinda fits the game's theme. Or you could get the updated rerelease, Soul Sacrifice Delta, which adds a few happy endings.

 The game functions a bit differently than most Monster Hunter clones, for instance, instead of using weapons, you use spells, but you don't earn them by slaying monsters, technically. Y'see, spells are tied to the quests and not the monster, so if you want a particular spell, you have to fulfill a particular mission, and sometimes earn a particular rank on said quest. You don't harvest enemy parts, instead, in order to upgrade your spells you need to fuse multiple copies of the same spell. Sadly, I found out that this makes the game a bit more grindy than its peers. Sure, sometimes waiting for that particular rare drop to materialize is a pain in the butt, but here you'll need a ton of copies of the same spell if you want to upgrade the damage output.

 You also have to be careful in how you use your spells, as they have limited uses per fight. You can, however, restore a few uses by using certain elements in the environment or by sacrificing monsters, boss fights usually have a surplus of smaller baddies so that you can restore your spells. If you use up a spell, it will 'break', requiring 'lacrima', which is earned after completing quests, to restore. A plus to the spell system is that you can bring up to six spells with you, so you can be pretty flexible on how you go about fights. For as many spells as the game offers, most of them are different element clones of others, so there's not quite as many as they seem to be. Then there are the 'rites', which are extremely powerful spells that can only be used in dire straits, in which you must pay some kind of prince(Hence the game's title), maybe you sight, which prevents you from seeing which spells you have assigned to each slot, or your skin, which halves your defense. There's only a few of these, about eight, and their side effects can only be 'cured' by using Lacrima.

 The game's title also alludes to sacrificing your enemies. After you defeat an enemy, you can either Save them, and restore a little health, or sacrifice them and restore your spells. There's also two different gauges, a blue one that fills while saving enemies and a red one that fills while sacrificing enemies, these gauges are your 'experience points', raising your Sacrifice levels make you stronger, while raising your Save levels enhance your defense. There's a combined maximum level of 100, so you can customize your character in a way. Want a glass cannon? Go 1/99, but maybe you want some defense as well, so 25/75 might be the way to go.

 Missions are divided in two: Story Missions and Side Missions. Story Missions can only be played in Single player, and you are usually aided by a CPU ally. Side Missions can be played online with other players, or you can take up to two CPU allies. They are pretty dumb, but they can divert the enemy's attention, so it ain't all that bad, plus, they can revive you if you fall in battle. All in all, there's a ton of missions, and they can get pretty hard later down the road. There's also a bunch of free downloadable content, which I'd praise, except for the fact that it weights 100 kbs or so. Why have cart-locked content is beyond me.

 I found Soul Sacrifice to be a great alternative to Monster Hunter, even if I, personally, would rather play a more traditional hunting game, like MH itself or God Eater. While I'm sure some people will love it, I just didn't care for the spell system, and as many different spells there are, there weren't quite as many that fit my playstyle. And I appreciated the work that went into the story, while the story itself isn't particularly mind blowing, quite a bit of care went into crafting the lore behind it creature, and I can respect that. That said, you are probably better of getting the updated rerelease, Soul Sacrifice Delta.
 7.0 out of 10