“Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” A saying that you will come to understand and, in a devious way, love. Soul Sacrifice proves to show the consequences of every action you choose in order to wield the power you so want.
The game is played through a third-person perspective and right from the start you are plunged into a world that is terrorized by chaos.
What Is The Story About?
You are a slave to a sorcerer named Magusar, who is the blood-hungry ruler in this tale. You are about to be sacrificed. That is, until you come across a talking book named Librom. Through it, you are able to relive the past encounters between monsters and powerful sorcerers, including Magusar himself.
Your mission is to destroy the evil sorcerer Magusar. Librom helps you gain this feat by having you teach yourself through the stories within. And through him, you will become powerful by obtaining spells and offerings to change your fate. Whether that be through sacrificing the monsters or even allies that you come across, or saving them.
How Do I Use This Power?
Through sacrificing your body or offering items that you’ve collected from killing monsters, you can unleash devastating attacks. However, you may only sacrifice or offer something so many times. Any type of body part can only be sacrificed once for extremely powerful attacks (called Black Rites), which cause devastating side effects. For example, if you were to sacrifice your skin, your defenses are cut in half permanently.
As for the items you collect, they can only be offered so many times before they are used up and destroyed. The only way to replenish your body or offerings are through obtaining Lacrima. Lacrima is gained through wiping the tears from Librom’s eye, and you only obtain so much each time.
How Is The Multiplayer?
Multiplayer is quite entertaining in this great title. You can create a room or join other players around the world to defeat bosses or help on missions that you encounter in the pages of Librom. There is no direct chat however, but it does offer preset text options in order to communicate with your fellow sorcerers.
What Are The Controls Like?
Throughout the game you will come to find it is quite easy to cast your spells that you’ve collected. With an easy to see user interface, there isn’t a need for button mashing. You assign your offerings to three of the face buttons (square, triangle, circle) and attack with what you have equipped. With a quick tap of the R button, you swap to your secondary load out which is also assigned to the same three keys. Essentially, giving you six slots to equip your offerings to.
However, a few of the controls are quite sketchy. Most often while in battle you will miss your attack due to the targeting system and will have to recharge up your spell. In my own thoughts however, I see this as less of a hindering, and more of a challenge.
What Is The Game’s Downfall?
Although you hold a great game in your hands, its downfall occurs in the repetition and the enemies you face. Throughout the game you will be grinding away on the same four monsters (they have different forms however) in order to become stronger. The bosses are abundant but you do face them repeatedly. Think of this game as a cousin to the smash hit Monster Hunter. Where you grind, grind, and grind again to get the things you want.
All in all however, the good outweighs the bad and pushes itself with a rewarding playthrough. My rating for this title is a solid 7 out of 10 with an extra smiley face for effort. If you’ve played this already, let me know what you think so far in the comments below! If not, I’ll answer the questions to those of you who are still interested in the game!
