Soulbringer Review

RPGs these days...

Soulbringer is defiantly one of the best games I have seen in some time. If anyone got confused because I compared it both to Infinity engine games and Darkstone, let me just clarify that the game is much more like, let's say Torment, but its visuals significantly resemble Darkstone. Hence, we have real FRP in full 3D, with great characters and a highly advanced, but barely usable combat system.

The game takes place in the world of Rathena. After the Dark Warlock had been slain by Berek Silvermane, the fifth age of magic comes to an end. As the years go by, and the people recuperate from the damage taken, they start settling and founding towns. The crown of rule is forged to unite the peoples and Berek Silvermane uses magic to summon the ancient city of Galdon Thor from the bottom of the sea and claim it as his capital. Under his wise and just rule, the humanity flowers and prospers. Berek calls forth the leaders of the five nations to create the League of Six. Whilst experimenting with powerful magic, the league accidentally summons Daemons. The Daemons take control of their bodies and the most powerful Daemon - Skorn takes the body of Berek Silvermane. Humanity suffers the reign of the revenants for three generations until Horath; one of Skorn's warlocks starts an open rebellion. He finds allies in Talendrah and Thardolin, two other warlocks, and the three of them train a young boy gifted in magic, later to be known as the Harbinger. The Harbinger founds Hex a magic castle capable of resisting Skorn's attacks, and commands his campaign from there. As wins one battle after another he finally reaches Galdon Thor itself. In an epic fight between the Harbinger and Skorn the Galdon Thor sinks and neither Harbinger, Skorn nor rest of the Revenants have ever been seen again. The warlocks found three empires and used the Crown of Rule as a symbol of their unity. The empires flourish for seven generations to come. One day the bloodline Of Horath suddenly ceases to be, cities are torn down and ruined, brigands and undead pillage what is left. Galdon Thor emerges from the ocean once again. As the second age of strife falls upon the lands of Rathena, a young man comes to Madrigal in pursuit of his uncle...

I must admit this game has really nice fantasy atmosphere, mostly provided by the graphics and background music. The graphics are generally beautiful and the 16 bit software 3D engine works great and with almost no lag even on some slower engines. The engine also supports 3D. I did have a couple of objections, though: first most of the terrain and background textures have pretty low resolution which doesn't make them look any better, and some object edges seem too sharp at times. In any case, when one concentrates on the adventuring problems these tiny imperfections will seem unimportant enough to be ignored. Character animation has been done using the motion-capture technique, so it can hardly look any worse than great.

The sound is as good as the graphics - it is almost brilliant if it was not for a couple of minor, slightly irritating flaws. Here, I refer to some in game voices I fount particularly annoying. All the NPCs have fully digitized speech, which certainly contributes to atmosphere and playability. The music is very good, but unfortunately, there is not much of it in the game. The game has full support for 3D sound.

The story is unraveling in a typical way for RPGs nowadays - the game is basically linear, but it lets you choose in what order you want to perform less important quests, hence creating an illusion of non-linearity. The advance of both your character and his inventory seems to be somewhat harder it is in most other RPGs and that makes the game a bit more realistic. One of the greatest features of the game is that each of the dozens of NPS has a personality of his own together with a voice and a portrait. This makes the adventuring side of the game much more enjoyable. On the other had, I severely disliked the games much praised combat system because it is too clumsy and slow to handle and it takes quite some time to get used to it. Still, I must admit that its initial concept is more than brilliant because it allows you to actually plan complex strategies even when fighting with the simplest of weapons.

If you are an RPG fan I would sincerely recommend you this title as a must-have. It will provide sufficient quantities of medieval fun until the end of the month (if you're very persistent and don't lay off it for days, 'cause it's not that short) when Diablo two appears.