Shopping Guide
A wide field covered in gigantic demons appears before your eyes! It’s so hair-raising that you can’t bear to look at it and you feel a cold sweat trickle down your spine. Should you run in gallantly or fight them off from a distance? Holding the power of magic in your hands, you wait for the opportune moment to strike. While being at the mercy of the tricky demons’ movements, you also have the option to vanquish them with the help of a friend. Will you bestow salvation on the corpses of the fallen foes or will you offer them as a sacrifice?
These are the choices you will face in the PS Vita game Soul Sacrifice, which released on March 7 in Japan, April 30 in North America and May 1 in Europe and will be releasing on June 20 in Asia.
Soul Sacrifice is a dark fantasy that focuses on players using magic to vanquish demons that appear one after the other in intense battles for survival. The first thing to notice about the game is the unique ambiance of the world that shows through in everything from the stage designs to the system screens. Above all, the graphics of the demons are amazing. Soul Sacrifice sets the bar for other games when it comes to grotesque designs that fill your whole body with fear every time you face off against a new enemy.
The after-battle system also overflows with originality and freedom. Players are given the option to save vanquished foes or sacrifice them, which each gives a different outcome regarding gaining experience. The former option increases magic and the latter increases health. Interestingly, these choices also affect the player’s outward appearance in the game.
Among all of these features though, the game’s greatest characteristic is its use of magic. When talking about wizards in games, it’s generally thought that they use magic to attack foes from a distance while soldiers attack foes using close combat. However, using magic in Soul Sacrifice is a mixture of these two contrivances. During battles, players use magic by means of objects called “offerings.” Other ways of fighting include sacrificing a part of your body which results in a massive, devastating spell, wielding summoned weapons, and attacking using fire and water. As such, the amount of close quarters combat is fairly high. Furthermore, when allies die during battle, you can sacrifice their corpses to create massive magical attacks. Therefore, there is a strongly strategic component to allies dying. Due to this, Soul Sacrifice turns the traditional use of magic and wizards in games on its head.
The concept of Soul Sacrifice was created by Keiji Inafune, CEO of Comcept. Inafune is surely well known among many game fans. He was the character designer and producer on the Mega Man series and he was the creator of the Dead Rising and Lost Planet series. Just by having such a talented creator on the staff roster, Soul Sacrifice’s high level of addictiveness is all but certified.
So, what do you think? We hope this article has helped you to understand, if only a little bit, the appeal of this noteworthy game. For those who are now frothing at the mouth and can’t wait to play it, we have good news! A free demo of Soul Sacrifice is now available on the PS Store. However, this isn’t just an ordinary demo. On top of being able to try out the complete first chapter of the game, you can play multiplayer as much as you’d like, and the save data from the demo carries over to the actual game. For those with a PS Vita, stop reading and download the game now! Once you start playing, it won’t take long before the magical power of Soul Sacrifice captures your very soul.
Soul Sacrifice Official English Blog:
http://blog.us.playstation.com/tag/soul-sacrifice/
© 2013 Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.
This is a TokyoOtakuMode original article.
