Really good RPGs are kind of thin on the ground as far as Xbox owners go. There’s Knights of the Old Republic… ummm… and uh… maybe Shenmue II and Morrowind and that’s about yer lot. So there’s plenty of room for another one then.
Starting with an impressive intro played out with Oriental-style shadow puppets, Sudeki grabs you from the start. A genuinely compelling story of a World split asunder, into three parts (a light one, a shadow one and a dark one), and the massive battle against evil to bring the parallel worlds back to unity, bring peace and generally sort everything out.
Starting out playing alone as Tal, a young soldier in the Haskilian army, you leave the safety of the walled capital city of Illumina and set out on a search for Princess Ailish, a feisty young thing with a desire for adventure and some very useful magical powers. You eventually form a group of four young warriors along with Buki (a half-animal warrior girl) and an old friend Elco (a scientist/inventor boffin-type) who is working on a protective shield to cover the city of Illumina. You soon discover that in order complete the shield you’ll have to travel not only the length and breadth of Haskilia, but also the shadow world and the dark world (Akloria) in search of the powerful crystals that are needed to supply the shield’s energy…
For the most part the game is played with the four members of the party, and whichever one you want can be selected as the player character with the black or white buttons. Unlike most RPGs the non player characters (NPCs) don’t vanish and just reappear whenever there’s fighting to be done; they follow the player character around all the time, and when a battle breaks out they start fighting without any need for a command from you. Both the enemy and the NPC AI is highly impressive, and you can even define whether your friends attack, retreat or defend your player (or simply switch between them during battle). You’ll be delighted when you get in a bit of trouble surrounded by monsters and a friend saves your bacon with a timely combo or ranged attack. The game also enters platform adventure territory at times; with climbing, block-pulling and lever-switching puzzles that require the various talents of the entire party – Tal can pull/push heavy objects, Ailish can see hidden items and paths, Buki can climb where no others can, and Elco has a (really crap) jetpack.
If you’re unfamiliar to RPGs then Sudeki’s gameplay follows a fairly standard path: virtually everything you do earns you experience points (XP), these add up so you ‘level up’ and when you level up you get advancement points that you can assign to our heroes’ attributes (health, skill, power and essence). You can also upgrade their health points (HP) and skill points (SP). Skill points decide what and how many skill attacks you can use, these may be impressive physical attacks using individual weaponry or magic spells. Tal and Buki are warriors and mostly stick to melee fighting, and Ailish and Elco prefer ranged attacks (Ailish uses a selection of magical staffs, and Elco uses more recognisable pistols). For instance; Tal has self explanatory ‘Shin Splitter’ or ‘Blade Dance’ attacks; Ailish ‘Blaze Ball’ or Witch’s Kiss’ (heals the other party members); Buki ‘Storm Kick’ or ‘Asilas the Wolf’ (a wolf spirit fights alongside her for the duration of the battle); and Elco has ‘Cybernetica’ (a massive volley of shots) or a neat ‘Tesla Shield’. Combat is done in realtime rather than the age-old turn-based way, and the gameplay adds a further departure from the norm during battles as Ailish and Elco move and aim their weapons from a first person viewpoint, taking you right into the heart of the battles just like a first person shooter.
The visuals are nice enough throughout, and very pretty at times, but it’s in the middle of a bigger battle that you really start to appreciate the quality of Sudeki’s graphics, the design and animation of the creatures, and the amazing spell effects and booming sounds of battle. Tal and Buki can do a few combos during melee attacks that do much more damage than simply hammering away at the X (vertical attack), A (horizontal attack) or B (knock multiple enemies away with a sweeping move) buttons. These combo moves require good timing of the button presses (there’s an on-screen indicator), and they can even juggle enemies on the end of some combos, and that really does some damage – enemies often vaporise in a spray of blood and bones! Each character also has a spirit strike gauge, and can unleash an awesome attack bestowed upon them by the God Tetsu – although these can only be used rarely. The spirit strikes show off some of the best graphical effects in Sudeki, and are amazing to behold.
Unlike a lot of RPGs you’re unlikely to get lost in Sudeki (for long anyway) thanks to its excellent zoomable maps that show you where the merchants and inns are. You also get an easy-to-use menu system that allows quick selection during normal exploration or battles (pressing Y brings up the menu, but doesn’t pause the game, it just slows the action to a crawl, which always gives you a sense of urgency), or more detailed selections (advancements, sorting items, creature compendium etc) when you have more time on your hands. An on-screen map shows you where the enemies and friends are, where you entered the current area and the direction to head for the next main quest.
Tal & co will be needing lots of potions, lotions, ointments, tinctures and antidotes to keep their health and spirit points up, and fortunately a weird duck-like anthropomorphic (look it up) creature has merchant stores in all the main locations. He’s a arrogant git and you’ll be wise to search out the travelling merchants as they’ll give you better prices, particularly on the items they specialize in like furs, skins or gems – the price differences can be significant and the extra cash (Florins) can make things a lot more comfortable for you in the early stages of the game. Spells and potions can be assigned to ‘quickshot’ selection on the 4 directions of the D-Pad, Zelda-style and wise and timely use of them can make the difference between life and death. If all 4 characters die in battle then it’s Game Over, but as long as one member survives the others revive (although they’ll need their health and skill points topped up). Fortunately there are plenty of save points dotted around, so you won’t need to be replaying too many sections in Sudeki.
The world of Sudeki is an impressively detailed one, each character has its own voice and there are some truly varied and bizarre accents included – and although Sudeki definitely has a sense of humour, I can’t help feeling that these are sometimes unintentionally funny and annoying. Tom Baker superbly does both the voice for the benevolent God Tetsu and narrates the story (although you half expect him to say something daft after his involvement in the comedy show Little Britain). Side quests will earn you extra money or items and completing the game will take you near the 30 hour mark, depending on how much you explore. Portals open up that allow you save a lot of walking and warp around the worlds, but unfortunately exploring isn’t always as easy as you might think as occasionally the game seems to get a bit too linear for its own good, and you get shepherded in the direction of the next main quest, rather than being allowed to go where you want – I finished the game with several sub quests left undone simply because I couldn’t return to the relevant area in order to complete the task.
The fabulous look of most of Sudeki’s characters, creatures, robots, monsters, scenery (some of the skies are amazing) and buildings is tainted somewhat by occasional frame rate problems and some very basic and robotic animation on the main characters. Strangely, in battle, regardless of how much is going on things seem to stay smooth, and the combos, skill and spirit strikes are all beautifully animated, but just wandering around you can’t help but be disappointed with the unimpressive, stilted movement, twitchy controls, invisible walls and some overly fussy collision detections when doing something as basic as pulling a lever or trying to climb a ladder – it never spoils things to much though.
There’s also yet another disappointingly predictable, lengthy boss battle at the end of Sudeki that will have you tearing your hair out until you figure out how to do it. It’s really about time developers thought of something new! – I didn’t appreciate spending 26 hours or so upgrading my characters to the point where they could kick the arses of just about any horde of enemies in the game without breaking sweat, only to end up completing the game by fighting against a foe that can swat you like a fly - he also takes about 15 minutes of battling to defeat – how daft is that...?
Despite its overall linearity and annoying flaws, I really enjoyed the vast majority of Sudeki, and would highly recommend it - it's accessible enough for gamers new to the RPG genre, and deep enough and inventive enough to keep hardened fans happy. It’s a shame that the quality of the neat story, the impressive spell effects and some innovative combat ideas didn’t extend to an imaginative ending.
 
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