First and foremost, here's a disclaimer: this was totally an impulse purchase. There was not a shred of rationality involved there: the rational decision would have been to wait for an hypothetical Western release of Summon Night 6—or for the confirmation that there would be no such release—before purchasing a Japanese copy of that game. This is a textbook occurrence of a purchase solely motivated by a "special" coating and not by the game itself.
If this sounds like some sort of self-flagellation, that's because it is. And it is so because I've been fooled; fooled by a "special" that promised more than it delivered. This 15th Anniversary Edition of Summon Night 6 is all style over substance: it's flashy, it's gorgeous, but it's ultimately empty and vapid. Before I explain why, let's take a look at the package:
Pretty, right? Gorgeous picture, lovely colours and a huge, thick box in A4 format crammed with items:
"Crammed with items" is the right way to put it, indeed; because once these feelies are out, it's excruciatingly difficult to put them back where they belong. The outer box is a teeny-weeny bit too tight, despite its respectable size; but that's the lesser problem here. The biggest issue is that tantalizing art book, which turned out to be nothing more than a compendium of all the character designs of the six Summon Night games. That, and nothing more. Not only is this the laziest way to fill an art book I've ever seen, but it's also utterly pointless: chances are high that the players ready to invest in this edition are aficionados of the series, who already know the games and their characters inside out and don't need their memory to be refreshed by an art book. To add insult to injury, the designs utterly lack charm and are not especially pleasant to look at—although this is a matter of taste, I guess.
This special edition, along a couple of others I've purchased lately, has made me a trifle suspicious of special editions in general. I've come to understand that the presence of an art book is by no means a guarantee of interesting content, and I'm going to refrain from blindly purchasing "specials" containing art books from now on. Once bitten, twice shy! Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!
"(...)has made me a trifle suspicious of special editions in general."
ReplyDeleteWelcome to my world, Isleif.
Also, a word of advice: whatever you do, DO NOT play Summon Night without having played Summon Night 3 and 4, since it spoils a lot of things from those games, it seems.
It had to come to this, I guess, with so many publishers these days releasing crappy specials just to cash in. Oh, well. I can buy more game with the money I'll save, so that's all good!^^
DeleteI'll remember your advice, thanks! I actually don't own Summon Night 3 and 4, so that gives me a nice excuse to purchase PSP games. I can never get bored of buying games for old systems, I cannot! By the way, what would you say about Summon Night 1 and 2 on the DS? Are they worth playing?
So, let's go over the Summon Night games.
DeleteFirst, there are 6 mainline games; being the 6th one just released for PS4/Vita. In terms of quality, most of the fanbase puts either 5 or 4 has the worst and 3 as the best, while 1 and 2 have terrible art but are pretty good games; I pretty much agree with all this. Now, the DS versions remove all the voice acting, making the game kinda boring although they added a lot of useful features and tweaks like being able to save almost before every battle but with removed content since the DS carts have less memory.
Basically, the DS version are inferior, while the PS versions play worse but have voice acting and more content. So, the decision is up to each one. Personally, the DS versions are easier to find and cheaper so, I'd go with those.
By the by, the Summon Night games have a ton of spin offs: Twin Age, The Swordcraft Story games, Ex Thesis, Tears Crown, etc... all covering different types of RPGs, from turn-based to ARPGs.
Thanks a lot for the round-up! Quite instructive, as always. ;)
DeleteI'm a bit baffled that an RPG series that has spawned so many games remains so marginally known in the West... Japan, on the other hand, seems to love their Summon Night, if the number of releases is to be believed!
No problem, man! Always a pleasure to help out.
DeleteIt's really unfortunate, yeah. And FlightPlan's (now called Fellistella) other excellent RPGs such as Black/Matrix are even more obscure. A real shame.
But even so, it's not an isolated case. There are tons other series and RPGs that simply never left Japan and the rest of the world never learned of their existence. Thank god for fantranslations groups.
And this also kinda reminds me that Sting is also kind of dead. They haven't made any new Dept Heaven game or port of any of their other games.
Guess I'll pick up Riviera again, for old time's sake.
Sting being in limbo is something that really saddens me: I loved every Sting game I've played and I would have loved to see fresh releases from them. Still, as long as they've not officially bailed out, there's still hope!
DeleteTechnically, they aren't dead. They still get hired to develop games (like Dungeon Travelers 1/2 or Hyperdimension Neptunia Noire) but they don't develop for their own series since around 2009.
DeleteI wish they'd pick up the Dept Heaven games again or maybe remake Baroque for the new systems.
By the way, you should really pick up Knights in the Nightmare one of these days! I highly recommend it.
Oh, I'm definitely planning to do that! Twice, no less, since I own both the DS and PSP version. :)
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