High Dynamic Range Lying

It’s been way too long since anyone tried to make a competent dungeon crawling hack and slash RPG for a console. It’s fair to say that, with the exception of the stellar PC title Titan Quest, the entire genre has gone without truly inspired entries for longer than anyone would care to remember.

If it did not create the genre, Diablo and sequel Diablo II popularized it and made it so ubiquitous, that for a time, it was hard to imagine a world without either. Blizzard’s two epic hits could be considered popcorn RPGs. It introduced the genre to thousands of those who found the Dungeons and Dragons inspired niche too daunting, simplifying statistics and offering compelling and engaging action based gameplay.

For console gamers, and especially handheld gamers, the genre is mostly a mystery, outside of the efforts by Snowblind Studios. In Japan, most RPG gamers know nothing about it, instead bombarded by the same turn based and action battle systems that developers have been peddling for years. Imagine my surprise when Xenosaga and Baten Kaitos developer Monolith Soft revealed what Soma Bringer actually was.

In almost every way mechanically, Soma Bringer follows all tropes first established by the Diablo series. Players traverse dungeons, killing monsters, defeating bosses, collecting loot, and customizing equipment. The game is even broken up into acts like Diablo II, featuring a different locale for each act.

Instead of furiously clicking a mouse button, Soma Bringer uses a map system, where players assign individual spells and attacks to the four face buttons on the DS. Players can even map items like healing potions to face buttons, and can be accessed by tapping the L button. For players that require more than four buttons for their various attacks, the game provides multiple pages that can be cycled through using the R button.

To discourage random button mashing, the game introduces the Break system to the game. By attacking an enemy with certain attacks, enemies will receive a “!” above their heads. After two exclamation points, and then three, the enemies enter break mode, and becomes vulnerable to higher damage. Certain attack abilities have additional effects in break mode, including the ability to knock back enemies, and stun them further.

To compliment the battle system, the game offers a new twist on dungeon crawler skill trees. Every ten levels, players reach a new “rank.” Each rank is a new level of unlocked abilities at the disposal of the player. Unlike most western action RPGs, where players use a skill tree to access more powerful abilities, the rank system in Soma Bringer makes all abilities independent of each other.

For instance, while in Diablo, pouring skill points into low level skills meant access to higher levels skills, each skill in the rank system of Soma Bringer is completely independent of other skills. Players can also take points out of skills any time, which means that players can continue to modify their strategy at will. The drawback is that while in a combat zone, going to your menu does not pause the action, forcing players to choose just the right times to re-allocate their points.

Pairing the skill and break systems together, the game becomes almost combo based, as players try their best to pour skill points into abilities that work together in a fluid succession of moves. The game takes on a different feel and atmosphere, especially in wifi multiplayer, as teamwork plays a much bigger part in keeping stronger enemies on the ground. Fluid teamwork and shrewd skill choices can mean the difference between a 15 minute boss fight, and a 45 min boss fight, especially when facing some of the secret bosses near the end of the game.

Attacking and battle flow differs greatly based on which class you choose. The Dark Knight inspired Darks class uses only two hand weapons and spears, making them powerhouses with low combo ability, while the assassin class Kanpus specializes in double swords and claws, making for a far faster fighting experience. Along with that, each class has its own personal skill chart, making it worth it for players to play through each and every class at least once. This fact alone boosts replayability through the roof.

Unlike Monolith Soft’s past efforts, director Tetsuya Takahashi specifically stated that in developing Soma Bringer, the gameplay mechanics were decided upon before the story; apparently a first within the development team. It definitely shows. Soma Bringer offers a compelling story and a multitude of cutscenes, but it is quite obvious they take a back seat to the game’s combat and exploration aspects. For those only interested in the game’s dungeons, the game even offers an event skip function in the options menu.

While the main story dungeons are not randomized like Diablo, three randomized EX Dungeons become available to players once they finish the game with a single character. The main story dungeons and the EX Dungeons are both worth playing in multiplayer instead of single player if possible, especially if you intend to take on any of the near invincible secret bosses that appear in the last three acts of the story. While the game does not support wireless internet play, the ad hoc wi-fi is definitely worth planning for. The amount of shouting that will be going on between players is best done in person, anyway.

Along with the exciting combat and exploration, the genre’s major draw is loot. Soma Bringer’s not nearly as expansive as Titan Quest, Diablo or World of Warcraft, but it still offers randomized statistics on weapons, a color coded rarity system borrowed from Blizzard (five levels ranging from white to green), and unique models for almost every level of weapon.

There are a few problems, loot-wise. Players can place orbs in a piece of equipment to augment player stats. Unfortunately, when new weapons are picked up in the field, there is no way to compare statistics barring the effects of the currently armed orb. Also, while players can beam excess pick ups to an NPC when their bag gets full, it’s impossible to check the stats on a weapon without first picking it up. Sadly, this means having to waste a Soma Gate (items that allow players to warp back to that act’s hub city), just to find out the Green broad sword is not as good as the one you are already using.

Technically, Soma Bringer is definitely nothing to sneeze at. The game maintains an overhead view most of the game, with prerendered backgrounds and polygonal characters sporting a subtle cell shading filter. While hub city sections have a heavily controlled camera that keeps vistas fresh and colorful, the dungeon sections give the player five different cameras. The five different cameras are actually simply the same overhead camera at different zoom levels, with the fifth being a completely useless camera where the player’s character takes up the entire screen. While the characters and monsters animate incredibly well and hold up even at higher zoom levels, the prerendered backgrounds start to pixelate and stretch, looking shabby and unsightly, even at zoom level two.

The music, on the other hand, is simply amazing. Engineered and composed by Yasunori Mitsuda, the music for Soma Bringer shows that the DS can deliver a soundtrack that is more than mere bleeps and bloops. Not only is almost every single piece memorable, but Mitsuda especially composed the entire soundtrack at two sampling rates: one for the onboard speakers, and one for headphones.

Soma Bringer is not just a competent Diablo clone, it even offers new ideas in the battle department that set it apart, making teamwork, practice and timing that much more important. Rather than four adventurers coincidentally co-existing in a world, Soma Bringer forces players to become true comrades, working together against sometimes impossible odds, if only to get that rare green ring.