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Sudeki First Look
Sudeki First Look
We catch an early glimpse at Climax's Xbox exclusive role playing game.
November 06, 2002 - It's easy to be forgotten as the footnote of X02 Europe when the big news of the show was Microsoft's acquisition of Rare. Now that the dust has settled, Sudeki is ready to let it's role playing presence be known to RPG-starved Xbox owners everywhere. We've quickly gone from describing Sudeki as an "RPG with four unique heroes" to all of the wonderful drivel you're about to read below. There's plenty of game behind all of that high brow polish and developer Climax looks like they're on the way to pulling it all together.
Sudeki is based on a four member party system where you first acquire new members and then new spells, weapons and items for them as you move through the game. You begin with Tal (what are the chances?), the hearty warrior type and continue on until you fill out your four-person squad. But there are a few secret characters beyond the three mentioned so far, including a few that are going to surprise everybody. The larger your party becomes the more powerful spell combinations you can use, which is probably going to be the most important element of the game. Each character has a full slate of regular spells they can cast using their regular magic points, but they also have a handful of super spells they can cast, that can also be linked to the super spells of other party members. The effect on enemies when two or more team members link up is devastating.
Since each character represents a different discipline/background --gunslinger, shape-shifter, sorceress and warrior-- their super spells are usually related to their specialties. So one common super spell attack will be to use the warrior's powerful spirit strike spell that causes a giant demon spirit to rise up out of him and swing his axe at all nearby enemies along with the Alish's (the sorceress) healing spell so that you're really killing two birds with one stone. These super dramatic spell attacks come with instant mini-cutscenes and all kinds of dazzling light effects.
An example of one of the lesser spells would be a healing spell that restores the party's health points or one that does a special attack on individual enemies. These are also accessed using the Y slow down button and menu system and are far more numerous.
Casting spells, selecting items, assigning party commands is all done by tapping Y to slow the game down, not pause it, so that your characters are still vulnerable and you can still see what's going on while you're navigating the weapons/spell/party menu. This adds a whole new dynamic to the combat since you'll still have to be quick with your decisions. The rest of the combat system is all in real time with A as your regular weapon attack and X as your powered up weapon attack. Holding B will activate a defense shield and allow you to dodge attacks with a lean on the left analog stick. Characters can gain new weapons and spells that are in line with their personalities so that the warrior's weapons are all melee oriented while the sorceress specializes in ranged attacks.
You can switch between characters on the fly by hitting the black button, just like we saw in the last version of Brute Force. Party members will automatically follow the party leader and will execute whatever behaviors you set them to. Managing the behaviors of the party members looks like it can be a critical part of getting through tough areas. We've observed the following conditions
Juggernaut - All berserker offense and no defense
Iron Warrior - All D and no O
Bodyguard Melee - Attack who ever is attacking party leader
Support - Attack who ever the party leader is attacking
Hunter - Use ranged attacks only
Focus Attack - Use charged up attacks only
There are more behavior conditions since we didn't see any for retreat, total cowardice or some variation thereof. Leveling up will allow the character even more behavioral conditions as well.
You can assign simple items like health potions and mana restoration items to the D-pad for quick access during the heat of battle. It's possible that other spells, items and abilities can be assigned to the D-pad as well.
With an estimated 40 hours of gameplay plus the likelihood of downloadable content, Sudeki looks like it could clear out a nice space for itself in late 2003, the year of the RPG.
http://xbox.ign.com/articles/376/376561p1.html
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Wow sounds kewl. I was disappointed that we wern't gettin Final Fantasy but this sounds just as good. To bad we have to wait awhile.
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Now I remember why I was interested in this game.:confused:
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Thanks Knight. Ever since the first screens of this game I've been looking for more news on it. The graphics are just sick, I love that style.
