Sudeki
- August 11, 2003 13:57 PM PST
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Like a Japanese RPG?except with funny British accents.
Take a group of very talented Western developers, tell them to produce the best Japan-style RPG they possibly can, and the result is Shadow Madness-Erm, wait, wrong system. No, Sudeki is much more ambitious than Crave's old snorefest?an Xbox exclusive, it's an action/RPG title that tries to combine Eastern design sensibility with a Western taste for graphical magnificence.Although the visuals in the preview version were undeniably top-of-the-line Xbox caliber, it's the gameplay that should keep things exciting. The battle system runs like a sped-up version of Phantasy Star Online?every member of your party has a selection of melee, magical, and Spirit Strike attacks, and you can switch freely among them during battle. The first two are simple enough (you have weak and strong melee moves, just like in PSO), but Spirit attacks between multiple characters are trickier to pull off?and they're needed to beat most bosses. The controls are also easy to come to grips with, although the lack of a real pause function during battles (the game drops to Matrix-style bullet time when you enter a menu) could cause major anguish if your crew gets killed before you can heal them.
