Summon Night: Twin Age

Anime and Japanese RPGs have taught us this much: If a real estate agent ever offers you a cozy home tucked away on an isolated island, run the other way. Settling down in your own little hamlet immediately makes you an eligible recruit for saving the world from evil spirits.

Summon Night Twin Age hefts a flavorless story-it's a bland tale reminiscent of early RPG experiences back when we saved Princess Gwaelyn from the Dragonlord and wiped our runny noses on our sleeves. Two young kids, Reiha and Aldo (the latter of whom is actually a Summon Beast brought into being by Reiha) live in peace and harmony on their island situated in a world called Clardona. Suddenly the spirit world goes haywire thanks to some human tampering and the young couple are charged with putting things right. Reiha and Aldo encounter plenty of friends and enemies on their way to saving the world and engage in conversations that encourage you to scroll through the text as fast as possible.

Frantic Battles

Ah, but story is merely secondary. It's all about how a game plays and Summon Night Twin Age admittedly plays better than it tells its tale. Being a DS action RPG, it's predictably driven almost entirely by the stylus. Tap the screen to make Aldo and Reiha go places. Tap enemies to attack them. The control pad is never used for movement and it's sorely missed when your hands begin to tire from holding the stylus for ages.

Most of Summon Night Twin Age's battles are driven by learned skills that can be accessed from the Command Palette, two menu bars situated on both sides of the screen. With skills, tapping enemies in succession will deliver a chain-swipe. Drawing a line will initiate a stab that tears through an enemy's defenses. The Command Palette is also used to conjure beasts into battle, many of which you make with your own two little hands (or four, as the case may be, as you must call upon one of your allies to help with the creation process). Unlike its story, Summon Night's battle system will not induce sleepiness.

Don't Stand So Close To Me

It may, however, frustrate you. The screen often becomes packed with enemies, meaning it can be hard to find a safe haven in which you can take a breather and form a strategy. Worse, your party AI isn't particularly at the genius level and little can be done to customize when and how your allies throw themselves at salivating crab-monsters. "Use Magic" or "Don't Use Magic" is something of a Communist choice when you're stuck with a mage character who either uses up her strongest spells in a few minutes or faces death under a seething mass of mutant insects.

Navigate Monotony

Summon Night Twin Age is suitably cute and colorful, more or less what you'd expect from a Japanese RPG. The character sprites and magic spells are shiny and well-animated. The map on the top screen unfurls as you explore an area, making enemy detection and treasure hunting an easy affair. The map is for more than convenience, however: areas are mostly composed of cloned backgrounds, making it hard to navigate by landmarks alone.

Unremarkable story aside, Summon Night Twin Age is a solid RPG with a fun battle system. However, the DS isn't hurting for stylus-driven RPGs, so whether or not you pick it up depends on your status with adventures like The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and The World Ends With You. Need more frantic stylus-slashing? By all means you could do worse. Had enough? Don't bother.

PROS: Engaging battle system
CONS: Boring story. Enemy mobs close in fast. Ally AI is brainless

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