I usually have a hard time dropping games, even when they obviously suck. On the other hand, sometimes I  drop “good” games quickly and play “bad” ones for 60 hours, so I wouldn’t exactly paint myself as a paragon of good taste.

That being the case, therefore, it is impossible to draw any concrete conclusions from the fact that I tried Soma Bringer, dropped it, picked it up again, played for about 6 hours, dropped it again and have absolutely no desire to ever try it again. Maybe it sucks, maybe it’s a masterpiece. Try it for yourself and find out. For my part I found it dull, stressful and unrewarding.

Basically Soma Bringer was a let down on the two main RPG fronts: story and combat. Since this is an action RPG, and since the developers are on record as saying they came up with the system first and then wrote a story to match, I wasn’t expecting too much storywise. Even so I think they hit the cliche book a little too hard.

The story goes like this: A group of drones work for a government organization that will surely turn out to be secretly evil. In the course of their work they find a naked amnesiac girl in the forest. They immediately take her into their confidence and bring her into the group because there’s no way this could ever backfire (and this being a JRPG they are completely right). There are 4 mysterious bad guys who like to hang around making cryptic comments and plotting vaguely bad stuff. Then there are these collect-em-alls called Apocrypha have some power or purpose that nobody feels like telling us about.

Have I played good RPGs with some of these elements before? Certainly. Does that mean I like to retread old ground repeatedly? No. If the story was nevertheless well-told with interesting dialogue and engaging characters, or if the combat and other features of the game were enough to make up for the lackluster writing then that would be one thing. Unfortunately no attempt is made to hide the tacked-on nature of the story, and IMO it might as well not be there. It’s boring, it’s distracting and it interrupts the flow of the game.

Now, on to combat. While you can be as involved as you like in Soma Bringer battles, since 1) Aiming is a pain, 2) Attacking is sluggish until you equip items to increase your attack speed, 3) Enemy attacks are painful and 4) Healing is a pain, it makes more sense in the early stages to use your MC as a decoy rather than an attacker, luring enemies into the path of your ridiculously hardy AI-controlled party members instead. Once they’re engaged in battle, you either hang around out of range while they do the dirty work or you sneak up behind the enemy and get in a few hits.

It may be atypical, but that was the playing style I used when I played.  It’s a change from regular action battles and a totally valid way of winning battles. Since the AI takes care of itself, just look out for number one and it’s all hunky-dory. Easy game. In a bad way, really. Fighting normally will just open you up to a world of hurt, especially given the huge numbers of enemies the third dungeon throws at you.

Speaking of which, the dungeons themselves are a huge part of the reason why Soma Bringer is so meh. Even early dungeons are vast, with so many rooms and pathways that it’s hard to see whether you’re even headed in the right direction until you run smack into a dead end. You also run very slowly unless you boost your running speed with equipment. Think Sprint Shoes in Final Fantasy 6. So you have to navigate all that, cope with a large number of enemies (that thankfully don’t respawn), and when you go through all that trouble the story you get is some convoluted “we know what is going on but we won’t tell you” crap.

Another, much larger part of why it’s not interesting is the lack of a numerical damage display. There’s only an HP bar for enemies (the purple bar on the right). No numbers = less concrete feedback = less satisfaction for the work I’m putting in. Let’s take the case of a normal RPG. I have a mace with ATK 20. I hit an enemy for 200 damage. I switch to a mace with ATK 25. Damage 300. Yay~! But with just an HP bar it’s much harder to tell whether I’m doing any better or not, especially in a game like this where the enemies have such high DEF and HP that it takes a lot to make a blip on the register.

Or let’s take the CP system, where you put points into your stats when you level up. I poured the majority of my points into my HP/DEF, but there was no way to tell whether I was getting hurt any less or not. Same with armor. Same with the special attacks. Which attack is more powerful? When I pour 10 AP into powering up an attack, how much effect does it have? I can’t tell, so I can only get excited up to a point.

And it really doesn’t matter anyway, because the game is so easy. As I mentioned, your party members are hardy to the point of invincibility. Map mobs usually won’t faze them a bit. When a tough boss does manage to put the hurt on them, they’re smart enough to withdraw briefly, heal themselves and return to the fray. They’re weak attackers, but that’s where you come in with your sneak attacks. Also – this didn’t happen because the game was so easy, but – you can warp out of the boss battle at any time, go back to your base, heal, shop and equip yourself for free and then return to find the boss waiting politely for your return. It is such a pointless game.

Anyway, long story short, tl;dr: Story, boo! Combat, boo! Characters, boo! I made the mistake of choosing a player character who has very little to say, so the story passes her by while she watches on the sidelines. Boo on that front as well. Music and graphics, aight I guess. Actually the music is pretty good. Level ups are quite frequent as a side-effect of the over-enthusiastic dungeon mobs. And the furry people are cute. That’s all the positive stuff I can think up. I gave Soma Bringer two chances and played for at least 6 hours, but it’s really not for me. Next!

Related posts:

Tales of the Tempest – Dull Ore ga Omae wo Mamoru – Metroidvania for girls Sakura Note – A study in parental selfishness (spoilers for a game no one has played) Rrrgh… Tales of Hearts…[okay, dropped]