Blackened Souls (Demo)

It’s been a while since I first saw the claim “If you want a polished experience, go with something tried and true, and settle for something rough if you need originality.” (or something like that.) Now, I wouldn’t say this is wholly true, thankfully – games like SkyE or The Maid of Fairewell Heights scored pretty highly on both counts in my books. And of course, there are countless games on here and elsewhere whose generic conceptions didn’t stop them from being wholly crap (i.e. One Fate demo). Yet, the idea still holds up from time to time, and Blackened Souls is a clear example. On one hand, it is the most polished demo I’ve played in quite a while. On the other hand, it’s also the least interesting one, and its world seems even less likely to hold surprises in the future then the unconvincing zombie apocalypse of One Fate.

Aesthetics (art, design and sound)



Blackened Souls is immediately notable for something I haven’t seen in demos for a while – a mapping that’s actually pretty good. Perhaps it’s the sheer contrast after the one-tile corridors of Annice or loose ends and random lamp posts of Crystal of Abyssal Dreams, but nevertheless, all of the maps in the game just look right, and it’s interesting to go through them even though the environmental description is practically absent (hopefully to be implemented later) and the movement speed is realistically slow. I would suggest setting Auto-Dash to On immediately in order to counter the latter. Pretty much the only thing I would note is that the river in Yunzit Slums has a really weird jerking animation on its water for some reason.

Other aspects are not as interesting. A pretty cool main menu image of your whole party altogether might be custom, though I'm not too sure. The rest, though, is clearly MV RTP tiles, portraits, and music, but like I said above, it’s used well. I suppose it’s rather weird that one of the demon leaders in the game, Kane, uses an entirely normal human sprite and portrait that has nothing demonic about it, or that a turban-wearing merchant straight out of Aladdin is named Vaughn and has a brother who looks entirely like a typical European businessman, but that’s about it. The battles in the game are also side-view and have something I don’t think I’ve seen before – the camera will always zoom in a bit on whichever character or enemy is performing an action that turn, making the combat appear that little bit more dynamic. I’m not sure if it’s an MV thing, a third-party script, or something else, but either way, it’s a welcome addition.

Gameplay



Speaking of combat: it’s significantly better than in some other games I’ve been playing recently. For one thing, your first two characters both begin with an MP skill (a lightning strike and a heal, respectively), and a 100 TP skill that is essentially their limit break. This game was also my first time encountering MV's TP management systems, pictured above, and it was quite an experience to see all those 16 methods, some so esoteric (Dancer or Avenger, for instance), they are probably aimed entirely at the challenge runners. Still, I just switched from the default Stoic to Warrior (which gives TP relative to the overall damage inflicted) pretty soon. Just don’t switch modes when the bar is already filled up pretty high, as any switch will reset it to zero. Anyway, so far in the demo, you only encounter MV’s animated slimes, pig Orcs, and the demon boss. The former two are standard, and can’t do anything besides attacking (unlike, say, the similar enemies in Crystal of Destiny, who all have a skill or two). Moreover, you only get a single random encounter type for each of them. The developer should try experimenting more with random encounter layouts (August and the Abyss provides a good example of how it can be done), and at least try adding some colour-swapped variants with more interesting properties: buffs, heals, group attacks, statuses (as long they don’t disable the whole party or do other things you can’t properly counter), etc. The boss battle, though, had a decent range of attacks and was pretty well balanced, so that was good.



Puzzles are present as well, though so far it's the typical boulder-and-button variety in the cave. The first instance was simplistic (just push it down a single, long corridor), but the second, pictured above, was considerably better. As for the small stuff: you can save anywhere, as well as use the restore stations placed around strategically. buy standard potions/dispel herbs, etc., though they’re currently lacking in descriptions, so you won’t know how powerful they are exactly. The second town in the demo also has an equipment shop, which just sells the stuff that’s exactly a tier better then what your party has, which I suppose is one way of simplifying it.

Storyline



It’s a truly “classic” one as far as JRPGs are concerned. We start with two women from the menu screen, Nyla and Shyma, noticing a flash in the night sky, which is actually The Dark Jewel crashing into the atmosphere of the Earth Realm (which they’re located outside of), about to flood it all in eternal darkness unless a yet unknown hero steps up. Thus, we obviously start as him, and are allowed to change his name from the default of Arin. He dwells in the Yunzit city slums, living with a childhood friend named Rhea in what is still a platonic relationship, and is unaware of such lofty purposes. He simply decides to accept a delivery job to the next town for the local merchant Vaughn, and Rhea tags along as she always does. It’s a little disconcerting how much of a satellite character she is at this point in a demo, actually: a flashback to their childhood where they discuss their dreams shows Arin undecided on his future, while Rhea already knows she just wants to be close to him.

Anyway, so they pick up a package and travel, until they’re ambushed by the aforementioned demon boss in the cave, and are then supported by Sephir, a lupine Holy Mage and the only survivor from the previous world destroyed by The Dark Jewel. He obviously says it’s now Arin’s destiny to destroy it. Meanwhile, said jewel was already collected by a demonic battle couple serving their master, Kane. His sister, Lucia, observes them doing so, and plans to grab its power for herself, but pretends to be friendly to them by the demo’s end. There’s also sunglasses-wearing human serving Kane, named Dr. Void, which was really funny. It’s also implied the package we were delivering was demonically corrupted somehow, but that’s about it.

I suppose I should also discuss the setting a little more. While many fantasy rmk games I’ve played often went for the “pure” fantasy with strict Medieval-era limit on technology, Blackened Souls is more like Final Fantasies in that regard, as there’s clearly electrical technology present in the form of landline phones and TVs, even if there are no gunpowder weapons (at least so far). We don’t get to find out much more about this juxtaposition, though, as the environmental description is largely non-existent, in what I hope is a temporary oversight, just like the lack of usable item description. There’s a democracy as well, at least in Yunzin, and the typical rich-poor divide, to the point there’s literally a “Rich District”, which is rather on-the-nose. Still, this was pretty funny:



#MYGA

Typos:

Conclusion



I suppose the defining factor in whether you should be keeping an eye on Blackened Souls is whether or not you’re fine with a storyline that has been done many times before in this setting. If you are, then the game is quite competent for such an early stage (though it's still a little weaker then, say, Crystal of Destiny with its 3D graphics and improved combat), and ought to give you what you want once completed. If you’re looking for twists or hidden depths, though, you should likely cast your gaze elsewhere.