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Note: This page is for the original freeware version of Soma Spirits.
For Soma Spirits: Rebalance, CLICK HERE!


"Soma, a land torn to the brink of death with strife and distrust, filled with denizens who refuse to accept one another. Two great beings wage war for generations to decide the fate of the world: to save or to destroy it. With their powers exhausted from battle, they come to a pact: divide the world into two, each with a guardian spirit to watch over them..."



Soma Spirits is a 3-5 hour RPG with branching story paths. Rather than being fast-tracked and locked into paths from the start, you are given choices throughout the story on how you wish to proceed, and the choices made will have a significant impact on the story's outcome.

However, you may find that the choices made in Soma Spirits are not so black and white. Every major choice made will have some impact on the story, and there are rarely any "correct" solutions.

The world of Soma Spirits is divided into two similar, but distinct versions of one another. At certain locations, you will be able to switch between the two worlds and find different inhabitants, monsters, and clues on how to proceed forward.

The game features:

- Classic turn-based RPG combat with some additional systems.
- Hand-crafted custom pixel art visuals.
- Some stellar menus and UI thanks to the powerful Luna Engine
- Dynamic Music: As players transition between the two versions of the world, so will the music!
- Flexible story paths: You may find various opportunities to change the story's outcome.




Heart is the Spirit of Joy, charged with the task of protecting the inhabitants of the World of Joy. Heart is an optimist, living each and every day to its absolute fullest. He wants to wake up and end every day with a smile and makes it his life's mission to make sure everyone does the same.


Soul is the Spirit of Sorrow, who protects the people in the World of Sorrow. While some may be quick to write him off as a pessimist and negative, Soul makes it his mission to keep everyone's eyes open and aware of how the world works. He is not one for escapism, and urges people to tread through life cautiously, but still to the best of their ability.

Music

SpecialAgentApe will be providing music for the game! Take a listen to a sample HERE!



Credits
Lead Developer: SgtMettool
Composer: SpecialAgentApe

Playtesters: Skyrunner14, The_acz


Scripts Used
Text Cache -Mithran
Custom Resolution -Gump
FullScreen++ 2.2 - Zeus81
TP Manager, Move Restrict, State Animations - Yami
Equip Slots, Follower Touch - Himeworks
Text Sound -Zerbu
Auto-Dash - Mr. Trivel
Luna Engine - Degica
Death Processing Snippet - Red_Nova




Latest Blog

Soma Spirits Rebalance is now free on itchio!

If you've wanted to play Soma Union but were waiting until Soma Spirits Rebalance goes on sale to get the full story... you won't have to wait anymore!

Going forward, Soma Spirits Rebalance (and Brave Hero Yuusha EX) are Name Your Own Price on itchio.

Something that I acknowledge is that having a free sequel to a game whose canon version is paywalled was kind of awkward. And I think these versions have been out for long enough that they should be made more accessible. I do want to note that this is something that has been in consideration for quite a while and isn't a reflection of how well Soma Union is performing. But I'd rather see the games find a wider audience rather than just sit there as they have been.

Please note that the Steam versions are currently unaffected by this change. Please only buy those versions if you want the added Steam benefits or want to support the devs!

So if it's your first time diving into either of these games, I hope you'll enjoy them!

Posts

Just started...

Soma Spirits Notes:

Vers. 1.01

Hmm... The Puppeteer's Return is a music? What does that mean for the game?

Split world imagery...

And the opening music is a fusion-ish...

Let's play!

***

History of Soma!

...

Oh, we start with Heart.

Dockery... As in Hickory-dickery-dock.

And Notice This signs...

Using Cheat Engine to speed things up at 5x normal...

16 Save slots.

... Got out. ... Everything talks... Carrot gives me a choice. I chose Charity. I wonder how that'll affect the epilogue? And Banana agrees that someone's voice is unheard. Sorrow's voice?

Whistling in BGM...
Just finished Box World! Found some typos:


-"Soma would be divided into two. Along with its inhabitants and everything within it." (sentence fragment)
-The tall flower in the World of Sorrow, first conversation: "Y'know" is missing an apostrophe
-"There is an inconspicuous lever in the middle of a forest." Should that be "conspicuous"? Levers are not normally found in forests, after all.
-Cutscene after Acre battle: "Well if it is guidance you seek..." Missing comma.
-"Acre doesn't seem to pleased..."
-post-Dissonance battle: "unaware of the tragedies that occour every day"


Running commentary:

-I find it interesting (though a tad disappointing) that the dieties are male and female, but Heart & Soul are both male. Did Form create them, or Dissonance? Did they purposefully want to make them human-like?
-Heart & Soul used to be kids? They didn't spring up fully-formed? That's interesting...
-Are Heart & Soul murdering the "access prohibited" employees? :o
-Tetsubox seemed pretty easy. My SP didn't even fully charge. The Charge skills really make short work of stuff.

I chose to let Bob be free. I found it interesting that it was a very similar situation to Acre, though since amusement parks are luxuries rather than essentials, I figured it was okay to give him a break. Box World would probably suffer anyway if he continued to be miserable, was my reasoning.


Joy seems like the more functional world so far. In the forest, the Sorrow inhabitants just seemed zen, but in Box World everyone seems miserable. It seems like the downside of Joy is supposed to be that it ultimately can't function because it can't address problems, but the tour guide is still willing and able to discipline the employee who failed to open the gate, apparently? I just don't see any reason to choose Sorrow over Joy at the moment. Perhaps that will change.

Loving it so far! The cutsey aesthetic combined with a mature and nuanced story is great.
Thank you for reporting those typos! I'm going to have a v1.03 at some point that fixes one other minor bug (The snow weather effect in the ice dungeon doesnt clear under certain circumstances), so I'll fix those as well.
Could you release new versions as patches instead of just full downloads, by the way? Since the folders always have different titles I have to move my saves every time. Unless it's only the rgss3 file that changes and it's safe to just extract that?
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
The changes are made in the Data folder, which is hidden away because the project is encrypted. Since this game is encrypted, it's not possible to just release the Data folder.
I just finished my first playthrough with the True ending. This game was a wonderful little adventure, if a little easy.

One minute thing I noticed, is that in the Frozen Fjord entrance cave you can see some purple pixels at the edges of the snow.
The game's been updated to 1.03, which just fixes the snow glitch, and removes the purple pixels as stated in the post above. If you never encountered the glitch to begin with (only two people did that I know of) there's no need to update from 1.02.

Figured this wasn't blog-worthy.
Finally finished Freezing Fjord.

Bugs & things:

-The boulder in the starting town disappears if you talk to him from the south or west after clearing Box World.
-"Where ever this snowperson go his hat..." - 'Wherever' is one word.
-The snow oozie: "It won't attack you (missing comma) so feel free to admire it."
-When the Key of Spring is introduced, the wizard calls it the "Key Of Spring", with the "of" capitalized.
-Sorrow Fjord choice: "There are many plants and animals that will not see the light and day without spring." Usually, it's "light of day". Intentional?
-"I'm sure that's what you, and the old wizard, wants to see."
-"With the Key of Spring, (weird gap) you two..." Only in the Sorrow version, though.


I chose to

let spring come, but I was pretty confused about the situation. Will the snowpeople die permanently 100% stone cold dead if the thaw comes? Everyone seems to be acting like they'll only go into hibernation, which does make Glacia's desire seem pretty selfish to me, since eternal winter means organic life does die for real. Yet when I chose to end the winter, Heart & Soul just went on about natural order and acted like the animals would have just had to spend more time in hibernation instead of dying. I'm also unclear how far the eternal winter extends -- Glacia's pre-battle taunt implies it's currently contained to the Fjord, which would make it more reasonable, since then she's not destroying the entire world, just sectioning off one chunk of it.


Also, a request: I'm playing the game in little spurts, so it often takes me days to get through one area, which can make it hard to remember all the details of the situation. It might be nice to have some feature that lets you review the situation and what choices you have right before the boss. This could also be used to clear up any lingering questions like the ones I had.
Would it be alright if I did a let's play of this game? I've been searching for the perfect game to start my youtube channel off, and this game seems lovely

(I actually made an account here just to ask you this!)
author=argh
Also, a request: I'm playing the game in little spurts, so it often takes me days to get through one area, which can make it hard to remember all the details of the situation. It might be nice to have some feature that lets you review the situation and what choices you have right before the boss. This could also be used to clear up any lingering questions like the ones I had.

Hmm, not a bad idea. Though something like that would be pretty significant and not something I could patch in overnight, so if I do end up needing to update the game down the road it's something to keep in mind.

author=kojomo
Would it be alright if I did a let's play of this game? I've been searching for the perfect game to start my youtube channel off, and this game seems lovely

(I actually made an account here just to ask you this!)

Whoa, that's a huge honor to hear! Go for it, my friend. LPs and Streams of my games are definitely A-OK with me.
Though something like that would be pretty significant and not something I could patch in overnight, so if I do end up needing to update the game down the road it's something to keep in mind.


Oh, of course. Take whatever time you need.

Actually just managed to power through the Maltose Mines, too. Bugs:

-The graphics for the cart tracks don't change when the switches are used, which is a bit confusing.
-The stair connected the first and second floors of the mine are accessible in the World of Sorrow, but don't do anything.
-Something weird seems to be going on with the levers and their corresponding switches. The upper-left one on the second floor (the one only accessible in Joy) turns the one directly south green, but effectively seems to change the far-right track. The lower-right lever only accessible in Joy turns the one directly north green, but doesn't seem to make it act differently.
-If you deliver sorrow to Form: "Continue to deliver these sphere to me so that I may purify them."


I chose to

make the foreman let go. It was a pretty easy choice for me, since I'm not a sentimental type and believe pretty firmly that conscripting other people to help with your personal and possibly dangerous goals is wrong. I feel it's cheapened a little by the ring being right there if you choose to approach in Sorrow -- in that case there's not much to be gained by crushing his dreams, since he would have stopped anyway. The damage has already been done. I still stuck to my choice on principle, though.

Also... kinda disappointed you did such a standard man-motivated-by-woman's-death thing. It would have worked better if you gender-flipped it, I think...
Sorry for the double post, but I've now seen all five endings and beaten the superboss, so this should be the last bug report.


-Small flower in Joy Chasm: "I bet were gonna get along great!"
-Candy duo in Sorrow Chasm: "Sorry, but I didn't bring a ticket" has the punctuation chopped off by the message box.
-"This one is pretty obvious to me" has a weird gap
-Shaydo confrontation: "Oh(missing comma) it's you!"
-After delivering sorrow to Form, she says "fourth time's a charm", but isn't this the fifth time?
-Confrontation between Form and Dissonance (3/3 split): "You big whiny, baby!" That comma should be after "big" instead, I think?
-"Their conflicting emotions is what drives them to anger"
-After the Sunny/Lunar battle, Lunar says "Oh...." with four dots.
-Retribution does not consume True Strike.
-Sorrow choice in Box World if you already picked Sorrow for Acre: "What will happen if we keep taking denying people the right to be sad?"
-On the Ending 3 route, Glacia still acts like she thinks you're trying to stop her after the Glacial Golem battle.
-Soul's warning in Maltose Mines: "Maybe I'm just imagining things (missing comma) but I feel like something awful will happen if we do this once again."
-Four sorrow orbs collected in temple: "Ah, you did not think saving the world would be as easy as collecting some trinkets for me now, did you?" The comma should be before the "now", I believe.
-Choosing Sorrow for Shaydo in the World Without Sorrow path results in Shaydo using his Joy portrait at one point in the cutscene.
-In the Temple cutscene with five sorrow orbs, Heart's reversion animation occurs over Soul instead.
-When preparing to fight Form, Heart says "Soul and I will stop him together"
-The Goddess Ring does not increase Mind.
-Form EX battle win: "I will see you both in hell!" When referring to the singular place, "Hell" is capitalized (since it's a name)
-Are the status effect spells supposed to kill Oozie Princes so easily?
-Ending 4 pre-Form battle: "Come out (missing comma) Form!"
-Same thing happens with Dissonance
-Ending 2 pre-Dissonance battle: "A sharp an eye as ever..."
-Ending 4 stinger: "With Form defeated, (weird space) everything..."
-World Without Joy path: Glacia says "D- not think I will go down without a fight!"
-Catastophe is under Power, not Spirit. (Are there any other special spirit powers or are Dark Nova and Catastrophe it?)
-Sorrow garden before final battle: Lettuce says "No charge, big heros" when offering the drink.
-Oakley's screen still has colored flowers.
-Some attacks seem to reflect back on the user at random? Some Spookys in the Chasm seemed to attack themselves, and now Dissonance Z just killed himself with a Gravity Void. I was pressing Z to fast-forward text in both these cases, if that has anything to do with it.
-The "start New Game+ without saving" options are mixed up; "Yes" goes back to the save prompt.


Also...

How does Heart summon fire in the Maltose Mines on the World Without Sorrow path? If he's now strong enough to use Power skills in the World of Sorrow, that's not reflected in the gameplay.


For anyone collecting data on the choices, I chose to

let Shaydo be free. To be honest the choice felt kinda weird. I don't see any reason at all to force him to move on; he's not hurting anyone. If you do force him, Heart gives the cliche spiel about our time being limited and there's no way he can see the whole world, but... ghosts are immortal??? He totally can. I'm not sure what the dilemma was supposed to be.


I feel like gameplay tutorials should probably be skipped on NG+. It would also be nice to have an easier way to avoid encounters, like if they ran away from you on the map at high levels.

Sword Dance seems more powerful than Pummel; Sword Dance does ~50 damage per hit for me for a total of 200, while Pummel does ~20 damage per hit for a total of 180. Is the balance that misses are less of a big deal and there are more chances for criticals?

(And there are no new skills after Sword Dance and Pummel, yes?)

Now that I've finished it, I have to say...

Calling the balanced ending "true" feels really off-message. All it means is that instead of following Form or Dissonance, you followed Oakley. My own conscience and decisions led me to believe that Form was right and Joy was the way to go, not that balance was necessary. You made a big deal in all the advertising leading up to the release that this was a story about there being no objectively wrong or right decisions, but the true ending topples that. To truly uphold that principle, every ending should have been a valid choice. After all, if there are valid arguments for supporting either option in the individual choices, there should be valid arguments for choosing one side in the aggregate sum of them. By dictating to the player that no, you're not being logical and you're only motivated by arrogance and emotion, you're robbing the player of agency. Extremism is often scary, but it can be valid and it deserves the right to be reasoned with fairly instead being branded as complete lunacy that only horrible people would ever agree with. It all comes across as extremely preachy, which I was really hoping was something this story would avoid.


It also seems thematically bizarre that the evil weapons are the best ones. The thing that's supposed to be a cross to bear is the awesome thing that helps me commit more sins, and is better than the rewards I get for playing nice? If the player knows this in advance and only pursues the bad endings for more power you could do something clever with that, but that's not really how it plays out.
Solitayre
Circumstance penalty for being the bard.
18257
Response to argh above, hidden for ending spoilers:

I felt like the true ending was totally in line with the game's message, balance needed to be maintained and one side overpowering the other would obviously lead to catastrophe. A world of all joy and no responsibility sounds like it would be unworkable to me.

I also felt it was clear that neither Form NOR Dissonance could be trusted. Believing Form was good because she praises you and wants happiness while Dissonance yells at you and wears a bad guy outfit was a trap. Just my take.
@argh

Thanks for reporting those typos and other oddities. I'll have them cataloged for when I eventually update the game.

Sword Dance and Pummel are the final skills they learn yes.

I apologize if the way the game's endings were handled were disappointing for you :s . You do bring up some interesting points about how the story ultimately ends up in relation to player choice, some of which I never really considered. Though I'm pretty confident that I kept everything in line with how I intended, I thank you for the feedback nonetheless.
author=Solitayre
Response to argh above, hidden for ending spoilers:

I felt like the true ending was totally in line with the game's message, balance needed to be maintained and one side overpowering the other would obviously lead to catastrophe. A world of all joy and no responsibility sounds like it would be unworkable to me.

I also felt it was clear that neither Form NOR Dissonance could be trusted. Believing Form was good because she praises you and wants happiness while Dissonance yells at you and wears a bad guy outfit was a trap. Just me take.



Oh, obviously yes, textually, both of them are evil maniacs who are not to be trusted. What I object to is the fact they were made to be omnicidal untrustworthy maniacs in the first place, instead of rational individuals who could make reasonable points. I agreed with her on a theoretical level even if what she wanted in practice was monstrous.

It's just... when I heard this game was about nuance and respecting all points of view, I didn't expect the ending to be "only one point of view is right". It may be the most tolerant point of view overall, but it's still pretty myopic to present it like that.


Explaining all my reasons why would take an essay, though, so I'm going to save it for a review.

Oh, also it felt like there were a few questions from the demo that were never answered.

Why does Acre flash and act really weird before his boss battle? Soul explicitly points out that there's something strange about that, but it never comes up again. I assumed the big reveal was that the instability didn't happen naturally and the villain actively destabilized things, but that never panned out.

It's also never explained what "shifting" into one world or another really means -- like, are the characters in each world literally the same person, just different facets of their personality? In that case I don't see what's so bad about destroying one world or another, since that shouldn't actually kill anyone. Wouldn't the personalities just get folded into the other?
This is an amazing game. :D I've played through it three times and started on a fourth, seeing all the different endings and the way the characters change. It's very well done.
It feels almost like a classic SNES game that you never quite got tired of as a kid.
From what I've played, this already feels like one of the best games of its type. The music reminds me of Banjo Kazooie x)
author=Labyrinthine
From what I've played, this already feels like one of the best games of its type. The music reminds me of Banjo Kazooie x)


Agent Ape, the composer for the game, is a huge Rare and Grant Kirkhope fan. I think he does Banjo very well!
Congratulations on being Featured!
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
Yay! Congrats on the feature!!