f13.net forums - Soul Nomad and the World Eaters - NIS

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April 18, 2024, 01:11:41 PM

we're back, baby

It's a SRPG from NIS, do I even really need to write something here? Soul Nomad is a good addition to their portfolio, a cross between their traditional offerings and Ogre Battle, albeit with a few warts. You start off as young man in a training academy 200 years after an apocalyptic war. However, trouble is stirring again and your mentor entrusts you with a sword, which contains the soul of the godlike, indestructible, evil Gig. Gig's soul enters your body, and you set off to destroy the World Eaters. Hijinks ensue.

The combat here is quite a bit different than your standard NIS title. It's similar to Ogre Battle from the SNES, in that you fight with groups of pre-made squads. Squads are assembled in a "room", which determines the layout and content of the squad. Rooms offer a lot of customization options and lend to the overall excellent tactical depth. Battles occur on a flat map with terrain, which can offer certain bonuses, with multiple squads facing off. Encounters between squads consist of a single attack and counter attack. This leads to a strategic battle system that rewards careful planning beforehand more so than other NIS titles.

Many of the games flaws come from the room system. First of all, the UI for managing it is atrocious. I'm still constantly making mistakes or forgetting how to do something in it, and I'm a few hours in. It's just not intuitive at all. Secondly, the tutorial doesn't explain a lot of the features adequately and a lot of features are not available early on. This left me a bit confused at times. Not surprisingly, this game looks dated. One doesn't expect graphical superiority coming from NIS, but it doesn’t even look as good as the first Disgaea. The UI is plain ugly and uninspired.

Despite these flaws, I'm still playing it and will continue to play it. Ogre Battle like combat is something that's been missing from any modern games.

Try it…if you’re a fan of SRPGs. Gig alone is worth picking this up.

Hmm.. does the front page link not respond to the edits. I took out the special characters. STUPID WORD.

Anyhow, just finished my first World Eater battle last night. It was great. The battle system is just a thing of beauty.

Sounds neat, I love Ogre Battle style combat.

Based on your review I looked for other reviews online, they didn't even mention Ogre Battle even though concept is the same, and even the specific example (healer in middle vs. back row) is straight out of that series.

I'm too lazy to try so I'll probably just buy.

I have a review here. Did you notice? ;)

No I didn't LOL. The name did sound familiar though.

I found that the humor in Soul Nomad fades away pretty rapidly (on the main storyline, at least) once you're a few hours in. Gig is awesome, but there's generally not enough Gig to support the entire game.

I thought the game was pretty meh after I finished it, but I think a Try It rating is fine, particularly for JRPG/JStrat gamers.

Did you play through the reverse story?

Yes. Not worth the 25 hour forward story when you could just watch all the good bits (cutscenes) on Youtube. awesome, for real

Game gets a bit tough in parts when squad members in a room aren't adequately leveled. The AI also has an uncanny knack for singling out your puny healers/mages for ranged alpha strikes (HEY, SUPPOSED TO BE RANDOM).

Luckily the inspection system provides a good alternative to the item world from Disgaea. Focusing on getting a few healers leveled up before continuing. Even though they're prime targets, it's really difficult to have an effective, lasting squad without a healer. The overwhelming number of squads you face on maps tends to dictate this, otherwise you're going to get whittled down.

I wouldn't consider the game "meh" at all and I'm around the 15 hour mark. Perhaps I'm just so stoked to see an Ogre Battle fighting system in this framework.

I found that eventually the combat system lost its charm and I had no incentive to level up my characters for the (very limited amount of) bonus material. Couldn't they have given us class upgrades? Palette swaps? Anything?

Mmmm, just the cover of this game made me all giggly and what not.

No class upgrades...hmm weak...

Class upgrades were basically replaced with a lot of shit you can do with the room.

That said, there's better versions of classes just not "upgrades" to them per se.

Quote from: schild on December 20, 2007, 04:20:34 PM

That said, there's better versions of classes just not "upgrades" to them per se.

That's not quite right. There are a ton of melee classes and one or two of them just suck, but each focuses on a different stat (defense, offense, etc.) so they end up developing very differently.