Developer: Idea Factory

Publisher: Atlus

System: Xbox 360

Release Date: July 29, 2008

ESRB Rating: T

Official Web site

0:00 Before I received this game in the mail, I did not know that Spectral Force 3 existed, much less Spectral Force 1 and 2!

0:01 A desolate, anime mountainscape with smoke coming from the volcanic core. A boy in rags lies on the ground. "Where... where am I? What happened to me?" Fair questions, both. Floating humanoid beasts appear behind him. He runs off as they glow blue and float after him. He screams as the camera pans away. Cut to shots of green fields with blue rivers. Quick cuts of anime battle scenes. A girl prays at a statue. A guy drinks straight from a large bottle. The intro ends with a band of warriors standing heroically on a hillside, one of them waving. Cue title!

0:05 "Neverland... A world where gods reside in heaven, the dead in the underworld, and demons, humans and other races struggle for dominance over each other on the Earth." What a clunky description. The evil overlord Janus was defeated by human heroes, but his daughter started a war with a new "Overlord army." Bands of mercenaries formed in response, "not restrained by the bounds of race or nationality."

0:06 Back to the present, a guy on horseback sends in two more units after his first band got annihilated. Suddenly, a black-clad fellow walks in, using two flailing tentacles on his shoulders to knock the unit about like tenpins. The King is impaled rather dramatically by the same tentacles. "Pathetic humans are so fragile," says the mysterious figure. Ain't it the truth.

0:07 The anime cut scenes have stopped, replaced with spoken and subtitled text over still, drawn pictures of the characters. "Hey old man, when are we gonna get some action?" asks Dragan. "Easy there kid, we're the backup unit," replies Judo. Are these the good guys? A messenger brings word that King Zaflak has been killed. Sounds like he needs supplemental insurance? ZAFLAK!

0:09 The Overlord army has overrun the most powerful army in the land. "Damnit. Now who's gonna pay us?" whines Dragan. "I'm gonna get 'em." It's funny -- every other character has decent voice acting. Him, not so much.

0:12 Quote of the moment: "Buzzzzzz!" This line is spoken by a "killer bee," but what makes it really funny is the voice acting, which is just a guy saying "buzz!" Anyway, he's part of a group of forest monsters that are in our way. "All units, attack!" cries Judo. Now loading.

0:13 "The drumbeats of war sound..." reads the banner. I have to defeat all enemies within 15 turns. The battlefield is a grassy grid of squares filled with rocks and trees. Some pieces are raised above the others. There are some treasure chests, too.

0:15 Instead of just picking and clicking my desired location, the control stick actually walks my player around the grid. A nice little touch.

0:17 The enemies walk right into my attack range, letting me start taking them out on my second turn. I have options for light, medium and hard attack; each one uses up that character's "AP" for the turn. Two hard attacks from Judo are enough to kill my first killer bee.

0:21 The remaining bees attack next turn, making some generic metal clanking sounds as they do. They don't seem to do much damage.

0:22 My characters seem to vary greatly in strength. Begina does three attacks and barely scratches a bee, while Judo did two and utterly destroyed one.

0:23 I try out the "teamwork" option on the menu, which seems to allow a nearby character to get a free turn for another attack. Not sure what activates this ability, but I'm not complaining.

0:24 I kill the final bee, but there's still a chest left to be opened. The game won't let me get it, though, since the battle is over. "All right, we did it," one of my characters cries as generic victory music plays. I get a rank of B.

0:25 "Looks like we're done here. Let's proceed," says Judo. But he's wrong. There are skeletons! "These guys aren't like those puny monsters. These are trained warriors." Yeah, but they have no muscles or skin. How hard can it be, right? "Charge!"

0:28 The camera during these battles could be better. I can't zoom in and out, and the trees constantly get in the way of my view.

0:29 Judo's special "vortex slash" attack can hurt two nearby enemies at once, and leaves enough AP to finish them both off. Boo-yah! I can't really see why I'd ever use weak attacks, unless forced to by my limited AP.

0:30 Begina's "Thunder blade" special attack seems to do slightly less damage than a single hard attack. What a waste.

0:32 Interesting -- Dragan's special attack lets me knock a guy back a few squares with subsequent hard attacks. The feeling of discovery is kind of nice.

0:33 For all the talk of these skeletons being trained warriors, they sure do miss a lot. Even when they get an attack to hit, it barely fazes my guys, and my healer is more than up to the task of recovery.

0:36 Apparently, I can't attack a guy right next to me if he's at a slightly lower elevation. Lame!

0:37 The skeleton's eliminated, Cassius levels up. I give him some more HP, because he seems quite fragile. "That should suffice." says Judo. Another rank of B. Grrr.

0:38 Judo and Begina are talking about a fight well fought, when suddenly a big head wound appears on our fearless leader. Bittersweet flute music as Judo gives his last words. "Those who lead armies and kingdoms... Those who stand above others... must not be reckless or cowardly. What's important is not to be partial. Kid... don't be partial... you just... you just stay the way you are... just... take it easy... Begina." Diaz can't heal him because "the wound is deep." Whatever.

0:40 Dragan and Cassius are "too partial," Judo says, so Begina is gonna be in charge. What does he mean "too partial"? Should they be, Switzerland? "May the holy goddess Coleia... bless these young...war..riors." ENOUGH WITH THE LAST WORDS, JUST DIE ALREADY!

0:42 Quick cut to a field -- the team has stumbled upon a castle. Dragan and Cassius don't have faith in Begina as the new leader, so they leave the party, along with Judo. And then there were two.

0:44 At the Headquarters menu screen, I decide to talk to Diaz, the healer. "They don't really think I'm reliable.... It's pretty common among mercenaries." He's very understanding for a mercenary leader. Diaz thinks he's dead weight, but Begina gives him a pep talk.

0:46 I only have enough money for a new sword for Begina. I can't figure out how to equip it. I guess it gets added automatically?

0:47 Playing around in the menus, I find I can add accumulated experience points to any character. I level up Begina and move on to the "Monster Hunter 1" mission. A Logeon resident will pay us 3,000 gold to destroy some monsters. Let's do it!

0:48 You'd think things would be harder with only two characters, but as far as I can tell there's only one weak enemy on the field. I like these odds.

0:50 After my turn is done, a couple of killer bees warp in on the side of the field. Still not too worried.

0:52 A third bee appears, but all three of them seem content to just sit there as I work my way over to the chests.

0:53 Quote of the moment: "I'll heal you." Diaz says this as he's healing Begina. Sigh.

0:55 So instead of busting the enemies, I decide to bust some crates that are sitting on the battlefield (because I can). When I bust them all open, the battle ends. "We managed to do it," cries Begina. So I wasn't trying to kill the enemies? Color me surprised.

Would I play this game for more than an hour? No.


Why? Some decent voice acting and art direction can't save the extremely slow-paced, generic fantasy tactical RPG gameplay.

This column is based on a gold master of the game provided by the publisher.

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