Overview- Critic & User
Reviews - Videos &
Screenshots
News- Codes
& FAQs - Gameplay
Controls - Similar
Games
Answers
Bundles
Critic & User Reviews
IGN Review of Summon Night: Twin Age
The Summon Night series has gone through quite an adventure in itself between its strategy role-playing PSX roots, it's "Tales" inspired GBA series with Swordcraft Story, and the now premiering Summon Night: Twin Age for Nintendo DS. While the original concept was entirely turn-based, feeling more like classic strategy titles such as Final Fantasy Tactics and Ogre Battle, Twin Age lands on DS with a more system-specific experience, blending touch control with dungeon crawling gameplay to create an experience that's not only extremely deep in design, but also well produced from top to bottom. We wouldn't call this one Nintendo DS's Riviera, but it's certainly one of Atlus's best offerings on DS thus far.
Summon Night: Twin Age follows the story of Aldo and Reiha, two siblings thrown into a mysterious world where life is more in tune with mystical spirits, and where man is considered enemy. The story picks up shortly after an anomaly that send the spirit world into disarray, and with spirits running wild and attacking within the world, it's up to the two children to help restore balance to the world, and uncover the mysterious events that started their quest.
With the Swordcraft series on GBA, players had a traditional RPG feel with active sidescrolling battles similar to Tales of Symphonia on GameCube, or Phantasia on GBA. With DS, the entire design has been overhauled to create an experience more like the import DS great Soma Bringer, or the classic Blizzard Diablo franchise. Right off the bat you'll notice not only huge attention to detail, but also some serious presentation, as storytelling is done with a mix of scattered VO, huge panel art, and in-game character scripting all at once. This is a huge improvement over not only previous Atlus designs, but most 2D experiences on DS, as players are usually given just panel art to help convey the story. The entire design remains 2D in nature, but with a new "point and click" feel to it everything moves more like Heroes of Mana or FFXII DS, making use of smaller-frame animations and a heavy visual effects budget to create an experience that doesn't always move at a brisk pace, but certainly looks visually pleasing. Scripted sequences make a decent story better by adding in plenty of movement and personality, and camera zooms, mixed transition animations, and sliding key art up the overall production value considerably.
On the battlefield, Summon Night is just as deep and rewarding than it has ever been, but now takes place in real time rather than mixing RPG with action phases. We've seen the simple "tap to move" design a million times on DS (Phantom Hourglass certainly comes to mind), but it's the overall depth that makes Summon Night stand out. Customizable command palettes on the left and right of the touch screen allow you to switch not only between both brother and sister, but also any weapon or spell you've set up on the command tab. The stylus is used in interesting ways, including timed taps to hit multiple enemies, long, sweeping slashes to create fire walls and multi-strikes, and support magic that effects areas or specific allies with a quick tap of the screen.
All in all the combat is a blast to play, and really drives the experience. It can be a bit slow to trot around arenas, and the support AI for your party often walks right through traps or map hazards, lagging behind while you attempt to press on at a brisk pace, but once the difficulty starts to kick up they are more than helpful, casting support spells, healing each other, and fighting alongside you with AI parameters you customize. It'd be nice of there was a way to issue even more commands to your team on the fly though, since there are times when you need characters to fall back or take a break from the action altogether, and it isn't always the easiest task. Since all support and healing is done by physically touching the characters on-screen, large battles can get hectic, and it can be tough to heal a specific person if they're knee-deep in battle with enemy sprites.
Veterans that remember the versatility of the Summon Night series on GBA will undoubtedly recall the immense level of depth and customization the series offered, and Twin Age takes it even further this time around. All drops in the world consist of materials that can be used to either forge or upgrade any weapons, armor, or in-game items such as stat buffers, or HP/MP recovery, and you'll need to bring those to shops in order to actually make use of your earnings. Along with level ups and rank you'll gain not only base stats, but also points to spend on skills. Each of the two main characters have their own skill tree with level cut-caps, multi-tiered upgrades, and different offensive and defensive commands to spend your skill points on and focus on. For Aldo, you'll need to focus on sword, axe, or spear specifically, while Reiha mixes offense and support with different elemental alliances. It can take a bit of getting used to for a newcomer to RPGs, as it's pretty deep as far as what we've seen on DS already, but it also adds a lot more personalization to the experience. Changing lead characters on the fly also means you could play through the entire game with either brother or sister primarily, and focus even further on what weapons or skills you wanted to use along the way.
Another aspect that really ended up pulling us in was the whole AI support system. As Aldo and Reiha continue their quest they are joined by main support characters which can be used to build a party. While you'll never control more than just the two siblings in the game, you can decide which characters move with you in parties, which gain experience based on battle, what characters you like the most and will interact with during specific story sequences, and who you'll ultimately take with you through the game. No equipment or skill point assigning is done by the player though, so it keeps things simple. In addition, dropped elements from enemies allow you to spawn monsters to fight alongside you as single-use items, so if things get rough you can always count on your alternate main character, a group of supporting heroes, and some short-term mercenary help from spawned creatures, all fighting for the cause. It can get extremely hectic, but it's also a lot of fun to manage and balance your tactics.
Overall Summon Night: Twin Age is a lot of fun, but there are some instances where things got a little weird during our playthrough. For starters, we were always overpowered, and never really worried about having enough cash or materials to upgrade or purchase what we needed. Recovery items were always in high supply, and even though AI was a bit strange at times in supporting us, battle was never an issue. The story itself is a little simple for our liking as well, with decent concepts wrapped up in the classic – almost bipolar – attitude of generic anime. Someone will be extremely sad, another character will swoop in and throw a quick response out, and everything is back to smiles and exclamation points. We'll chalk a lot of that up to the game's obvious aim towards younger players – Atlus has always made hardcore games with a somewhat casual coating for newcomers – but it's still a little odd to have such over-the-top storytelling in such a mature, hardcore-centric design. Missions are also extremely generic, often centered around one main path or a few quick branches scattered throughout a box and treasure chest-filled dungeon, but in the end the gameplay more than wins out, as it's really fun to play despite any flaws.
©2008-06-04, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Summon Night: Twin Age follows the story of Aldo and Reiha, two siblings thrown into a mysterious world where life is more in tune with mystical spirits, and where man is considered enemy. The story picks up shortly after an anomaly that send the spirit world into disarray, and with spirits running wild and attacking within the world, it's up to the two children to help restore balance to the world, and uncover the mysterious events that started their quest.
With the Swordcraft series on GBA, players had a traditional RPG feel with active sidescrolling battles similar to Tales of Symphonia on GameCube, or Phantasia on GBA. With DS, the entire design has been overhauled to create an experience more like the import DS great Soma Bringer, or the classic Blizzard Diablo franchise. Right off the bat you'll notice not only huge attention to detail, but also some serious presentation, as storytelling is done with a mix of scattered VO, huge panel art, and in-game character scripting all at once. This is a huge improvement over not only previous Atlus designs, but most 2D experiences on DS, as players are usually given just panel art to help convey the story. The entire design remains 2D in nature, but with a new "point and click" feel to it everything moves more like Heroes of Mana or FFXII DS, making use of smaller-frame animations and a heavy visual effects budget to create an experience that doesn't always move at a brisk pace, but certainly looks visually pleasing. Scripted sequences make a decent story better by adding in plenty of movement and personality, and camera zooms, mixed transition animations, and sliding key art up the overall production value considerably.
On the battlefield, Summon Night is just as deep and rewarding than it has ever been, but now takes place in real time rather than mixing RPG with action phases. We've seen the simple "tap to move" design a million times on DS (Phantom Hourglass certainly comes to mind), but it's the overall depth that makes Summon Night stand out. Customizable command palettes on the left and right of the touch screen allow you to switch not only between both brother and sister, but also any weapon or spell you've set up on the command tab. The stylus is used in interesting ways, including timed taps to hit multiple enemies, long, sweeping slashes to create fire walls and multi-strikes, and support magic that effects areas or specific allies with a quick tap of the screen.
All in all the combat is a blast to play, and really drives the experience. It can be a bit slow to trot around arenas, and the support AI for your party often walks right through traps or map hazards, lagging behind while you attempt to press on at a brisk pace, but once the difficulty starts to kick up they are more than helpful, casting support spells, healing each other, and fighting alongside you with AI parameters you customize. It'd be nice of there was a way to issue even more commands to your team on the fly though, since there are times when you need characters to fall back or take a break from the action altogether, and it isn't always the easiest task. Since all support and healing is done by physically touching the characters on-screen, large battles can get hectic, and it can be tough to heal a specific person if they're knee-deep in battle with enemy sprites.
Veterans that remember the versatility of the Summon Night series on GBA will undoubtedly recall the immense level of depth and customization the series offered, and Twin Age takes it even further this time around. All drops in the world consist of materials that can be used to either forge or upgrade any weapons, armor, or in-game items such as stat buffers, or HP/MP recovery, and you'll need to bring those to shops in order to actually make use of your earnings. Along with level ups and rank you'll gain not only base stats, but also points to spend on skills. Each of the two main characters have their own skill tree with level cut-caps, multi-tiered upgrades, and different offensive and defensive commands to spend your skill points on and focus on. For Aldo, you'll need to focus on sword, axe, or spear specifically, while Reiha mixes offense and support with different elemental alliances. It can take a bit of getting used to for a newcomer to RPGs, as it's pretty deep as far as what we've seen on DS already, but it also adds a lot more personalization to the experience. Changing lead characters on the fly also means you could play through the entire game with either brother or sister primarily, and focus even further on what weapons or skills you wanted to use along the way.
Another aspect that really ended up pulling us in was the whole AI support system. As Aldo and Reiha continue their quest they are joined by main support characters which can be used to build a party. While you'll never control more than just the two siblings in the game, you can decide which characters move with you in parties, which gain experience based on battle, what characters you like the most and will interact with during specific story sequences, and who you'll ultimately take with you through the game. No equipment or skill point assigning is done by the player though, so it keeps things simple. In addition, dropped elements from enemies allow you to spawn monsters to fight alongside you as single-use items, so if things get rough you can always count on your alternate main character, a group of supporting heroes, and some short-term mercenary help from spawned creatures, all fighting for the cause. It can get extremely hectic, but it's also a lot of fun to manage and balance your tactics.
Overall Summon Night: Twin Age is a lot of fun, but there are some instances where things got a little weird during our playthrough. For starters, we were always overpowered, and never really worried about having enough cash or materials to upgrade or purchase what we needed. Recovery items were always in high supply, and even though AI was a bit strange at times in supporting us, battle was never an issue. The story itself is a little simple for our liking as well, with decent concepts wrapped up in the classic – almost bipolar – attitude of generic anime. Someone will be extremely sad, another character will swoop in and throw a quick response out, and everything is back to smiles and exclamation points. We'll chalk a lot of that up to the game's obvious aim towards younger players – Atlus has always made hardcore games with a somewhat casual coating for newcomers – but it's still a little odd to have such over-the-top storytelling in such a mature, hardcore-centric design. Missions are also extremely generic, often centered around one main path or a few quick branches scattered throughout a box and treasure chest-filled dungeon, but in the end the gameplay more than wins out, as it's really fun to play despite any flaws.
©2008-06-04, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved