Game-A-Week Episode 8: Soulworker

[9:33 PM]

Well this is it. The climatic finale of the Future Seven arc!

[9:33 PM]

And this week, I played Soulworker.

[9:34 PM]

It's an action MMO developed in Korea but first published in Japan.

[9:34 PM]

Not really sure how that one happened but its a lot of fun. This got a place on the Future Seven list when I first saw the trailer and one of the comments said "This looks like Persona 4 but an MMO". So I was on board instantly.

[9:35 PM]

It is however, nothing like Persona 4. The game is similar to Skyforge in that instead of an open world, you're in a hub world and select carefully designed missions to go on.

[9:36 PM]

Outside of that, the game is pretty simple. Its good mindless action fun.

[9:37 PM]

First things first, there's unfortunately, not a lot of character customization so you don't exactly have a sense of identity within the game.

[9:37 PM]

This is because you play as characters, not classes.

[9:38 PM]

I imagine this was done because the devs have some sort of vision in mind for every "class" and don't want you to deviate too much from it.

[9:38 PM]

Not that I'm defending the decision but I can understand where it originates from.

[9:40 PM]

In any case. for me, it was a tough choice between katana user Chii Arugel and Iris Yuma, a delinquent who aesthetically could actually fit into Persona 4 and uses a giant cannon as a blunt weapon.

[9:40 PM]

I went with Iris Yuma because she was doing a cute two fingered salute in her character portrait.

[9:42 PM]

And I don't regret it, I love her playstyle. She's a heavy damage dealer but is a little slow. Like I said, she very rarely uses her cannon to shoot and instead swings it around like a hammer.

[9:42 PM]

This girl's gotta be stacked because she swings it like its nothing.

[9:43 PM]

She can also transform her cannon into a drill so you KNOW this is my kind of character.

[9:44 PM]

Despite the terrible translation and the lackluster south korean dub, the game does have charm that leaks through in spite of that.

[9:45 PM]

For example, my character, Iris Yuma, has an idle animation where she takes out a piece of candy, looks around to make sure no one's watching her and then pops it into her mouth and does a cute little dance.

[9:45 PM]

It's frankly very adorable.

[9:45 PM]

And despite the aforementioned terrible translation some of the dialogue DID get a small couple of chuckles out of me.

[9:46 PM]

Speaking of terrible translations, I don't know why but EVERY character uses the phrase "Be that as it may" like its going out of style. I don't get it.

[9:47 PM]

One interesting feature the game has is the Bandit Zone. This is an open area zone where there are no laws.

[9:51 PM]

What this means is you can attack any player in the Bandit zone. It's basically this game's equivalent of Runescape's Wilderness. Honestly, I love when games do this. It gives a real sense of danger whenever you venture into a dangerous area like this. But unlike Runescape, the Bandit Zone is the center of the game's world. In order to go from town to town, you have to brave the Bandit Zone. Of course, you can pay a fee to take a helicopter to your destination instead but I like to make the journey on foot. I absolutely love the feeling of embarking on a perilous journey to the next town over. It gives you a real sense of "I made it!" when you finally get to where you're supposed to be and I wish more games did stuff like this. I felt like a traveler, it was an adventure.

[9:53 PM]

The way the game is structured is very much like Skyforge. Each town has about 4 "battle districts" where you accept missions and each district has about 4 missions.

[9:56 PM]

And with what I can tell is 4 towns, it seems the adventure will actually be short-lived. It's unfortunate but just like Skyforge, this might go the Star Wars The Old Republic way of being a temporary game with an end in sight. I hope that's not the case because I love this game. We'll once again, just have to cross that bridge when we get there.

[9:57 PM]

The story is nothing to write home about but I did feel a sense of accomplishment and climax when finishing the game's first arc or "chapter" as it is officially referred to as.

[9:58 PM]

I at least felt like I was doing something and things were going places instead of just going from place to place fighting whatever mooks get in my way like most MMOS.

[9:59 PM]

I want to say more abut this game, but a simple game deserves a simple review. That's pretty much all the highlights. There's an operator that talks to you during missions and I actually quite like it. She makes me feel less alone when I'm out in the field.

[10:04 PM]

But that'll do it for this game-a-week. I also like the cel-shaded graphics. So it seems the Future Seven arc, counting the games we skipped over, actually only had 6 games total. Huh. Wonder how I messed that one up. Well, I'll just have to do something special for next week to make up for it and I've got just the game. The perfect game to bridge the Future Seven (The games that started Game-A-Week in the first place) to the rest of the list. See you back here .... TOMORROW!

[10:06 PM]

I give Soulworker a 7/10. Its a fun action game that oozes with charm in spite of its poor localization.

[10:08 PM]

For her victory pose, Iris Yuma strikes a poses with her cannon, beckons the camera to come closer with one finger and winks as it approaches her. It was at this moment, I knew I made the right choice in choosing her as my character. The wink had me weak.

[10:10 PM]

Each character has a "Soulnova" skill which charges up as you defeat lesser enemies like a super meter does in fighting games. For Iris Yuma, her Soulnova is "Hysteria" which is basically the Kaioken. I feel such a rush using it during boss fights. Its arguably my favorite minor aspect of the game.

[10:11 PM]

But I know what we're all thinking. There's only one question left to answer. Can you pet the dog?

[
]

No. Unfortunately, you cannot. These little guys come up to you in town, they follow you around, bark at you, stand up on their hind legs and even roll on their backs wiggling their legs in the air to taunt you. There's even some quest dialogue where Iris demands a character to teach her how to approach and pet a dog.... But in the time that I played, she never does.... I had to take off an entire point for that. Would have been an 8/10 if you could pet the dog.