DS Review: Summon Night: Twin Age

by Jenni Lada on June 13, 2008 at 7:24 pm

I was a fan of the original Summon Night: Swordcraft Story games Atlus released during the GBA’s last days, so I was excited about Summon Night: Twin Age. Unfortunate, I went into this new, DS entry expecting more of the same gameplay I had encountered in the GBA titles. Instead, Summon Night: Twin Age is a sort of a strategic, real time, action RPG.

It isn’t that Summon Night: Twin Age isn’t fun. At times it can be. Just I didn’t expect a game where you basically tap enemies and let the characters do their own thing, which is what you can do for most battles.

Summon Night: Twin Age stars Aldo and Reiha, who live in the neutral Kascuza island of Jarazi. In Jarazi, everyone lives in harmony with the Spirits, who are apparently responsible for everything in the world. Reiha and Aldo were raised as siblings, despite the fact that Aldo is a summon beast Reiha summoned when she was a child, and were sent to Jarazi after Reiha’s father died.

The humans and Kascuza are always fighting over how the Spirits should be used. Normally this doesn’t effect the lives of people living in Jarazi, but when the game begins the characters come across some corrupted Spirits. These Spirits then spawn horrible monsters. So of course Aldo and Reiha journey to the island of , then around the entire world, to find a way to calm the Spirits and restore balance.

There are some nice little surprised during the game. There’s a smattering of voice acting that occasionally shows up during story sequences. Also the relationship building between the main character and supporting characters still exists, and at the end of chapters of the story players will get the opportunity to have their chosen character talk with one of the others. Learning skills is interesting, since it involves a skill tree like the one found in Xenosaga, and players can also create conjure beasts to assist in battle.

Sadly, there isn’t much of a challenge. Most common enemies can be defeated easily by Reiha’s magic spells, and most bosses succumb to Aldo’s physical skills without any trouble. Summon Night: Twin Age also uses the touch-pad exclusively, which gets a bit frustrating. You can use the action buttons to progress through dialogue, but everything else is executed with the stylus and touch screen. While that’s nice and all, sometimes you want to be lazy and navigate menus or explore the world with the face buttons.

If you’re looking for a DS RPG-fix and can’t wait for Final Fantasy IV, then Summon Night: Twin Age is a decent, time-killing contender. It is better than Eco-Creatures and Children of Mana, but worse than Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings.