Overview
The “Summon Night” series has been all but coherent throughout the years. Starting as a strategy rpg a la FF Tactics, the game has changed quite alot since now, when it’s latest installment, Twin Age, is making it’s debut on the DS. Nintendo’s portable money printer isn’t short on good rpgs, so what could Twin Age bring on the battlefield to make it more compelling than his brothers?
Story
In a mystery world where the spirits are the prevalent form of energy and humans are some evil form of life, Aldo and Reiha, two young siblings, fight in unison to unfold the many strange happenings that their land is facing. Twin Ages follows what is standard in the jrpg universe: while not revealing a particularly interesting or thought out storyline, there’s nothing overly done in the game, resulting in a predictable and sometimes boring story, but nothing to really complain about. Every dungeon you crawl through will initiate a series of dialogue sessions, which is where most of the story unfolds. It will probably take you over 20 hours to complete the main story mode and all of the side quests, but nothing can stop you from spending more time with Aldo and Reiha.
Visuals and Sound
The sound, just like the story, remains in your typical jrpg standard. Catchy tunes will guide you through most of the dungeon crawling. It’s nothing extraordinary, but it’s no reason to turn the DS’s volume off. The game has a decent amount of subbed which is generally genuine quality, a rare feature in a handheld game.
The visuals is where Twin Age really excels. As you might have noticed, the game sports some beautifully rendered anime/manga art, the in-game sprites are very high quality figures and every cut scene sports some very nice drawings. You’ll never see the quality drop throughout the whole experience, a definite plus in the style department.
Gameplay
Twin Age is, to some extent, a level grinding dungeon crawler; that doesn’t mean it isn’t a fun game.
The overall difficulty is, in fact, not demanding. You’ll almost never be forced to spend too much time in one dungeon trying to get stronger. Each of these dungeons is divided in short bursts and ends with a boss and a dialogue event. A convenient save system lets you save at pretty much any given moment, making the game perfectly portable.
Everything is done via the touch screen. The world map is stylus guided and every menu in the game has a simple and easy to use interface.
You can play as either Aldo or Reiha and switch from one another at any time. Doing so completely changes the way you play the game, even though their skills are used in the same way.
Your character starts attacking an enemy once you tap on them with the stylus and will not stop until the enemy is dead or you give a different command. Skills develop via a smart skill tree in which you spend the points you gained from level ups to buy new moves or powers. These abilities can be activated once you put them in your canvas, a set of two columns (one on the right of the screen and one on the opposite side) where you can set skills and items for a quick use. Once selected, skills require you to perform a certain action on screen to be activated; these actions are surprisingly vary and sometimes fun to do (i.e. tap an enemy, draw a series of lines etc). Some skills can turn out to be somewhat overpowered, but the overall balance of the game does not change.
Playing as Aldo or Reiha is, as said before, a choice that will completely modify your style of play. Aldo is your typical melee/knight character, meaning that playing him will force you to go up front against enemies and use a series of offensive skills (tap multiple enemies, draw lines of attack, shoot shockwaves). Many of Aldo’s skills are bound to different weapons, for a total of 3 (Swords, Axes and Spears). This means that the weapon Aldo is equipping will not only affect his stats and looks, but also the type of skills you can use. Your canvas can also fit weapons, permitting you to swap into different ones on the fly.
Reiha is, however, a much more strategic and interesting character. As a mage, she sports a long series of skills that vary from offensive elemental strikes (fireballs, water waves) to support and buffing magic (attack up, healing). This means that you can make two completely different characters out of her. While only having one weapon type, the staff, Reiha’s wide array of skills makes her surprisingly fun to play with.
Wherever your choice falls, the AI will play as the second character and succeeds at play decently about 90% of the time.
Along with the twins your team will be able to widen with other support characters that are not playable nor equippable, but come quite in handy, especially in some of the tough boss battles. These characters are quite numerous later on in the game, and choosing from one another could be simply about your own simpathy for the characters.
At the end of each game chapter, you can choose to spend some time with one of your party members. Doing so raises there support rank, a level each extra character has which evaluates their affection for your main character. While it’s nothing game breaking, it’s a nice and welcomed little feature.
Conclusion
Twin Age is the perfect game for the JRPG fan who is looking for something different. While it is no digital masterpiece and while it’s nothing astoundingly revolutionary, the latest episode in the Summon Nights series presents itself with some great art, solid gameplay, decent story line, giving a smart and enjoyable experience. Now, if only those cutscenes were skippable…
