Weird name, brilliant game

By William Barker

The country of Illumina is a sight to behold

When I think 'console RPG', the Playstation 2 and even the venerable SNES come to mind, followed shortly by mild dizziness and involuntary nasal leakage.

The Xbox doesn't even enter my thoughts, and for good reason - there's stuff-all RPGs on the square-shaped console.

You can count games like Knights of Old Republic or Morrowind, but these games are very much PC-inspired RPGs - I'm talking about Zelda, Final Fantasy, Secret of Mana and their ilk.

In a bid to address the disturbing role playing game drought on its increasingly popular console, and perhaps even to soften the still wary Japanese gamers, Microsoft and Climax have come up with the Japanese-influenced Sudeki.

Before we touch on the gameplay mechanics and all the other practical mishmash you need to know, the Sudeki story goes something like this: Long ago, in a place called Australia, there lived a young writer by the name of William - he was noble and brave and the chicks loved him so.

Oh, wait, that's a different legend. My mistake. Right, here we are then: Long ago, the realm of Sudeki was torn in two, creating a world of light (where you and I would live) and a world of darkness (where Bubbles the Monkey would live).

In the world of light, let's call it Haskilia, things had been cruising along quite nicely and everyone was fairly happy. Even the Haskilian winos and junkies were content in a shaky, scabby, smelly sort of way. But then something happened…

The mysterious Aklorians - believed to be from the world of darkness - started attacking outposts and villages and so Queen Lusica, the big mommy of Haskilia, ordered her best scientist to build a shield to protect the entire kingdom.

The adventurous quartet strike their 'serious' poses

Long story short, and four adventurous individuals are tasked with finding the components needed for such a device.

Normally what I'd do in a review is talk about the good bits first, then touch on the bad. But like a snake shedding its skin, or a wildebeest waiting for a taxi, I'm gonna change things up a bit.

Sudeki is an awesome game, no arguments here, but one of the worst things an RPG can do is to go limp on longevity.

Not that Climax has created a short-lived game, it's just that it's so damned playable and addictive that the finale came far earlier than this gamer was ready for.

And once you've clocked Sudeki, there's not a whole lot more to play for. No good minigames, no hidden gallery, no extreme difficulty levels and no secret chapters. Worst of all, there's no Xbox Live support to keep things interesting, so once the game's completed, c'est fini - it's finished.

I also felt that the game was overly cute at times, with insipid dialogue options when talking to NPCs and annoyingly cute characters doing what appeared to be their level best to make me hurl.

Other than that, there's not a lot to dislike here, so let's get into what this game's all about.

Though the game is played out in real time, and is quite reminiscent of the GameCube Zelda games -- what with lots of exploration across luscious fantasy worlds and NPC interaction intermixed with a few puzzles to keep things fresh -- there are also some great Final Fantasy rip-offs, namely the skill strikes.

Which brings me to the violence. Combat is excellent and much more interesting than just navigating a few menus and then pushing 'proceed'.

The wizardress unleashes a 'skill strike' in order to turn the tide of battle in her favour

Though I have nothing against turn-based combat, Sudeki presents an awesome case for real time combat, and depending on the character you choose to control, you will fight from either the first or third person.

The two melee combat specialists, Tal (a traditional warrior) and Buki (a tribal feline), can string together awesome combos, and are played from the third-person perspective.

Ailish (a sexy wizardress) and Elco (gun-slinging computer nerd) are the ranged weapon gurus, and are controlled from the first-person perspective.

Such variety and the way that the different characters approach combat makes for an exciting gameplay mix, but getting back to the FF-inspired skill strikes, and these puppies basically freeze time, and while the screen goes black the character in question may say something lame like "I banish ye fiendish jerk-offs".

This is followed by some crazy camera work and awesome eye candy, and the skill strikes are one of the reasons why the game rocks so hard. Each character has about seven skill strikes each, and while there are a few 'clone' spells shared between some characters, what's on offer is still a tremendously sumptuous feast for the eyes, with all sorts of transparent lighting effects and pyrotechnics lighting up the battlefield.

Not only do they look cool and allow you to relax momentarily from the hustle-bustle of the real-time combat, but they do shit-loads of damage too. While there is a cute and cuddly feel to the game at times, the combat is blood-filled, and sometimes you can even explode foes in a shower of blood and giblets. Huzzah!

Oh, and if the skill strikes aren't enough, there's also the spirit strikes, which are even more grandiose and do even more damage. Drool…

Climax has gone on record saying that Hong Kong cinema was an influence, and though I found little evidence to support this, I remain committed to my arguament that skill strikes are still way too cool to overlook.

Ailish contemplates a Rapunzel complex...

Like Diablo 2, players can imbue various weapons with runes, making them more powerful, or recharging a small amount of health for each strike that connects. Armour can also be upgraded, though the selection isn't as varied as with weapons.

Furthermore, you can collect all sorts of potions and valuables. The former can be used to restore health and magic power (aka skill power) or speed up your movements, while the latter are good for making money (the currency is florins) from merchants.

Character progression is an important part of any RPG, whether on a console or on PC, and Sudeki doesn't disappoint. Every creature you kill earns you experience and once you reach a certain threshold it's time to level up.

There are four main statistics: health, skill, power and essence. Health and power relate to hit points and damage dealt respectively, while skill is the amount of spell power or mana you have, and essence increases the damage done by your skill strikes.

Moving on to the game's look and feel, and it must be said that the level design and graphical complexity will leave many Xbox gamers slack-jawed - it really is a splendid game to look at. The worlds that UK-based Climax has created may be fairly linear, but when they look like this you won't really care.

Walk through the architecturally advanced Haskilian castle and marvel at its vibrancy and feeling of life. The game has a huge amount of charm, no doubt about that, and even when you wander through the countryside and along the beach you'll notice small waves perfectly modelled in 3D, trees shedding their leaves and houses covered in Reptufalo poo.

The overall graphical style is again very Zelda, not adhering to realism so much as looking like an intensely detailed cartoon-inspired game. The anime-esque characters look awesome with heaps of detail, and the monsters and various locales all live up this high visual standard as well.

One of Tal's many flamboyant combo attacks

While there are four characters all told, sometimes you'll only be in control of just one, or sometimes a pair, and then you'll appreciate the power of the Xbox-exclusive graphics engine when all four characters are going the tonk.

Also, when there is more than one character to control, you can set the remaining players AI to defend, attack or retreat, and in general these work well, but I did find myself swapping through characters in combat to utilise their skill strikes as the AI was loathe to do so.

Together with the brilliant graphics, the sound is also particularly sweet, with every single character and NPC (non-player character) speaking in full, no matter how insignificant their role.

In hindsight I think that the profusion of speech (which would have taken up a good chunk of the CDROM) helps to create a good deal of the charm and character that makes the Sudeki universe so engrossing, and the lip sync is also bang on the money.

While fairly generic to begin with, the plot heats up after the halfway mark and it's being part of this engrossing story that will compel you to play until the bitter end, to see what becomes of both the light and dark worlds of Sudeki.

From where I stand, this somewhat cutesy action RPG is an absolute success. If it was just a bit longer and had some online components, I'd be pants-creamingly good.

But as it stands it's still a killer application - the gameworld is one of the most vibrant and enticing I've ever had the chance to explore, and the intuitive combat engine, variety of modes (3rd, 1st person) and eye-popping special effects combine magnificently.

The console-style RPG drought on the Xbox is now finally over, thanks to the absorbing experience that is Sudeki, and with Fable on its way, Xbox-owning RPG fans finally have something to crow about. And if it weren't for these handcuffs, that restraining order and the proximity-controlled explosive device wrapped around my gonads, I'd be in England thanking the Climax crew for doing justice to the console RPG genre.

Game: Sudeki
System: Xbox
Players: 1
Online: No
Developer: Climax
Distributor: Microsoft

Rating: 85%

(Ratings Key/Explanation)

Sudeki is on the shelves now.