Sudeki (Reviews)

Eliot Fish, GamePro Australia

07/10/2004 13:59:14

The hype for Sudeki has been quite insidious, being the first big RPG published by Microsoft for the Xbox system. Endless gorgeous screenshots, endless wallpapers of gorgeous girls with big norks, endless gorgeous E3 booth babes dressed as the characters with the big norks... and so on.

Well, now that it's here for us to finally play, we can see that an enormous amount of work has gone into making a lush, detailed and entertaining game. Sadly, Sudeki also follows the RPG formula so closely, that it comes across feeling too predictable in both story and gameplay. This is like an MTV remix of all that we love about Japanese RPGs, with none of the originality or innovative gameplay.

Sudkei allows you to control four characters - Tal, Elco, Buki and Ailish. Each is like a hodge-podge of personalities from early Final Fantasy games: The hot-headed young soldier, the strong-willed princess, the scientific gizmo guy and the animalistic warrior girl. Each has their story told across the course of the game, but the writing is weak and it's doubtful you'll care about them or their personal struggles. Tal has the predictable relationship problems with his father, Ailish is determined to prove to her mother (the Queen) that she's old enough to look after herself and so on... It's nothing we haven't sat through many times before, in much better games to boot. The characters' visual design is also poor, with everyone in the world looking like the same teenage character model, but with different hair, costume and gender. There's just nothing to admire or relate to with this typical teen RPG gang. They're also topped off with some dismal voice acting too.

However, despite this horrendous handicap, Sudeki still manages to be a fairly entertaining game. It will probably feel like 'RPG-Lite' to anyone who's played a few Final Fantasies, but no doubt mainstream gamers will be hooked into playing the game to the very end.

Combat is probably the most interesting element to Sudeki. You can switch between any of your party members with a single button press, and utilise their various special combat strikes. Accessing the combat menu slows the game down to bullet-time so you can choose your attack or even select a deadly summon to smite your foes in one fell swoop. Standard attacks can be combined with the A and X button to perform powerful combos, with two of the four characters utlising a first-person perspective for an almost First Person Shooter style twist on the RPG combat. It's effective and engaging, and keeps you playing - which is the important thing.

The world of Sudeki also looks quite stunning, and it feels like there's plenty to explore and enough side-puzzles to keep you backtracking until you uncover all the game's secrets. Boss encounters are particularly well put together, and are definitely the game's biggest challenge.

If it wasn't for the recycled ideas plucked straight from a Japanese RPG back catalogue, along with some very poorly written NPC interactions and weak storytelling, Sudeki could have been a much more impressive and memorable action/RPG. As it stands, it's just the same old stuff in different clothing.

Score = 7.5/10

[ Other stories about Microsoft, Gameplay ]

Graphics: 4.0

Sound: 4.0

Control: 3.5

Fun Factor:

Scoring scale: 1-5

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Publisher: Microsoft / Developer: Climax / Retail Price: $99.95 (Xbox) / Release date: 15/09/2004 / Genre: RPG / OFLC Rating: M (15+)