Summoner Review

Cover	Game Information	Reviewer	Peripherals
	Genre: RPG   Developer: Volition   Publisher: THQ   Players: 1   Release: Oct. 2000	Dan "Wolf" Hubner	- Analog/Dual Shock  - PS2 Memory Card

The Smack
Summoner could have been truly amazing. But it isn't. Too bad, so sad. Don't get me wrong, this is still a solidly entertaining game, it's just that there was so much potential that wasn't lived up to. But enough about that, let's get into Summoner

The Sound
To tell you the truth, this is the thing I care the least about in a video game.. But, I figure I'd better still touch on it for those of you who do care. I'm not exactly the best authority on this subject, the only thing I care about is that John Madden doesn't get to speak (which of course isn't a problem here). What I can tell you is that the music does a good job of setting the mood, and the sounds are nicely done as well. And the voice acting, while of course not up to par with Metal Gear Solid, manages to at least be taken seriously. Overall, nothing special here, but also nothing that causes you to laugh out loud, and more importantly, no effects that become so repetitive that you need to mute the damn thing.

The Looks
Let's get my gripes out of the way first. What?? Graphics are a gripe on the PS2!?!? Yep, that's right, and in this case they actually detract from gameplay. Before you "hardcore" RPG gamers send me hate mail about how graphics don't matter in a role-playing game, allow me to explain myself.

Pop-up (when something on screen doesn't appear until you're rather close) is the culprit here. It's scary how bad the pop-up is at times, and frustrating that a delayed release probably could have fixed things up right-nice. And we're not talkin' small pop-up here, we're talkin' "Holy bejeezus, there's a huge-ass castle there!" This pop-up is also, I think, the cause of the game's camera issues, but I'll get into that more in the Gameplay section

Aside from that rather large problem, the graphics are up to PS2 quality, as you can see from the screenshots. Everything has that crisp, clear, detailed look, and the in-game graphics can hardly be told apart from cinema graphics. When the pop-up isn't rearing it's ugly head, we've got a beautiful game on our hands.

The Gameplay
Ahh, now we get into the meat of Summoner. After all, a game is nothing unless the player is held captive by the its gameplay. Luckily, Summoner makes up for its graphics problems with its jolly good gameplay (did I just say "jolly good?"). Fun battles and plenty to do make this a very addicting game.

Summoner's battle system brings Vagrant Story to mind; you chain together attacks by pressing one of the directional buttons when the symbol appears. As you progress, you learn various abilities you can set to the directional buttons, as well as add points to a wide range of skills, allowing you to customize your characters.

A cool feature of this system is the AI for friendly characters. You can select various options for what you want your allies to do, whether it be to heal wounded characters, cast spells, or just sit in the fray and duke it out. The most surprising part of this is that the AI actually deserves the "I" part. As far as I can tell, AI has come a long way since the last games that attempted its use with friendly NPCs (non-player characters). The friendlies still occasionally need you to take control for a few seconds every now and then to put them back on the right track, but they make the NPCs in other games look even dumber than they already did.

Also, as you should be able to tell from the game's name, it involves summoning. But you don't just summon a creature and sit back for a sweet scene of destruction, you actually control the monster like a regular character (well, it's more badass than a regular character). However, having a summoned creature around has a share of dangers too, which I think is cool because it adds more strategy into the system. When your main character, Joseph, summons something, it costs some of his maximum HP (health points), and if the summoned creature dies, that HP is gone for good. Furthermore, if Joseph dies, you lose control of the monster and it runs amok. "With great power comes great responsibility," eh?

But now we come to the problem: camera angle. The camera is locked in a tight overhead view, which lends itself to "oversteering" as you try to maneuver your character. Plus, I quite often find that I'm getting hit by enemies flinging energy-crap at me from offscreen, and I can't even see where they are til I'm right up close. After playing Summoner for quite a while, this becomes far more frustrating than you'd think, and it's the reason the game doesn't rate wondefully in this category.

Finally, I'll touch on the story for my fellow RPG-geeks. Quite frankly, there's not much to be said. It gets the job done, but there's nothing too creative. It's the gameplay alone that keeps you involved, not the drama. And from my perspective, there's nothing wrong with that.

Overall