Reviewed: May 24, 2001
Reviewed by: Mark Smith
Publisher
THQ
Developer
Volition, Inc.
Released: March 27, 2001
Genre: RPG
Players: 4
ESRB: Teen
8
8
6
9
7.9
System Requirements
Recommended System
Summoner is another in the seemingly endless series of 3D RPG games following in the footsteps of Blade of Darkness, Vampire: The Masquerade, and Diablo II. There are also some resemblances to Sacrifice in the way you control your characters and the camera as you explore the vast 3D cities and landscapes.
Like most RPG's, this game has you doing a lot of killing and stat-building to increase your abilities so you can tackle bigger and badder enemies and then repeat the process ad nauseum. Sure there is a huge story and more sub-quests than any previous two RPG's combined, but the whole things starts to bog down after 20-30 hours.
There is a rich story that manages to keep you motivated despite the repetitious gameplay. Stat building, inventory management, combat, spell casting, and all other RPG elements have been reduced to their simplest form making this a great game for first time adventures and veterans alike.
You start off as Joseph, a special kid with special powers and a very interesting history. Throughout the course of the adventure you will gain additional skills and abilities as well as a few friends who will join your small party offering their own unique skills to the mix. You will also obtain the ability to summon a variety of monsters that you can control to aid you in the larger battles.
Gameplay is pretty consistent throughout, and much like other games in the RPG genre has you running around killing everything that moves in order to earn experience points and random treasure items. Your Quest Log will start to fill up as quickly as your inventory with tons of side quests that you can partake in during the course of your main adventure.
As your party expands it becomes a challenge to build all of your party member's stats evenly. Each character has a primary ability with stats that reflect that ability. This makes building each of the characters a little easier. While your party can reach a total of five adventurers, you can only control one at a time and build their stats. You do have the ability to preset the AI for the rest of your party giving you some extra control over the characters not directly under your command.
There is also a good assortment of spells to be earned and learned although you have no real control over which spells you get. They are automatically added to the spell books as you attain higher levels.
There are hundreds of people to meet and talk with, and it can actually get a little confusing when you reach the city and there are dozens of people to talk to on almost every screen. While everyone will have something to say the important people have bubble icons above them making them easy to locate. It's a shame there is no conversation log (ala Deus Ex) as the list of conversations and quests becomes very large very soon.
Gameplay is reminiscent of last year's Vampire: The Masquerade in both interface and gameplay. Unlike its bloodsucking predecessor, Summoner has some excellent camera angles and control. The camera can be set to either a high or low angle or set to "auto". The camera pans for the most part, but if you find yourself looking behind you rather than forward you can easily spin around using the mouse or arrows on the keyboard. Zooming in and out is easily accomplished with the up and down arrows or mouse wheel.
Combat has an interesting twist. When your weapon is readied you simply click on the enemy to begin your attack. You then have the opportunity to chain attacks by right-clicking the mouse at just the right time. Too early or too late and the chain fails. Successfully chaining attacks is a great way to deliver devastating damage and drop your opponent before they hurt you. If this sounds like the combat system from Vagrant Story you are right.
The world is full of interesting cities, deadly, monster-filled dungeons and plenty of other exciting locales for you to explore. There is a lot of gameplay packed into this title; enough to keep you busy for weeks and weeks of constant gaming.
The graphics are excellent and actually better than the PS2 version if only for the higher resolution. As long as you have the required video card you will be treated to all the special effects you would get on the PS2 but in much greater detail. The use of fog to hide the draw-in is non-existent. Instead, the programmers are using a cool effect where objects and buildings on the horizon slowly fade into view much like a transparency that becomes more solid as you near. This eliminates the annoying pop-up we have become used to in most large-scale 3D games.
Level design is incredible with detailed architecture and interesting dungeons that really try not to get too repetitive. These levels are spiced up with small details and effects that really help to immerse you in the environment. There is good use of textures on many of the world items and the character graphics and textures are second only to the characters and creatures in Blade of Darkness.
The game world is huge and you can get lost quite easily. A map is provided that fills in as you explore. This useful map shows your party's current location as well as any places you have previously visited and your immediate surroundings.
The movies in Summoner are a mix between animations using the game engine and pre-rendered movies with a unique look. The latter is simply a narration that you listen to as a camera pans around various paintings. While the imagery is nice and there is an authentic canvas artwork feel to the graphics I can't help but miss the 3D rendered CGI movies we've all come to expect from modern day games.
Summoner features some incredible music that is very authentic featuring a wide variety of instruments and themes. The music also changes to reflect the current situation adding great emotional impact to the gaming experience.
Sound effects are plentiful and of equal quality. The crackling fire of the burning village almost makes you smell the smoke while the clash of swords and wild sound effects for the magical attacks all add to the intense combat experience. There are also plenty of subtle environmental effects that totally immerse you into the world around you.
Aside from the narration during the opening movie and between the various areas you visit there is hardly any speech. Be prepared to read and read a lot. With an 800mb installation requirement you would think that the major characters would speak their lines. But in retrospect, there is a lot of dialog - pages and pages of it to be exact, and this game did get its start on the PlayStation 2. Console RPG's have always had the reputation of making you read the dialog, and this game is certainly no exception.
In this day and age of games growing shorter and less involved it is refreshing to finally come across a game that can easily keep you busy for upwards of 50 hours. The main quest is enormous and when you add in the seemingly endless list of mini-quests you have one of the most substantial games of the year.
Summoner supports online multiplayer adventuring for up to four players using the new online gaming service www.thqmultiplay.net. You can take control of any of the main characters and play through each of the world's main areas killing lots of bad buys, collecting loot, and increasing your skill levels.
The entire concept is much like the multiplayer in Diablo but without the random map generator. This takes away from some of the replayability of the online component as you can quickly learn the levels and the placement of enemies and items. Despite these limitations the game is quite fun to play over the Internet and there always seems to be a good selection of available players ready to join in some friendly (or not so friendly) melee.
Summoner is one of those rare RPG games that had its roots on a console before making the move to the PC and actually improved through the conversion process. Other games have attempted multi-platform success and many like Final Fantasy have been successful in developing a following on both consoles and the PC. While the controls and game style scream "console game", this PC-conversion improves on an already good game with better graphics and online play.
While it delivers tons of gameplay, the repetitious combat in Summoner can start to wear thin after 10-20 hours. If you stick with it though you will discover a rich world full of fantasy and adventure and an intriguing plot that will carry you through to the end of your quest. Throw in a great combat system, unique spells, great graphics, and a functional multiplayer mode and you have one of the better RPG games released for the PC this year.