SUMMONER 2
Original Release: THQ, 2002, PlayStation 2
Other Releases: Gamecube (2003)
The sequel to the RPG Summoner fuses in more action-oriented combat (and a lot of it), making it a hybrid brawler-RPG
Summoner 2 (PS2, THQ, 2002)
Where to Buy: Amazon
How to Emulate: PlayStation 2 Emulation Guide
Review by: C. M0use
I guess they really expected you to have played Summoner 1 first if you picked this one up, as you're tossed right into the middle of the action with little explanation as to where you are or what the hell is going on ... after a cinema of some chick reviving a desert-restoring tentacle tree, suddenly we're on the ocean fighting off very aggressive pirates that can easily kill you during the "tutorial phase" if you don't quickly come to grips with the game's odd fusion of beat-em-up and World of Warcraft-ish MMO combat.
While the game takes its sweet ol' time about explaining who this chick is and why there are Avatar/Guardians of the Galaxy blue people about and how we wound up on the high seas of life, it decidedly takes the opposite approach about gameplay elements. Any time something new pops up, you get a lengthy excruciating set of instructions, to a level of detail that really wasn't necessary for a lot of this stuff.
Now, I don't mean to intimate the game was lifting content from anyone else; it actually beat WoW to market by two years, and thus the whole samey MMO craze that would eventually produce Final Fantasy 12 onward, though its combat definitely bears a resemblance to the original Everquest. Also it obviously was almost a full decade ahead of Avatar, maybe they have a legal case on that one but the characters here aren't quite furry enough IMO. Just real blue. Disney's meat grinder of a legal team might want to take a look though, I dunno when Guardians introduced the blue people but I know it's been around for decades.
Really the only reason I decided it made the "beat em up" designation is that you can stun-lock enemies with your combos when attacking them, and that's a crucial part of surviving some fights. Otherwise it's just standing toe to toe and passively hacking it out and may the best stats win. You're not provided a lot of help here, with a lot of janky elements to the gameplay, the camera being the #1 offender right from the outset. It's stuck in a fixed angle that can't be changed and that often does not let you see the enemies swarming up on you until they are already raining blows on you, a MAJOR tactical disadvantage given how hard even early mooks can tend to hit.
Since it's predicated on the "stand and hack at each other" MMO style, health also slips away very quickly with almost no visual feedback as to how badly you're being damaged. Main character Maia starts the game with a healing spell and you'll probably need to just spam that after fights for a lot of the going to survive. Another annoying conceit that rears its head early is certain weapon types not damaging certain enemies at all. After you beat the boss of the opening tutorial sequence, you take his flaming cutlass, which initially seems pretty cool. And then it's rendered moot in the very next area where the most common ghost enemies completely no-sell it. So you have to constantly flip your character's equipment around, which means pausing the game to dive into the menus, or just switch to one of the other party characters (if any are available) to mop up those particular mobs. And on the subject of new equipment and treasure, the only indication a body is lootable is a low-effort icon that appears only if you're standing on the correct polygon chunk of his dingdong or something.
While the gameplay is fiddly, it could be forgivable if the story and world were absorbing. They are absolutely not. It's all extremely self-serious, like a teenager's fantasy fic, seemingly without a shred of humor or lightheartedness as we navigate the Prophecy of Se'l-Sn'oool in the Age of the Wyrmguard or whatever the hell. I guess the developers thought this was all very fascinating, slowly dribbling the plot to you in bits between tons of repetitive MMO-y battles, but really you're given no reason to care about any of it whatsoever. Boring flat characters, unclear motivations, a game world that seems like a hodgepodge of elements from different genres with no good explanation as to why. The only thing keeping me awake was the main character's wonderful rack.
Aesthetics wouldn't be enough to bail all this out even if amazing, but they're spotty too. The game does have some cool backdrop vistas at times, but that's about it. Most of the game world looks like South Park's take on WoW. Which actually maybe was a little advanced for 2002 but has not aged well. Animations are choppy and environment and character textures tend to be low-quality. Music is forgettable Western game background stuff of the period.
The game definitely had ambition, reportedly it gives you a huge world with tons of side quests if the action somehow grabs you. But there's little point when the action is tedious and repetitive, the plot and characters are totally uninteresting and the pacing is just awful.
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