The
title of the Shaman King: Legacy Of the Spirits Soaring
Hawk Version should be abbreviated to The Sham.
The
Shaman King is a collecting RPG in the tradition of
Pokemon - shamefully so. But instead of expanding
on this style of gameplay that's already been done
to death, The Shaman King sees fit to simplify it
so that it offers a challenge akin to turning a water
faucet on and off.
The
"hook" of the game is collecting souls.
Instead of collecting monsters as you do in Pokemon,
there is a cast of wacky dead characters that need
to be harnessed to help you fight your battles and
ultimately help you become the Shaman King. These
spirits have various abilities and will increase them
as you earn experience points. Amidamaru is your closest
aid and if you level him up from the beginning he
will be able to take on just about every enemy you
encounter. Gradually you will acquire a party of rag-tag
characters that will also have the ability to level-up
and assist you in battles.
Battles
are mostly random. There are tons of them. It's a
big concentrated mess of fights. You won't be able
to take more than a few steps before you find yourself
confronted by some enemy. You do have the option to
refuse these battles by running away without sacrificing
so much as a scratch. If you do, you can always start
again from your last save spot and restore whatever
you may have lost. I guess you won't need any cheat
codes for this game unless there are some that actually
make it more challenging.
Aside
from random encounters with various enemies you will
also fight other Shaman that are vying for the title
of the Shaman King. You can use up to six spirits
in the turn-based battles and change them at any time,
although it will cost you a turn. The spirits have
different attacks and they are somehow aligned with
different elementals but it's not sufficiently explained
in the manual. All you can do is experiment with different
items until you come up with some super attack. Frankly,
I just didn't care enough to try more than a couple
of configurations with no luck.
Spirits
can be added, exchanged and combined to your arsenal.
You can combine spirits of former humans and animals
to create strange hybrids that have little correlation
to their separate components. It's fun to see what
you get but once again, it's all so random there is
no way you can create something specifically. You
have to use what you get instead of making something
you can use. This severely limits the strategy of
the gameplay.
The
environments are empty looking for the most part but
the maps are loaded with enemy upon enemy looking
for a fight. It's like a minefield nightmare. The
characters are colorful and quirky. The dialog is
funny which helps to show that the game doesn't take
itself too seriously. At least the game and I share
some common ground.
Both
versions of the Shaman King are identical as far as
gameplay is concerned but each version boasts different
spirits. You can trade them via the Link cable with
other gamers. There are more than a thousand different
spirits from cats to karaoke singers. It sounds like
a lot more fun that it really is.
Unless
you're under eight years of age you won't find anything
interesting about either version of Shaman King.
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