A hands-on look at Nippon Ichi’s new squad based Strategy RPG.

While much of the hardcore gaming crowd has most likely migrated over to one of the next gen systems by now, fans of niche games still have a comfortable home on the PS2 thanks to game companies like Nippon Ichi and Atlus providing us with great games like Odin Sphere, GrimGrimoire, and the upcoming Persona 3 on a fairly consistent basis. Nippon Ichi’s next effort, Soul Nomad and the World Eaters, is the long awaited return to their Strategy RPG roots that fans have been waiting for ever since they had their fill of Disgaea 2. In fact, give Soul Nomad a quick glance and you’d probably think that it was in fact Disgaea 3. Despite visual similarities however, Soul Nomad and Disgaea are as different as night and day when it comes to how they are played.

The story of Soul Nomad takes place in a world that has been ravaged by a single all powerful being named Gig and his three monstrous World Eaters. Who exactly is Gig you ask? Well in his own words, he is “The most hardcore asskicker to ever walk the planet.” Unfortunately for our hardcore asskicker, but fortunately for the world, Gig was sealed away into a sword by the warrior princess Layna, and his three now masterless World Eaters became dormant. 200 years later, our hero, Revya (For the record, the game lets you choose the name and gender of the hero.

For the sake of this review I’m assuming he’s a male and using the default name), and his friend Danette are summoned by Layna to officially become town protectors. While Layna allows Danette to choose whatever weapon she wishes to wield, our hero is given the Onyx Sword, the very same sword that Layna used to seal Gig 200 years ago. Upon touching this cursed sword, a black energy starts to emanate from Revya and a cackling laugh fills the room.

Gig’s spirit enters into Revya’s body and essentially gives him an eviction notice. Unfortunately, evicting a soul from a body turns out to be quite difficult so Gig offers Revya a deal. Should Revya ever feel a desire for power, Gig will lend him some of his godly strength. However, the more Revya relies on Gig’s power, the more control Gig gains over his body. Eventually Revya’s soul will just disappear and Gig will be free to roam the world again to do whatever he pleases.

What is Gig’s objective? Why did Layna allow for Gig’s return by willingly giving the sword to Revya? What is to become of the still dormant World Eaters? All of these questions and more will be posed and answered as the story of Soul Nomad unfolds, but you’ll just have to play it yourself to find out.

Now that we got the story out of the way, we can focus on the real meat of Soul Nomad, the gameplay. At its core, Soul Nomad is a squad based strategy RPG. At the start of the game, you will only be able to create one squad, or room as they are called in the game. As you progress, more rooms will become unlocked and new classes of units will be available for you to create in order to fill those rooms.

In addition to filling these rooms with units, you can also fill them with decorations that grant all of the units in that room a special bonus. For example, one d?cor might give all of the units in the room a 20% boost to their ATK stat, while another might give only the archer class a 20% stat boost to all of their stats. This system encourages you to not only think about what units you want to put in a room together, but also what decors you have to make each room as strong as it can be.

Battle in Soul Nomad is a little different from what you might expect in a typical SRPG. Battles take place on a flat 2D map with various types of terrains painted on it. Typical battles start with you only having your main room on the battlefield. From here you can summon your other rooms on to the field by paying a summon fee based on the power of the room. Each room has their own turn so you can’t just summon all four rooms on to the field and have them each move to attack different targets in the same turn.

Each room is represented by a single leader whom you can control to move the entire squad around the battlefield. Should this leader fall during combat, the entire room will suffer the same fate, so it is absolutely critical that you think before you send your squad to attack an enemy. If your leader is in the front row and you send your room to battle against a strong squad consisting of swordsmen and knights in the front row, you put your whole squad at risk of being instantly annihilated if all they decide to attack your leader all at once.

Of course this works to your advantage too. Every unit has three moves that they can use depending on what position they are in. For example, if a Pyremage is placed in the frontlines of a room, the only attack it will use is a weak little strike with its staff. If placed in the middle of the room, the attack will become a fireball that strikes one enemy in the opponent’s front or middle row.

The real payoff however, comes when you place the Pyremage in the back row, allowing it to use its firewall attack, which will torch all of the enemies in a single row, even if it’s all the way in the back. So if you’re going for a quick kill and you see that an enemy has their leader placed in the back row, the best to take that squad out instantly would be to send a room that has three Pyremages in the back row to try and incinerate him with three consecutive firewalls.

In addition to the attack command, you can also use what are known as Tactics. These are special abilities unique to your leader’s class that can be used outside of battle to either temporarily increase that room’s stats, decrease an enemies stats, or simply attack an enemy room without actually having to engage in battle with it.

Finally there are also the Gig Edicts. These are essentially the game’s items, but with a special twist. Some Gig Edicts can not only be used inside of battle, but during conversations and even while you’re shopping! The Gig Edict entitled Fight for example is fairly useless in battle, but when you use it on a shop keeper, your main room will actually get thrown into a fight with the shop keeper’s room. Should you defeat the shopkeeper, a new and stronger one will be put in its place along with better items for you to buy.

One more aspect that deserves special mention is the Inspection. After about an hour into the game you will be given the opportunity to perform an inspection on one of your rooms. This is essentially Soul Nomad’s version of the Item World in Disgaea. Once you decide to inspect a room, you will be thrown into a battlefield full of enemies and a room tyrant who is usually many levels higher than you.

By defeating the room tyrant, you clear the floor and are given the option to press on further. By clearing floors and defeating the room tyrants, you will enhance several different aspects of the room as well as obtain Room Points which you can use to upgrade your units. If you die while doing an inspection, it is game over for you, so you better make sure you always save before doing an inspection because they can get really hard really fast.

Overall, SRPG fans have a lot to look forward to with Soul Nomad. Creating and inspecting rooms is dangerously addictive and some of the tougher missions will require lots of strategic planning in order to come out victorious. We can’t wait to sink our teeth further into the game and see what else it has in store for us. Keep an eye out for Soul Nomad and the World Eaters when it hits store shelves September of this year.

Originally from GWN