PLEASE NOTE:
You are currently viewing an archival version of GF!
Click here to return to the current GamesFirst! website.

 Septerra Core starts auspiciously with a fantastic and informative intro movie – something many games either ignore completely or treat as eye-candy/filler.  The world of Speterra Core is composed of seven floating continents, circling one above the other around a bio-computer core.  Wheeeee, I’m hooked.  Let’s have more.   But after this intriguing landscape, the story line unfolds along predictable lines: there’s good, there’s evil, an artifact everybody wants, and snooty, rich, technologically advanced guys called The Chosen.   You play Maya, a squatter on the shell beneath The Chosen and living off their refuse.  It’s a rags-to-riches story and Horatio Alger can go eat dirt.  While the story is a bit unimaginative, it had enough of a plot, coupled with a great setting, to carry me through the beginning of the game. 

 Fantastic hand-painted graphics and voice acting further bolstered my initial impression.  Like most games I’ve reviewed lately, there was no ambient sound to speak of, but the long cut scenes are superb and entertaining.  In fact, it is those cut scenes that stand out as the best part of the game: appearing at appropriate intervals – never stumbling over each other, but frequent enough to keep interest in the narrative alive – and with such excellent anime style graphics that they were a joy to watch.  In the first few hours of gaming, Septerra Core stood out, and I wanted the rest of it to be as good.

Septerra Core bills itself as an RPG.  It isn’t exactly.  RPG’s distinguish themselves from other games by allowing the player a degree of choice in the development of character through generation or skills. In Septerra Core, you are forced to play Maya and, while you gain levels of experience, you have no choice as to how her abilities progress.  The player is given a role instead of creating one.  In computer RPGs, as opposed to console RPGs, it just isn’t enough to embody a character that accumulates experience points, and I don't think Septerra Core has enough role-playing elements to deserve the name. 

 As in other areas, gameplay is initially interesting.  The camera is fixed third person oblique (a là Balder’s Gate) with two levels of map view: a large map with hotspots that transport play to smaller, interactive maps.  You scamper about accompanied by a few boon companions whose stuff you can mess with and who will squabble if they don’t like each other.  A good portion of time is spent talking with villagers, each with their own argot and personality ticks.  When speaking, you are giving a preset list of possible topics, and, while it was simple to get information by selecting every possible topic, the other members of your party can ask questions as well.  (One character, a sort of robo-dog named Runner, barks at everybody.)  I had a lot of fun during these portions, and Septerra Core’s exploratory elements pleased me a great deal.

 Everything looks okay until you get into a fight.  When you come upon a bad guy, the game switches to a clock-based scheme in which actions – attacking, casting spells, utilizing inventory equipment – depend on the accumulation of endurance.  In other words, you wait.  After so much time, you can do something.  Battles are static and uncompelling.  Characters don’t get to move around, find advantageous positions or use strategy of any kind.  They hit you.  You hit them.  I thought the first battle was a joke.  That it couldn’t be this boring.  The bad guys appear in the same positions no matter how many times you kill them, and since you have to return to areas several times, imagine the fun of the same battle over and over.

 The magic component, casting spells via Fate Cards that are found as play progresses, had lots of possibilities because, rather than individual magic ability, the group’s mana is pooled.  Anybody can cast any spell.  Cards could be also combined in novel ways to produce different effects.  Unfortunately, this system is wasted in combat.  Again, the player just waits and whatever potential existed evaporates in the face of an annoying combat interface.  Septerra Core is combat heavy and the amount of time spent getting physical overwhelms portions of the game that worked well. 

 What you end up with is a console game on the computer.  If you’re a fan of the Final Fantasy series, this might be familiar, but I don’t want to be unfair to console systems, which work in a different milieu and under different restrictions.  My impression is that the narrative is supposed to pull the Septerra Core together and it doesn’t.  A good plot doesn’t compensate for a poor design, and no matter how fascinating the next narratological twist, I had to fight to keep playing.

 For Thanksgiving you will want a good diversion between rounds of mashed potatoes, football, and bizarre, rarely-seen relatives.  There are a few things – like setting, graphics and acting sequences – that give Septerra Core promise, and, if there were a significant role-playing component, I could dismiss the console-on-the-PC style play.  If there were a good combat system, I could recommend it in spite of the role-playing irregularities.  Before you scramble through the house getting riled up and sweaty, listen: I’ve looked in the oven, seen the animal, and, trust me, Septerra Core just doesn't live up to expectations.

--Matt Blackburn