Sorcery Saga: The Curse of the Great Curry God (PS Vita) review

[Bassman]

I was a little surprised not to find a thread about this game using a Search.

Currently on special in the PSN (cheaper than buying a boxed version online - not the first time PSN has amanaged this with games).

So, what do you get... A cute looking JRPG. Now, this is not a game for the faint-hearted. I am still not convinced it is my type of game, though I keep returning to it!

You have to do a lot of Dungeon crawling. After the first (I suppose) tutorial mission you get a pet to join you on your quest to make a legendary curry (seriously!). You get special ingredients from the Dungeons you visit.

Your characer has four slots. One for a weapon, one for a shield and two other apparel slots.

You can see chests (you attack them to open them). items and monsters (who can drop items) on the maps. Combat is fairly basic you can do a basic sword type attack or use spells (if you have any equipped). Spells have a limited number of uses for each Dungeon). Your Pet is basically on Auto-Pilot and will attack enemies when they are near. Your character will automatically regain health. Your pet on the other hand will lose healthe. You can restore it by throwing items at it (not sure the game actually told me how to do this - hold square and turn to face your pet, select an item and throw it). Some weapons or armour will cause your pet to level up. Useful for your continued well-being! You of course level up by gaining EXP from the monsters. Your Pet also has special abilities which you can access once per floor (as far as I know). It gains an ability for every 3 levels it gets. Face your Pet to use these. The first is Crafting which can enable you to upgrade your weapon or shield using items you have found. I have yet to try any of its other abilities.

When you are in a Dungeon you have two basic options. Continue to the bottom or Give Up! If you give up, or for that matter die in a dungeon, you are returned to town without your items or money. You do get to keep your weapon (I didn't take too much notice when that happened as I left the game at that point). Not sure about your shield then. You also have a limited capacity, though "feeding" your pet helps keep some usable slots. You can use items on your self as well (unless there are restrictions on specific floors of the Dungeons).

I did find something called a Transport Book which allows you to return to town with all your items. So, if you find anything good, it may be worth returning to town.

From my experiences in the first main Dungeon, the game sometimes sends ridiculously strong enemies out (it does warn you) , at which time it is best to progress to the next floor of the Dungeon.

Now, I have read that the game can freeze in the deeper Dungeons. If you are in a large Dungeon, you can suspend the game and return to the title screen with the game doing a Temporary Save (probably best to take a backup copy of these... just in case, assuming you can). On resuming, the save is deleted. The only place you can do a normal save is in town. In town you can store items and money (so you don't lose them next time you die!).

Another interesting spanner in the works is the fact that you return to Lv 1 when you get back to town, ready for your next Dungeon crawl!

If you get any of the DLC you need to be online to use it (why... it is a handheld game?). Not that you are missing much as it is only voices (the free DLC that you can use when you have completed the game), and some cosmetic items (from what I have read as I am not keen on downloading them for a price just to find out).

For those that like such things, the voicing in the game is Japanese with English subtitles. There is a nice line in humour with the dialogue.

[Bassman]

Well, I have now completed the first main Dungeon and started the second, so I have a fair idea of some of the niceties of the game.

You character (Pupuru) and Pet (Kuu) do get to meet characters on their crawlings. Complete with amusing dialogue.

Apparently I shouldn't have defeated the boss in the first Dungeon (though technically I didn't as I had got Kuu to Lv 25 and was suddenly told that the boss had been defeated). You should apparently trawl that dungeon (there is an opportunity to leave that Dungeon on the penultimate floor) for good weapons and shields. The idea is to get decent equpment to make life easier in your future Dungeon visits, before killing the first Dungeon boss. The layout of the Dungeons is not fixed so it will be different next time you go there. There are (as I mentioned) occasionally special effects on a floor. One had a large number of enemies (so it was best to get into a passageway so that you only fight them one at a time). You move at the same speed as the enemies, so you can run away to regain some health before continuing the fight.

After completing (I presume) that first mission a larger version of Kuu arrives in your room in town and can be used to craft better weapons or shields by combining an item (one of the same type as the one you are crafting seems preferrable) with the one you want upgraded... for a price.

I had a fairly decent weapon and shield after the first Dungeon (so only going through it once was not so bad), so felt better prepared for the second one.

Unless Kuu has the ability to see weapons or shields, the only way to check them out is to equip them. Unfortunately one of these in the second Dungeon proved to be cursed and I could not unequip it (not too bad a weapon fortunately). You can apparently get around this with Holy Water (which is apparently available in the Curry Shop in town).

Kuu's abilities appear randomly (one every 3 levels) in each Dungeon, so the crafting one may not be the first one you get. Kuu, also, can only have four abilities active so you have to decide which ones to keep when he gets a new one.

The "lose everything when you die" is somewhat mitigated if Kuu is still alive when Pupuru dies, as she will keep her equipped weapon and shield. On having this happen in the second Dungeon I abandoned the game as I still had the Cursed Weapon equipped rather than the good one I had upgraded with crafting. As I presume the later Dungeons will have more floors this becomes less of an option. Apparently the post game Dungeon has 256 floors!

Weapons do level up after extended use and can gain an extra slot for a special effect. My shield had one slot when I found it which has a boost to HP of 30. As some monsters can knock an item out of your hands it may be almost worth cursing your weapon and shield (if memory serves me correctly there is a Scroll to do this - I found one of them) so they are permanently equipped. This will not stop you crafting upgrades on them. The curse is apparently lifted when you return to town.

I must admit I wouldn't have thought this was my type of game! Who likes to revert to Lv 1 after crawling through a Dungeon in which you gained a fair few levels? At least you can get decent weapons and shields to make life easier... provided you can avoid losing them! I am now defintiely finding this game difficult to put down, so the (currently on PSN) ?14.99 (I don't have +) seems money well spent. The game is even distracting me from Disgaea 3!