Xward plays- Soul Sacrifice Delta

[Xward]

Oh, hello there. Were you surprised to see me gaming in the bathtub?? I am a man of infinite pleasure.

Today and onward I am going to take you on the journey that is Soul Sacrifice: Delta




Soul Sacrifice Delta is an updated re-release of the game Soul Sacrifice, Bogleech reviewed some monsters from it once. As far as re-releases and remakes go, this one was pretty good. It expands the story and gives a very good conclusion, it improves the gameplay, and adds even more content than the previous games DLC. One thing to note is that the previous game had about 10 extra DLC bosses that were all free to download.

More on the genre itself, it borrows the formula from the Monster Hunter series but tweaks it enough to make it feel different.

Let's descend




Our game opens up with this somber foreword

Well this game is garbage, one second in and not a single sight of-



BONES!!!




As we pan across this barren wasteland my PS-Vita tries to prevent me from taking this picture of a fuckboy being captured for the skeleton war




The skeletal abominations bring their victim towards what could roughly be called a clearing in this barren boneyard

A flash of darkness appears before the victim to reveal...



This man. Our antagonist.

Sadly I was not able to get a good screenshot of what he does next, to put it simply he absorbs the victim in a flash of darkness

I did get a good picture of his hand though



Yes, his right arm is covered in bulbous eyes

And yes, we can get one too



But this story is not about an evil eye covered wizard who eats people with radical skeleton minions

no

It is about us! A guy in a... skeletal cage... covered in bones... with barnacles... and weird fleshy heart things

You can't see it but another captive is calling us from the next cage



Yep. Pretty sure I did.



Welp, thems the breaks kid. Don't go into show business if you ain't gonna let your immortal soul get devoured by a wizard



I bet it's like taking a shot at the doctors, don't look and it'll all be fine



Good to know

Not sure how that helps with the whole "Sorcerer of unparalleled strength wants to eat our souls"

But knowing is half the battle



Sorry buddy but uhh... I think I hear my uhh... undeleted search history calling for me



Now here we get a good look at the skeletons

Sadly, we never get to fight them and they are cutscene only

A pity



Fuckboy bout to get his shit wrekt



...Wait what's he reaching for-




Well hi there!


So he whips out a fire ball and brings an end to the skeleton war



Don't worry we already knew you were Dante from the Devil May Cry Series

Now where's Knuckles



Who would you tell?



"I'll Learn the secret formula yet Krabs!"



And mister wazowski himself swoops down to take care of this magical miscreant himself

After a few tense moments Magusar leaves, uninterested in us.

For the moment



But who is this calling out to us?

Let's find out after I fucking sleep

[ThatOneGuy]

Seduce Magusar.

[ThatOneGuy]

I'm so sorry.

[Xward]

Nov 25, 2014 13:20:46 GMT ThatOneGuy said:

Seduce Magusar.

why? We're already getting his bones

[Durga]

Acquire clown painting.

If there are no clown paintings, go for the book.

[Xward]

Nov 25, 2014 14:04:59 GMT Durga said:

Acquire clown painting.

If there are no clown paintings, go for the book.

Clown painting acquired

[Durga]

Nov 25, 2014 14:08:12 GMT Xward said:

Clown painting acquired

My life. It is compleeeteeee.
I also have to stop forgetting about things in Bog's articles.

[Xward]

When I'm done with school for today I'll post the next part of the intro

We get our first bit of gameplay and fight an alligator

[gobby gobberson]

Eat a babby when you get the chance

[Xward]

Nov 25, 2014 14:59:06 GMT gobby gobberson said:

Eat a babby when you get the chance

I'll be sure to do that

[Dario]

You know what this games reminds me of? "Folklore", or: being thrown into a nightmareland to fight Celtic fairytale creatures, eat their souls, and summon them against their ex-comrades. Too bad it got repetitive quickly, what with grinding the same monsters/item drops and the loading times when you changed mons.
Funny thing, though: its Japanese name was "Folk Soul". Coincidence?

[Grigor Mortis]

Sacrifice self so we can move onto a better protagonist. Hopefully a better-looking one, as well. This is actually probably the most generic dante-style protagonist I've ever seen.

[gobby gobberson]

Corrupt the game like vinny.

[Xward]

Okay so we're back

Last time we were called by a mysterious voice




The game prompts me to poke this pile o' bones



So we have obtained this rad flesh book



Well ex-cuuuUUUUuuse me princess!



Haha, book puns



This is librom, he will be your only physical companion throughout the game

"I am a journal of a certain sorcerer"

"But I am no ordinary journal. You can revisit my contents in Phantom Quests"

"Go on, have a peek"

If Blue skidoo we can too



Here we see the loading screen before entering a Phantom Quest

For those who do not understand, we are reliving the experiences of the previous owner of this journal



Is that Steven Fry?

Also we are currently the guy in the red robes, not Steve Fry



Here we get our first taste of gameplay, we test out our new powers against the common mob of the game: Goblins

More on those later

We currently have six powers at our disposal that I will describe from top to bottom

First off, the green sprout icon represents healing. Pretty standard stuff, it heals yourself but other healing offerings (magic in this game is referred to as "offerings") will have different effects. The color green normally represents renew element offerings.

Next we have the wall. Also pretty standard, it conjures up a stone wall. It won't completely repel damage but it is very useful in certain situations, some enemies have attacks where they charge at you that can be completely blocked by the shield. When you pull of a successful block on an enemy it causes them to stagger, those that have played the Monster Hunter genre will know how useful it is.The color grey represents stone element offerings (The game specifically refers to it as stone, not rock).

The red arrow. One thing that separates this game from most Monster Hunter genre games is that you can radically change how you approach an enemy at any time, so if your up close and personal style is bad for a specific enemy then you can easily go back in with a range build. This offering conjures up several ranged projectiles, the number varies depending on the rank of the offering. While they are a bit weak they have very high range, can lock-on and home in on targets, and they are one of the best offerings for targeting flying enemies. The color red represents heat element

Another thing about this game is that the elemental rock paper scissors has a strange name basis to it. The what beats what goes like this

Heat beats Venom which beats Stone which beats Volt which beats Frost which beats Heat

Heat-Red
Venom-Purple
Stone-Grey
Volt-Yellow
Frost-Light Blue

There are two other elements which are "neutral" and Renew, "neutral" as an element is NEVER referred to in-game. Renew is the healing element but it can be used for an interesting offensive ability.

The red Feather. This is one of the more exotic offerings in the game. It causes you to lock-on dash towards an enemy while covered in the respective element, once you hit the enemy you ricochet off of them and get the option for a second consecutive attack. It's good for getting quick hits on an enemy.

The white feather. This is not actually in the same category as the above despite similar appearances, this one is movement based. It increases your speed, some enemies have attacks that chase you down fast as sanic so it can be useful in certain situations. Personally I don't use them that much. It can also be comboed with other offerings for special attacks.

Finally, the fork. In-game these are actually referred to as demon forks, sadly they appear more like flame swords than demonic forks. This offering causes your right arm to morph into a flaming sword, it's your standard quick melee attack. If you hold down the attack button for the sword you can do a series of rapid attacks.

That's about it for the mechanics dump



Also we find out that Steven Fry was actually Magusar

I wonder what else will hap-



-pen...

Well giant sea serpents ain't that abnormal for these games-


Now you see why I like this game

This is our first time seeing the ArchFiend of Envy: Leviathan

Also is it just me or does  it's face look like Frodo from LotR?

Here's a better look at his face



This isn't technically a boss fight, you can't die and Leviathan can't die. You just wait for a bit until a scripted scene happens

I might as well talk about the attacks Leviathan uses

Most of Leviathan's attacks involve it using it's face and massive size to attack you in some way. He can sweep the map by swinging his face across it, there are two safe spots for it on the very edges of the map. He can smash his head on the map in a downwards arc, do a quicker forwards headbutt, and he can expel a beam of water from his mouth. In an actual Leviathan fight (which be until MUCH later) the only way to damage him is to attack his head when it hits the map. His elemental affinity is Frost

There are some other things he can do but I'll save that for when we fight him for real.



And here's that scripted event that I meant.

Now there is something odd about this scene that I'll talk about much later

And yes, the Black Rite is ominous sounding for a reason



And that's our signal to end this Phantom Quest and return to our cell





Interesting, a bit weird but interesting

"What you saw was recreated from the journal"

"You met Magusar, I presume"

"Back before he went positively mad"

"No, you're not dreaming. This is just what I do."



With this somber ultimatum from Librom we are thrust into the game proper



Here is the normal menu of the game where you can save or read Librom

You can also access Wi-Fi multiplayer from here



Tune in next time when we read the story of the sorcerer's ordeal and take our first steps into learning about the writer of Librom

And get a step further to understand why the world is in such disarray




Also one other thing, the music direction in this game is AMAZING

[Xward]

Nov 25, 2014 16:20:27 GMT Grigor Mortis said:

Sacrifice self so we can move onto a better protagonist. Hopefully a better-looking one, as well. This is actually probably the most generic dante-style protagonist I've ever seen.

You didn't pay attention, that's not our character and Magusar killed him