Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 2 [GBA]

Despite being a smaller publisher, Atlus tends to put out consistently solid role-playing games. By bringing the Summon Night series over from Japan, it has managed to give a bit of life to the fading lineup of GBA titles. The first title in the series was pretty decent, but it had its fair share of problems. The surprisingly satisfying battle system couldn't completely make up for a clichéd storyline, vague objectives and ordinary visuals. It had some great things going for it, but these issues held it back from becoming something great.

In Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 2, players once again take up arms as a youngster trying to prove their worth by saving the world from an ancient evil. It has everything its predecessor offered, and looks to add even more to entice audiences to come back for more. Seeing as the original did have its fair share of appeal, a sequel didn't seem like a bad idea if a few of the right tweaks were made. Going by appearances, they were.

As the story goes, the main character (which can be either male or female; that's up to the player) is an apprentice craftknight who was orphaned when their father perished while banishing the demon Goura deep within a catacomb. A town conveniently built on top of the catacomb is the only defense against this great evil, and when a stranger comes to release Goura from his prison, all heck breaks loose. Our hero puts up a fight, but his only weapon is shattered, leaving him defenseless. The vanguards of the city come to put a stop to the conflict, but they get knocked out with ease, and when our defenseless champion sees this, he is engulfed in energy (similar to the Super Saiyans from the Dragon Ball Z series) and quickly puts an end to these misdeeds. And all that's before the opening credits!

The story mode seems to be improved upon in this sequel, as your quest is laid out before you early on in the game. In Summon Night, things seemed like busy work for the majority of the game; the story managed to feel as if it were going nowhere, making it seem a little tedious. In the sequel, it's clear what the objective is early on, providing a grand journey while offering a goal for players to strive for, easing what could otherwise end up a monotonous drag. Sure, it's still formulaic, but a sense of purpose adds some incentive to see things to the end.