Welcome to the world of Medea. A world in which alchemy and medieval sorcery exist side by side. A world that is in danger, as humanity’s true history is long forgotten. This is the Spirit Engine 2, a indie RPG developed by Mark Pay creator of the original Spirit Engine a freeware indie RPG.
The spirit engine 2 is compared to most Indie games I’ve played. Very good, honestly if the game had been released in the early 90s on the SNES or Genesis. I’m sure it would have succeeded as at least a cult hit. The storyline is fairly well crafted, as well as each individual character. You can see the creator also paid quite a bit of attention to details on each scene with the intricate sprites and animations.
The story of The Spirit Engine 2 has you journeying with a party of three out of nine different characters that you choose from the start of the game across nine different chapters. Now while you do have the option of choosing from nine distinctly different characters to play the game with. The main story of the game does not change at all. The only real differences are how they react to whats happening along the story and how they react to each other. So even if you played with Denever in your party before. If you change the other two characters he journeys with the flow and feel of the story will change. Just not drastically.
Having a large pool of characters that you may pick from at the beginning is a somewhat peculiar game design. It can help with replayability especially if you do enjoy the combat system and want to try it on a new difficultly level which the game does offer a large variety off. Easy, Normal, Hard, and of course for those who earn it “Absurd”. Out of the nine different characters there are three classes. You have a Knight, Priest, and Musketeer. Each one is distinct in their abilities and having one of each in your party allows you to fight any battle without too much duress. But depending on who’s stories you want to hear or what level of difficulty you may be seeking. You may want to try a all “Knight” party or “Priest” you may even depending on your playing style find one class parties easier.
The combat system is unique as well. It’s a real time with pause system. In which each character slowly builds up their action points until they have a chance to attack. During this time you may delay their attack until you want them to strike and select from “Chains” to determine what abilities they will use or attack with. These “Chains” can be modified from the games menu system when on the field. These “Chains” can for the most part if you’ve set them up properly allow you to just click once and sit back and enjoy the fight. But for the more difficult fights or if your running in a party without at least one knight. You’ll need to take advantage of shifting your characters placement on the field otherwise your weaker characters will soon find themselves unconscious and the game over quickly.
Overall, I’d give The Spirit Engine 2 a 70 out of 100. Primarily due to a few good missing features such as voice acting and further character customizability. But the game was also even for having nine chapters very short. I ran through the game my first time in roughly six hours. So unless you love the story or combat system you probably wont find another reason to play through the game to do it all again with just a different team of characters.
If you are interested in trying out the Spirit Engine 2. I suggest downloading and playing the original Spirit Engine Freeware game here. As SE2 is really just SE’s redone/improved with a new storyline. So if you enjoy the basics that SE does. Then you will undoubtedly love SE2. You can also try a demo for SE2 here. You can purchase SE2 from either directly here, at the official site or off of Stardock’s Impluse. Who from time to time, puts the game on sale allowing you to pick up this very enjoyable 2d rpg for less than ten dollars.
Technorati Tags: indie, rpg, sprites, 2d, alchemy, real time, rtp
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October 9th, 2009 at 6:48 am
I want to try out spirit engine 2.. I really wanna give a try for it after reading the reviews in websites.. :) Angeline @ Marcus evans scam