Review: Spectral Force 3 (X360)

Strategy RPGs usually invoke a certain nostalgia in fans of the genre. Having many years since the game type’s inception to perfect the turn-based gameplay, gamers have come to expect a certain level of polish when it comes to the SRPGs. Since battle systems in the genre don’t really vary from game to game, fans expect a moving story, fun character types and engrossing combat to move them along through the game. Gamers picking up Atlus’s newest SRPG for the Xbox 360, Spectral Force 3, will receive none of that.

As the title suggests, you’ll be prepared to battle ghostly opponents, vampires, goblins, ghouls and other nightly characters ready to dispatch your team at a moment’s notice. The only problem is you won’t care if they do or not. Atlus has delivered a game that’s story is so far removed from the gameplay that gamers will find it hard to find the motivation to keep drudging through battle after battle to advance the story of the epic war waging around you.

Gameplay

Not wanting to mess with a tried and true method of turn-based strategy RPG, Atlus left the way you enter and carry on battle relatively unchanged from most other predecessors of the genre. This is actually a good thing in the genre as it allows fans to immediately jump into the action without a lengthy, boring tutorial. Characters move around a grid just as they do in any SRPG and once they commit to their movement phase, they cannot move again until they either perform an action or pass on their turn. When each of the characters on that team’s turn moves, control is relinquished to the opposing team. Combat is carried out through menu choices mapped to the face buttons on the Xbox 360, making selection of moves simple and easy to execute. Players manage their SP, or Skill Points, in which types of attacks they wish to perform. A degree of points are spent on movement, and physical characters are given the chance to hit light, medium or hard with decreasing amounts of accuracy depending on the strength of the attack. Magic users generally have the same strength and chance to hit so long as the target is within their range.

The game board itself is a bit disappointing because elevation wasn’t taken into effect as accurately as it could have been. If you are trying to attack an opponent and the square you’re standing on is even one elevation point above your target, physical attacks are rendered useless. Not even so much as a glancing blow.

Advancement through the game is all done through a central hub where you can shop, upgrade weapons and speak with your teammates about the goings on during the war. You participate in the war by accepting missions from a mission board that are offered by different factions currently at war. Although this can directly affect how your team interacts with these factions, the act of choosing a mission from a menu while the war wages outside removes the player from the war and ultimately removes the care for why you’re participating in the battles in the first place.

Graphics

It seems like the folks at Atlus wanted to do a game that is a throwback to the games they made on the Playstation 2. Graphics in Spectral Force 3 are nothing to write home about. In this current era for the Xbox 360, developers are unlocking the full potential of the machine and bringing richly detailed graphics with dynamic lighting effects and stunning details. None of these are found in this game. From the poorly drawn anime cutscenes to the super deformed 3D sprites during gameplay, everything just screams last generation. Even during combat when magic or special attacks are issued, the graphics associated do nothing more than bring forth a great yawn from spectators.

Sound

Sound is detailed but nothing spectacular. Every sword swing, magic summon, hit, block and parry sounds as it should, but not as good as it could have been. There are times where you can clearly hear that the sound was done by someone speaking directly into a microphone to make the sound of a bug. Background music isn’t annoying or overbearing, but it does drone on with its incessant MIDI loop. Players will probably find themselves muting the game entirely since the voice acting is quite possibly the most horrendous thing in the sound development. The actors they hired to do the voice acting do nothing to portray the emotion of the characters you’re watching on screen. All of this adds up to a downright dreadful sound experience.

Controls

The controls are nothing difficult to master. Everything you need to know is clearly marked on the screen at all times during the game. Advancement of text during story cutscenes tells you which button to hit, menu selection is all one button and even in battle, you’ll have two HUDs that tell you exactly which button to hit to perform the exact attack you want. It’s not brain surgery, but neither is this game.

You begin a battle by placing your squad in formation. Once done, you begin the battle with a simple button press. You can cycle through which player you would like to activate first by pressing the left and right triggers respectively and simply command them to move and attack by pressing the appropriate button displayed on your HUD menu.

Conclusion

Spectral Force 3 almost blatantly shows gamers that the developers didn’t care about this title. When the game opens and introduces you to an epic war waging between three main super powers in this fantasy world, one armed with the powers to control the dead, you’d expect a great and involved story to ensue. This never happens as the war wages on behind the scenes and your team of mercenaries simply picks missions to decide which faction they would like to favor. Gamers are told the happenings of the world through a dull narrator set on the backdrop of an overworld map. Then, if all of this can be overlooked, gamers have to deal with substandard graphics, offensive sound and voice acting and character development that is just boring and unimaginative. Fans of the genre who just want to pound through endless classic SRPG battle screens and don’t care about the story might find some enjoyment out of this, otherwise it’s hard to find anything redeeming about this title.