Developer: Valkyrie Studios Distributor: Monolith Specifications Minimum Requirements: Pentium 200 32Mb RAM DirectX 6.0 compatible video card Windows compatible sound card 4X or faster CD-ROM Mouse and Keyboard Windows 95/98 Recommended: Pentium 233 or faster 32Mb RAM or more DirectX 6.0 compatible video card Windows compatible sound card 6X or faster CD-ROM Mouse and Keyboard Windows 95/98 150Mb available hard drive space Introduction Septerra Core's developmental road has been very rocky. When everything looked like it was going to fall apart Monolith grabbed the project and pulled it all back together... and thank goodness they did! Septerra Core is an anime-style game with obvious console overtones, not unlike Chronotrigger and the massively popular Final Fantasy series. Valkyrie Studios obviously decided to take an established idea and allow one aspect to grow: the storyline. The world of Septerra Core is divided into seven continents or "shells". Each shell rotates independently around a central bio-organic spine. Imagine stepping outside your home, looking up, and seeing the bottom of another "world shell". An interesting concept which is well maintained throughout the game. Each shell even has its own distinct social and economic structure, which allows for some diversity in the game. Apparently, there was a great war (the typical, between good and evil) in which the good side won and set up camp on shell 4. As time passed, the brightest of the followers discovered how to harness the seemingly boundless energy from the world spine. With this knowledge, they splintered off and set up camp on the outermost shell to tape the energy directly from the tip of the spine. With this "talent" they became the most technologically advanced race in the world and crowned themselves the "Chosen". Now, their lack of concern for the "lesser" inhabitants manifests itself in the acts of pushing their garbage onto the shells below. The main character is a "junker" named Maya who lives on shell 2. The junkers live off the refuse dumped off the edges of the continent above. The introduction sequence introduces you to Doskias, a member of the Chosen who has managed to find the two keys to the core of Septerra. With these he is supposed to be able to unlock the core of the world (the bio-organic machine running the whole thing) and receive the ultimate gift (speculated to be the Kindom of Heaven). Your accidental interaction with this master plan is what fuels the main storyline, but be prepared for many side-treks! Installation The installation was as straight forward as it could be. The only point of note is that you have a minimum install option of approximately 1Mb of hard drive space. I had to try it. It ran acceptably, running completely from CD, but I found that as I progressed through the game that the 500+ Mb installation would save on load times during location migrations. Graphics Where nearly every new title has 3D acceleration in one manner or another, I was surprised to find that Septerra Core fell back on pre-rendered characters and backdrops. I was surprised, but not disappointed. Each of the characters are well represented and smoothly animated. There were no extremely stubby characters with badly proportioned bodies often found in anime games. These people looked and felt the way you'd expect. Even though the environments are well laid out I had a beef with the fact that everything was in 640x480. The resolution was effective for travelling on the world map (between cities) but I found it a bit cramped for wandering around in locations. Audio An often overlooked aspect of a lot of games is the voice acting of the main characters. Septerra Core sports some of the best voice acting I've ever heard. Considering the fact that the rich storyline is such a key point of the game, Valkyrie Studios obviously paid special attention to the actors of the story. Other audio effects were also extremely well done and very appropriate...particularly the charging and firing of beam weapons...I love that. The music is also well done with the minor exception that occationally I would enter a fight with no accompanying score. It almost sounds eerie fighting nasty critters without any background music. Gameplay You navigate your character around the maps using a simple mouse click interface. You click, your party moves; you double click, your party runs. Simple enough, but not without its pitfalls. Being the impatient sort, I was always double-clicking to run my party through caves and tunnels. Unfortunately, since the viewing area is so small, I found myself running off the map or into creatures before I intended to. In Septerra Core, you can see (almost) every combat before you engage. There are no mysterious "random attacks". When you encounter a creature, the dramatic music kicks in, and you and your adversaries leap to the nearest clear area to fight it out. Some fights can even be avoided which is great if you're travelling through a previously explored area with creatures that would just waste your time. The combat system is another great feature of Septerra Core. Each character (including the enemies) has a stamina bar that climbs in relation to the speed of the character. There are 3 "stages" on this bar. The character can't do anything until at least the first stage is reached. If you continue to let the character charge up, you get stronger and stronger attacks available to you. This is an excellent system that is both simple and strategic. You have to strike a balance between rapid, weak attacks and slow, strong ones. There is also a form of non-conventional magic in the game. The bio-organic spine of the world emits something called "core radiation". Each character harnesses this as core energy to be used for special attacks and "fate cards". Spells are cast by using specific fate cards in combat. You can even combine the cards to create specific effects. If each of your 3 attacking characters (you can only use Maya and two others at any one time) have charged to at least stage 1, you can put a card in each one of their hands: Use the HEAL card, combine it with the SUMMON card to summon a goddess to heal your characters, and combine those two with another card to extend the effect over your whole party. A very efficient and simple system for magic. Conclusion Septerra Core has a lot going for it. Unfortunately, it has a few nagging problems I'm hoping will be fixed in short order. The most comical of which has to do with stealing from shopkeepers. If you have certain members in your group when you go to buy or sell at a vendor, you get the option to attempt to steal. Just for kicks, I gave it a try. I managed to succeed 3 times (getting some pretty good stuff) before I was caught and tossed out of the buy/sell screen. When I went back in, the vendor raised their prices, but the funny side effect was the selling prices were also raised. Later on in the story, I realized that I forgot to give a certain key item to a character, I traveled back to give her the item and found that I had completely upset the storyline. It dropped me into a combat that didn't fit my position in the storyline and since my characters weren't powerful enough yet, I got my butt kicked. Other than these few quibbles, I found the game to be solid, engrossing and viciously addicting. Hardcore RPG fans may find the game to be a little simple (and possibly even easy). I would suggest this title to pretty much everyone else due to the engrossing storyline and simplistic gameplay. This is a well rounded title with all the elements needed to drag you in deep and not let go. Rating: 4 out of 5 joysticks Septerra Core was reviewed by gameboyz contributor, Nick "Colossus" Burger on his: Pentium II-400 64Mb RAM Diamond Viper V550 AGP 40X CD-ROM Windows 98 Using 500+ MB install option