There aren’t traditional weapon or item shops in Soul Nomad, but Gig Points are used to buy Décor, special items called Gig Edicts, and more.įor those that want to keep the story going, there’s an option to speed up combat. When a battle ends, you’re rewarded with items and the game’s currency: Gig Points. Lower STM means lower combat performance. As you perform actions, this gets reduced. Perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind with combat is Stamina. This continues until all enemy Rooms are removed. When the leader of a Room is killed, the entire Room is removed from the battlefield. You have no control over which enemies your squads focus on, but the AI usually does a good job with targeting. Both sides exchange blows for one round, and then you’re returned to the battlefield. When you initiate an attack or get attacked by an enemy, the game shifts to the combat phase. In a typical battle, you’ll move your “units” across the battlefield. More Room types get unlocked the further you get in the story. Rooms can be equipped with Décor to grant bonuses, and many Rooms come with pre-equipped Décor. The right combination of troops will unlock special attacks. Your troops will perform different attacks depending on the row they’re placed. Each Room has a front, middle, and back row. Troops will level up and grow in stats, but they won’t be learning any new spells or abilities. These troops can be the story-related characters that join Reyva, or they can be generic units that you purchase. In Soul Nomad, your combat units are called Rooms. They come together to form something unique. It doesn’t take Soul Nomad long to open with a variety of mechanics and features that separate it from other games in the genre. You move your units across a map and can perform an attack when within range. At its core, Soul Nomad is a tactical RPG. The game is mostly voiced with either English or Japanese options.Īfter the game’s introduction, players get introduced to combat via a one-on-one duel. The music is catchy with a few earworm tracks.
The world map and the battlefields didn’t receive as much care, but they work. Character art is detailed, the 2D sprites range from cute to stunning (the World Eaters are magnificent), and the special effects feature over the top attacks that look like they come straight from anime. He’s crass and rude, yet you can’t help but to love him. After finishing the game once, new options appear that will put the story on a different path with even more unexpected outcomes. Reyva is a silent protagonist with a boatload of selectable dialogue options. There are plenty of comical moments, but there are also moments of tragedy and loss. The further you get into the game, the more Reyva, Gig and the rest of the colorful cast of characters (both heroes and villains) develop in the most unexpected ways. Soul Nomad’s tale has a lot of the whacky hijinks that we’ve come to expect from N1. Can Reyva keep Gig in check? Or, will Gig and the World Eaters finish what they started? Gig wants to destroy the world, but he needs Reyva’s body. However, Gig returns in a corporeal form and fuses with Reyva’s soul. 18 years later, a youth named Reyva is getting ready to celebrate coming of age. The World Eaters fell silent, and Layna took her remaining followers to a hidden village. As the people started to lose hope, a woman named Layna rallied her friends for a final confrontation against the World Eaters. After years of war and peace, strife and sacrifice, and good and evil, a god of destruction named Gig summoned titans known as World Eaters. The game takes place on the continent of Prodesto. It might be the best PlayStation 2 title from the niche developer. This game is different from other Nippon Ichi titles. There was the potential to level grind, but there were new dialogue options and story paths that took the narrative in an entirely different direction. However, after the credits finished rolling, I started explore the parts of it I missed. I expected to feel the same way when I finished Soul Nomad and the World Eaters. I was pleased after getting the good ending and moving to something else. When I finished Makai Kingdom, I had no desire to go back to it for its meaty postgame content, extra endings, or endless grinding to make my character’s levels reach the thousands.