Soul Sacrifice Demo impressions and preview

Soul Sacrifice is an action-RPG coming exclusively to the PlayStation Vita developed by Sony Computer Entertainment Japan Studios and Marvelous AQL on April 30th in North America and May 1st in Europe. Those studio names may not necessarily mean a whole, but it's worth noting that the entire concept for this game was created by Keii Inafune, co-creator of Mega Man. I'm not quite sure why he is obsessed with protagonists that have lethal weapons where their arms should be, so there's that. I did not finish all of the demo before writing this impression piece, as this is simply an impression of the early portions and is meant as nothing more than a preview; this is not a review.

Based on gameplay footage and teaser information, I originally though this game was going to be a semi-open world RPG, in the vein of Ragnarok Odyssey, of which you can read my review of right here; but I was wrong. Not really in a bad way was I wrong, it's just different than what I expected. Instead of throwing players into a world and allowing them to go on quests, purchase items, level-up, customize their gear and all the things you'd expect from an RPG, this one is quite a bit different.

The extremely lengthy demo starts out with your character trapped in a cage on the verge of being sacrificed to a powerful sorcerer that feeds on humans. Before he can get to you, another person tries to escape and ends up being consumed instead. Amid the chaos, a possessed talking book appears and engages you. By interacting with the book, you're able to relive stories of previous sorcerers that battled this human-eating one in the past. By reliving these stories, you are able to gain experience and become more powerful.

How the story ultimately concludes and where it takes you isn't really clear at this point, but I ended up being a huge fane of the presentation. Adding an extra layer to the story, is that in this book there are certain areas and details that are missing or appear to be smudged out. Since you're reliving the tales, you're able to fill in these blanks and customize certain portions of the hero such as equipment, abilities and appearance. You even get to make decisions during quests, like whether you save or sacrifice rogue sorcerers that becomes evil. Whether or not these decisions have repercussions for the story are unknown, but they do affect your development.

Read more on The Koalition >