RETRO REBOOT Shaman King: Power Of Spirit (PlayStation 2)

Perhaps one of the biggest roadblocks I’ve run into while playing video games related to anime is how standard they all feel and play. Something about the way most of these titles are developed, whether or not the games are good or bad, just feels cheap or unpolished, and seldom feels like a legitimate gaming experience that you would get from playing conventional. Maybe an RPG will be a nice change of pace from the more action-oriented styles, so perhaps Shaman King will ease my gripes.

Shaman King is a pretty decent shonen series. While it didn't have the cultural impact in the States as Sailor Moon, Pokemon, or Dragonball Z in the burgeoning days of anime and manga popularity, it has maintained one of the better stories and roster of lovable characters. The two video games I've played based on it are fairly alright. One is an action side scroller in the same vein as Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. The other, the subject of today, is a tactical based RPG, with a twist of sorts.

As far as the story goes, I like it. It may be a bit predictable, that doesn’t stop it from being enjoyable and full of heart. Yoh is preparing to train for the Shaman Tournament and looks to be at the top of his game, until Silva arrives and tells him that he will never improve until he endures a long, unskippable tutorial as to how the game plays.

I have some problems with this tutorial and I’ll get into that when I get to the gameplay. The next morning, or sometime shortly thereafter, Yoh and the gang are chatting about the tourney when we are introduced to Meril Inugami, an enigmatic, yet adorable little girl who makes the mistake of glomping Yoh right in front of Anna.

Meril’s look is absolutely precious. From the long sleeve striped shirt to the dog bone buttons on her hoodie, she fits right in with this crew. There isn’t much to talk about that’s good in this department for several reasons. 1) There aren’t any full-motion cut scenes during the story portion of the game, so you never really get a great look at the character models. They are mostly displayed from a distance, but from what you can see, they don’t look too bad, if you don’t mind staring at the top of their heads for 94% of gameplay.

The color and surrounding scenery is mostly garish and dark, not really bursting with any kind of life, and attacks that you would think should light up the screen with some visual effects ignite with the ferocity of a wet firecracker! This really would’ve been a case where utilizing cel-shading could’ve benefited greatly, because outside of still images, Power of Spirit is not an appealing game to look at. It would be a bit too harsh to say that it’s completely bad, but for Playstation 2 game, it is a little ungraceful.

The controls, it is a mixed bag score for me, as I love a good tactics game and I can appreciate a good fighting game as well. Power of Spirit shows some ambition and combines a fighting game with a tactical RPG. In fairness, the fighting game portion of the engine plays like a slower, muddier version of one of the Naruto Ultimate Ninja games, and it works on that level.

It handles well enough, allowing Yoh to move in three dimensions, use some basic combos as well as learn new skills as he levels up (btw, he’s the only character you’re allowed to control, which bites). The tactics half of it feels a little clunky. Back to that tutorial, Silva explains how Yoh works in battle (movement, selecting attacks, skills, items), but there are no further menus that explain how the OTHER characters function in battle! Which is stupid.

The first time I had a second party member, I just assumed that you select that character, choose an enemy, and you go into battle with them via the fighting screen. What really happened was I selected Meril to fight Matilda and Mattie cleaned her clock in one shot!! I had no idea what happened. So the it was the enemies’ turn to strike, and Kanna attacked ME, but before going to fight screen, a battle point counter appeared and I was given the option to select something for Meril, Spirit Unity 100% or Spirit Control (Unity allows your character to charge their Furyoku for that round if they survive and Control sends them into battle with no restrictions).

Then I get the battle screen VS menu and Meril is now fighting along my side!! Ooooooh, okay, now I get it!! It turns out that if any character other than Yoh engages in a fight, it becomes a battle of attributes. If your teammate is weaker than his opponent, or has no other teammate in range to join them in battle, they will lose with no chance of saving them. Suffice to say, it's a pain, and not very intuitive. But it's alright, once you get the gist of the meta.

Despite some of the frustrating aspects of the battle design and loading times, I had fun with Shaman King: Power of Spirit. the engine once I got the hang of it. The learning curve may be bit obtuse, but underneath that is a game with respectable difficulty. It took guts to try to meld a fighting game with a tactics game, and to that I give it kudos.

There was certainly more attempts to make a memorable game-playing experience, and only missed slightly off-center. At 20 chapters long, it’s a pretty short game, just enough to get your fill. I don’t think it’s as fun as Master of Spirits, but a game that just does enough right to keep from being super bland. As far as anime representations go, for a mid-2000's IP title, I believe it has a fair amount of redeeming traits. Definitely better titles in the genre out there, but you like Shaman King, you'll get a kick out of it.