![]() You can have up to four active members in your party. As enemies are visible on the field map, you trigger off a battle by running into a foe with your characters. As for the mechanics, the game employs a turn-based battle system. I have selected easy and while I did not die once in battle, I did not feel boss battles were a piece of cake either. Once you start a new game, Sora no Kiseki SC asks you to select one out of four difficulty settings (easy, normal, hard and nightmare). Furthermore, to grasp and enjoy the story and setting of SC, playing the prequel is not necessary. The background stories of pretty much all the playable characters are fleshed out rather decently and the villains’ motives are not only explained, but also comprehensible. While comparatively well done, the main story arc is nothing that hasn’t been done before: an evil organization seeking absolute power, an ancient civilization too advanced for its own good, a protagonist (Joshua) with a dark past, etc. One of the most well written and charming aspects of the story is Estelle’s quest to find her beloved Joshua. At the beginning of the second chapter, however, Joshua has disappeared, so Estelle decides to search for him. Throughout their first adventure, both realized that they feel much more for each other than brotherly love. After growing up together as brother and sister, Estelle and Joshua successfully managed to prevent a coup d’etat in the first chapter. Her father had adopted Joshua years ago, when he was a young kid. Estelle is the daughter of one of the most talented and admired military leaders of her country. The first game’s protagonists, Estelle and Joshua Bright return as main characters. The game’s story begins immediately after the events of Sora no Kiseki First Chapter. This is particularly regrettable, because the voice acting in battle is actually very well done and the voices do fit the respective characters’ personalities.Īs suggested by its title, Sora no Kiseki SC is a direct sequel. The game would have certainly benefited from voice acting, but sadly outside of battles your characters stay mute. The two vocal themes, on the other hand, did not impress me too much. I particularly liked the few choral tracks. Sound Team JDK’s compositions always fit the respective scenes and environments very well. Sora no Kiseki SC’s soundtrack isn’t bad either. However the aforementioned scene, which is of great significance for the game’s story, certainly suffered from the lack of CG. I could have lived without the CG sequences depicting my enemy’s airships. This may sound highly superficial at first glance, but when you use pre-rendered cutscenes to depict the appearance of the enemy’s main airship, then why not use them for an otherwise well directed, well written, and important story event? I did not expect CG fireworks au-par with a recent main series Final Fantasy installment, but at least use the pre-rendered cutscenes for major story events. My sole complaint concerns their placement. I have no complaints about the quality of the animated CG sequences either. Character animation, be it in battle or on the field map, is solid, too. That being said, the backgrounds and sprites are quite detailed and look very polished. Then again, one shouldn’t expect Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core-esque visuals from a game originally designed to run on a Pentium III 500 MHz with a mere 192 MB main memory and 32 MB video RAM. Sora no Kiseki SC’s presentation is decisively old school. While certainly not without flaws, Sora no Kiseki SC was the first RPG after Xenosaga Episode III: Also Sprach Zarathustra (Thus spoke Zarathustra) that kept this jaded RPGFan, yours truly, awake and playing until 3:00 AM. One and a half years after its debut on the PC platform, Nihon Falcom brought Eiyuu Densetsu (Legend of Heroes) VI: Sora no Kiseki Second Chapter (SC) to the PlayStation Portable in late September 2007. Note: This review is based on the Japanese version of the game.
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