Summon Night had been on my radar ever sense I first found out the game had been likened to a dungeon crawler. Being a fan of the traditional dungeon crawl in its various incarnations I took the liberty to pre-order the game and picked it up before I went to school today. After getting home I finally had some time to spend with the game. Several hours in I've reached the 5th chapter of the game and had a chance to gain some insight on the Summon Night game that is quite unlike the others in the series.

For starters the first thing that you come away with in Summon Night: Twin Age is the great graphics. Colorful and detailed backdrops detail the game exceedingly well. Whether it be the static backdrops for character interaction or the dungeons themselves, you will be treated to some very nice eye candy. The same can be said of your characters and enemies, who are animated very nicely and can sometimes be impressive. Aside from the prettiness there are other interesting tid-bits as well.

The story of the game is your traditional japanese rpg style with large static character portraits that animate, and the occasional animated story-telling bits. All of which are quite good-looking, but the story begins in classic fair with the unintentional hero's and their quest to set things right. Nothing to write home about.

When you begin to play with the battle system of the game you begin to see the potential to be had. Battles are a basically straight edge affair. Highly reminiscent of games like Diablo, you point-and-click, but with the styles. A single tap will illicit a lock-on to that enemy and the character you have chosen will attack until that enemy is dead. Other characters in your party often do their own thing, but are not dumb enough to stand around doing nothing. I chose the melee attacker Aldo from the off-set so Reiha was to take up the magic slack. She does really well. She heals when she needs to, and casts powerful spells when she needs to.

In addition to the tap-to-attack style you also have two bars you can setup with various items, skills, and monsters (which you can summon in battle). The system is highly intuitive and easy to use. Need some healing to Aldo? Click over to Reiha and click on her heal skill, then click Aldo. Other skills require a little more work with the stylus, such as Aldo's Land Slash which requires you to make lines across the screen to attack enemies in its path.

The game does have its share of weaknesses and the most glaring is how easy the game is. Right now I am capable of walking to a group of enemies and using Land Slash to decimate them all, and maybe leave one to two stragglers. Not one of the enemies has proven to be a decent fight, and the most puzzling of it all is the fact that save points are so frequent. Take for instance the last dungeon I visited. I entered one room and exited out to a save room, which are marked by large crystals. After saving, and moving on and clearing the next room, the very next room was a save room. It was very redundant and made me feel the game was holding my hand just a little to much.

Another problem of note is the drabness of the rooms in the dungeons, and im not speaking about the graphics. Each room is walled off from others through warp fields that take you to other rooms, and they are filled with enemies, chests, and breakable items. That's pretty much it. This of course wouldn't be such a problem were it not for the lackluster difficulty. Ardent dungeon explorers, like myself, will be bored by the first couple of dungeons.

The first couple of hours of Summon Night: Twin Age have proven to be a mixed bag of good and bad, and as I continue into the game i'll be sure to list any improvements or problems I encounter. Upon completion of the game I will also post a review.

Thanks for reading!