Next time I drop a game near the end and I’m tempted to back and give it a last try, I’ll tell myself “Remember Sorcery Saga?” and then I’ll shudder and move on with my life. I am way past the point where I’m content just to finish a game. Now I ask myself what I got out of it, and in this case it’s a big fat 15-20 hours of nothing. So why did I finish it? Because it wasn’t quite bad enough to not finish. I’d categorize Sorcery Saga as “Thoroughly mediocre but not actually terrible.” Those are the games I have the hardest time with, because I’m not having any fun but I’m not not having fun so I just keep playing and feel very meh at the end.
Problems with Sorcery Saga: Curse of the Curry God
It sucks.
Yeah. I just said it’s not actually terrible, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck. It has just enough polish to lift it above that level but that’s it.
Story? The story is okay-ish. Dungeon crawlers don’t need stories anyway so the simple motivation of gathering ingredients to make the ultimate curry was fine with me. What about the characters? In rogue-likes, it’s enough if you can root for the main character. Seeing as they’ll be dying so often in your care, it’s the least you can do. But Pupuru… I can’t really get a handle on her personality. She seems a bit bratty and obnoxious to me, TBH. And because I don’t really get her, it seems kind of fake how she’s so fond of Kuu or so determined to help Etanya. Like really? Were you that nice and caring? Maybe it’s because we rarely see her interact with people who know her already, like her so-called best friend Lilica who all but disappears after the introduction.
The other characters weren’t any better. Very slightly amusing the first time you meet them, then they repeat the same jokes over and over and over again from start to end until you’re completely sick of them. Actually I was completely sick of them by the second hour. They even got downright creepy at some point, especially the stalker Gigadis and his stalker Cliora. One-note characters with one very boring note.
Gameplay: As far as rogue-likes go, Sorcery Saga is bottom-tier. The enemy density is too low, and it’s too easy to hang on to weapons that make you near-invincible from start to finish. The enemies barely put up a fight, almost none of them use long-range attacks, most traps are easy to spot, Pupuru’s HP heals at a stunningly fast rate so you rarely need healing potions, she moves like a slug even on fast-forward, and so on and so forth. I like easy rogue-likes, really like them, but I don’t want to steam-roll everybody like that. They’re probably saving all the challenge for the bonus dungeons like Shiren the Wanderer likes to do, but once the credits roll, I’m done.
Furthermore, it doesn’t even offer the stress-free experience an easy game should provide. Instead of playing smoothly through the game, you have to waste time looking out for your horrible, annoying, useless, trouble-making, exists-only-to-make-your-life-harder “pet” Kuu. I can count on one hand the number of times that thing actually helped me. Instead he’s mostly there to get between me and monsters so I have to maneuver around him. Or he’s there to stink up the cutscenes with his unfunny gluttonous ways.
On top of that, there are way too many useless items in this game. Should be a minor issue but Pupuru’s backpack is so small that within a few steps of entering a dungeon you’ll be tossing everything in sight at Kuu. Most dungeon crawlers have a limited backpack issue, but usually it’s a case of trying desperately to hang on to (potentially) useful items. What if I need that rice ball later. These arrows will definitely come in handy. Oh good, a new shield. That’s how it should be. In Sorcery Saga it’s just Junk. More Junk. Unidentified Junk. Junk Junk Junk.
BTW, since the game is called “Curse of the Curry God,” there’s a whole gimmick about making and eating curry in the dungeons, but it didn’t make that much of a difference. The full set of ingredients was hard to gather much of the time and the effects wore off pretty quickly. Pointless addition was pointless.
Any positives?
It’s short, I guess. And easy so it’s a good introduction for anyone scared of rogue-likes. Oh, and bright happy colors! And if you’re hungry when you play it, it might make you crave curry just a little bit. The music is okay except for the pseudo-Indian music in the final dungeon. I like the boss stage music, it’s very Persona. Load times were short, I didn’t encounter any bugs and the game only froze on me once. Japanese reviewers complained of bugs, but they seem to have been largely fixed for the English release. So there’s nothing wrong with Sorcery Saga from a technical standpoint. It’s just mediocre and unsatisfying when you actually play it.
Ending Spoilers
BTW, the Legendary Magic Curry you spend the whole game making? Your useless pet Kuu eats it all before anyone can taste it. It’s supposed to be funny. Laugh.
Ugh, I hate games that have a cast of annoying/bratty characters, but go like “Hey, we know, that’s the joke”.
You just described Sorcery Saga to a T.
I’d rather play the early Madou Monogatari games with Arle Nadja. There’s a bunch of them for Game Gear/PC98. They aren’t amazing, but at least less wordy and annoying, all in all. Well, at least their spirit lives on in Puyo Puyo.
Hadn’t heard of that series, but sounds looks pretty interesting with the whole “facial expressions” and “magic only” thing.