(Psikyo 1997)
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3 years after the successful fantasy shooter Gunbird, Psikyo returned
to the dark ages and developed an innovative hybrid between the shoot'em
up and the beat'em up genre. Unfortunately
it failed somehow: Real beat'em up players disliked the fast gameplay
and the short stages, while pure shooter fans got frustrated because
unlike Vasara or Brave Blade, the game couldn't be beaten without the
use of the short-range slashing moves. Nevertheless, Sol Divide is not
a bad game, and the homeports for Sony Playstation and Sega Saturn proof
that the company believed in the success of this mixture. But you really
have to be in both genres to get comfortable with it. I've read some
reviewers describing Sol Divide as sequel to Sengoku Ace Episode II
(Sengoku Blade). It is not. These games have very little in common.
One out of 3 brave warriors, Kashmon, Tyora or Vorg can be selected
at the beginning of the game. They differ in weapons, strength and agility
and one of nine magic weapons to be activated by collecting scrolls
throughout the game. I already mentioned it, Sol Divide combines long
and short range weapons. To shoot daggers, bullets or feathers, depending
on the character you play, continuously tap button [A]. To slash up
close enemies, hit
button [B]. Sometimes when the game is over and you get asked to insert
another coin to continue, you will receive hints for button combinations
to perform special moves. The third button switches through the different,
available magic spells. They are displayed in the upper region of the
screen. To use such a spell, considering you collected the appropriate
scroll and you have enough power in the magic gauge, select it with
the [C] button and press both [A] + [B] buttons together to release
it. Some spells are really impressive to watch. There's a death spell
for example. If you use it, Your character turns into a black shadow
and a giant, ghostlike skeletton appears and turns itself to destroy
the enemy. Also the other spells are sometimes real eyecandies. Check
out the freeze spell whith that nice girl to breath the attackers to
ice, so you can slash them, or Kashon's phoenix spell, calling a marvellous
animated firebird crossing the screen. To refill your magic bar, you
can collect the red bottles sometimes released by beaten enemies. But
also slashing new ones will restore it after a while.
Sol Divide persuades graphic-wise, no doubt. The music score is good
and fits to the game, although I sometimes wish, Psikyo employed the
same talented composers like CAVE. The stages in Sol Divide are sometimes
ultra short, but they are numerous, beautifully rendered and some of
them appear only if you play them with a specific character. There's
a lot of beautiful things to discover in this game. Maybe a lot more
than in many other Psikyo shooters. But if you like it, you will have
to find out for yourself.
- [the
sheep] in 2003
