Basic Info

• Title: Summon Night: Swordcraft Story
  • Spin-off of Summon Night, which is a tactical RPG with dating sim elements
• Release Date (NA): 2006
• Released For: Gameboy Advance (GBA)
• Developer: Flight-Plan
• Publisher: Banpresto (JP), Atlas (NA)
• Genre: Action RPG
• Time to Credits: 14 hours (19 to defeat the bonus final boss)
• Sequels:
  • Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 2 (NA, JP)
  • Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 3 (JP)

Story

I would describe the story as simple but serviceable. It is a coming–of-age yarn involving the child of a previous “Craftlord,” a title given to the master craftspeople and warriors that lead Wystern, the “City of Swords.” Over the course of the game, the player character makes friends (and rivals), receives mentorship from a number of the current Craftlords, and questions whether they themselves are worthy to take on the mantle once held by their father. I’m sure this isn’t a surprise to anyone, but (spoiler incoming for a 20 year old game): as the player character you rise to the occasion and both earn the title of “Craftlord of Iron,” (the same title that was held by their father) and also save Wystern from a great calamity. Ultimately while the story is far from ground-breaking it dovetails with the gameplay reasonably well, and will likely leave players satisfied (though probably not impressed).

One of the story’s strengths is its cast of characters, even if many play to the types and tropes a genre-savvy player would expect. This includes the loveable but gruff mentor (Bron), a plucky “sidekick” who looks up to the player character (Razzy), male and female rivals / love interests for the player character (Varil, Sanary), and a host of other supporting characters that serve a variety of roles: friends, mentors, obstacles, and villains. To that end, I think most people will pick out the secondary antagonist almost immediately. The primary antagonist that’s pulling the strings is a touch harder to guess, but becomes increasingly obvious as the story marches forward. With that being said, the aforementioned primary antagonist is foreshadowed reasonably well throughout the story, so the big reveal at the end at least feels earned.

The other strength of the story is the setting. I’ve seen the setting described as “steampunk,” and I agree. “Swords and sorcery” clearly make up part of the foundations of the world, with summoned beasts and magic being commonplace. Industry is also common, with the crafting of weapons like swords, axes, and spears being given high priority and prestige. While little screentime is given to the relationships between the countries of the world (save Wystern and their antagonist, Deigleya), a larger world is implied via the player’s interactions with the various locations they visit over the course of the game. The game even includes a character who was summoned from another world, though said character really only appears in one portion of the game. (Based on my cursory research, “heroes summoned from another world” are more common in the Summon Night main series, so the inclusion isn’t a total head-scratcher.) These details all make the world feel weirder and richer as a result.

There are a few places where the story falls flat, however. I wish it was possible to do something about the obvious traitor earlier in the story. The game doesn’t give you the option to report your findings to the various Craftlords, despite you having multiple interactions with them after the traitor’s deceit is revealed. I guess you could argue the Craftlords had “bigger fish to fry,” but I wish the narrative would’ve done more to justify why the secondary antagonist was allowed to move in the shadows for so long. Also, while I like that the player character can be male or female and that they can partner with either a male or female rival, it’s a shame that the female/female relationship lands somewhere between platonic and implied. I guess this makes sense given the age of the main character (young, but never explicitly stated) and the presumed demographic target of the game, but I would’ve been positively blown away by an open lesbian relationship in the game.

The other issue is that the threats faced by Wystern (an invading empire, among other things) never felt pressing because it was neither reflected in Wystern itself nor was the threat difficult to handle when it got screen time. I guess this could be hand-waved away as an issue of scope; re-animating Wystern to reflect an invasion would’ve required additional resources that the developers may not have had. It really cut down on the credibility of the threat faced by Wystern (and, by extension, the main character), however.

Gameplay

The gameplay can be divided broadly into three categories: story segments, where characters talk with one another and the plot is advanced, overworld segments, where the player moves through the world, and dungeon / labyrinth sections, where combat happens via “random encounters.” Given that the story has already been discussed, I’m going to focus primarily on the overworld and dungeon sections in this portion of the review. First, we have the overworld sections.

The overworld is important because it’s where the player character can heal, save their game, craft weapons from materials that they’ve gathered from the dungeon, and generally move the plot forward. The overworld is interesting because it changes (though perhaps not as much as it should) over the course of the story. This includes the addition of vendors, additional NPCs to talk to, and ways to leave Wystern and explore the broader world of Summon Night. The overworld is also where various side-quests can be taken on, though if I’m honest, I missed basically all of them. Given that they involve talking to NPCs whose dialogue doesn’t change a lot from day to day, and given that the reward is just more recipes for weapons, I’m not convinced I missed much. In the end, while I recognize the importance of the overworld, the dungeon is where I spent most of my time.

As far as the dungeons themselves, I would describe them in the same way as the story: serviceable. Overcoming them is more a challenge of your combat prowess (and level / stats) than anything. There aren’t really any puzzles to speak of, either, save the barest of movement puzzles that can be solved with just a little trial and error. The same goes for enemy variety, actually. While there’s a good amount of enemies to encounter, the number of recolors and retreads goes up exponentially in the post-game content (ie the 50 additional levels of dungeon that open up after beating the story’s final boss). There are other small issues, too, like the inability to leave the dungeon unless you use a teleporter (which can only be found sporadically) and the fact that you can’t revisit locations away from Wystern once you leave them, unless the story happens to take you there. Once again, I get that this is probably a scope issue, but it will make the game a pain for completionists, especially if they don’t play with a guide handy.

If the story is just OK and the dungeon design is “meh,” where does the game shine? Simply put, the game shines in its combat. For an eight-button game (including d-pad and two shoulder buttons), the combat has more depth than you might expect. Each of the five weapon types actually plays and feels different, for example, which helps the game feel fresh over the course of its run time.

• Swords are “all rounders,” and can do a little bit of everything (reach, damage, etc)
• Spears can consistently hit multiple enemies at once with their reach
• Knuckles offer the most mobility and “launcher” move (that sends some enemies into the air)
• Axes do big damage and also have a launcher option
• Drills can hit the same enemy multiple times in a row and offer some movement tech (if you charge up your drill attack it will launch you forward when you release it).

There’s also a lot to be said about spacing: double-tapping down has the player character hop back, and that can do more to get you out of danger than blocking. Plus, some enemies are much easier to defeat if you have the agility to jump over them. When you add the myriad support items and magic spells (from healing to weapon buffs to elemental summons) the combat offers plus the fact that you can change between three weapons on the fly, there’s a depth to be found that is worth celebrating.

To add an additional wrinkle to this loop, each weapon has a durability stat, meaning it can break if it is overused. In my experience with the game, this was never really an issue. Since durability resets after each encounter, I only had two weapons break irreparably during my time with the game. (As a tip for anyone who plays this game after reading this review: your “tec” stat is what determines how quickly your weapon durability drops; said stat can be buffed by using the weapon more without it breaking. As such, it can be useful to buff your favorite weapons’ tec before a boss encounter, especially in the final 50 levels of the game’s dungeon.)

With all of the praise I’ve heaped on the game’s combat, the place where it shines brightest is in your encounters with the various human NPCs you’ll fight over the course of the playthrough. This includes fights that happen for story reasons and fights that happen in the game’s arena (because there’s a tournament going on over the course of the game). These enemies tend to be much more mobile and with a broader moveset than the monsters you’ll encounter in the dungeon, thus making them both more interesting (and potentially more frustrating) to fight. Handily, weapon durability affects these foes, too, meaning you can defeat an enemy by draining their HP or by destroying their weapon. Though the latter is more difficult, it awards you with the recipe for your opponent’s weapon, meaning it is usually worth doing. Again, the game demonstrates more depth than I expected! (The logical conclusion to this is being able to battle your friends via a link cable, but that was not an option for me.)

In short, the game’s combat was able to keep my interest through 80% of the run-time. I only started actively avoiding combat toward the end of the game when new enemy varieties stopped appearing and I didn’t need the experience from fights (I was easily and consistently winning any battles I bothered to engage with). Unfortunately, I also found the game’s final “story” boss and final “bonus” boss underwhelming, even if it was cool that the final story boss had two phases. With that being said, credit where credit is due: I never really had to grind in the game; I found my level tended to rise commensurate with the difficulty of the game. I’ll always prefer a game that respects my time and doesn’t require meaningless busywork to engage with the it.

That brings me to my only two other niggles about the gameplay: I wish there were a way to unlock all of the game’s recipes once you’ve reached the post-game. As it stands, it feels like the only way to reasonably do that is by playing with a guide (which is something I try to avoid whenever possible). Also, it’s weird that you only fight your (male) rival in the post-game as a part of an exhibition match. If the match was already coded, and the character has been talking smack all game, and it’s all-but confirmed that he had to be beaten for the player character to ascend to Craftlord, why not let the player beat him in a 1v1?

Is This Game Worth Your Time Today?

I don’t want to go on too much of a rant about this, but the “AAA” games industry is a mess, and has been for a long time. Between the ever-increasing cost of games, the regular use of abusive practices to draw more money out of players (loot boxes, gacha mechanics, the discontinuing of physical media, etc), and the shady or downright abusive business practices that plague the industry (“play-to-earn” mechanics, investments in crypto, shielding perpetrators of sexual assault, etc etc), I totally understand the desire to find games, developers, and publishers that aren’t a flaming trash heap. One way to do this is to support smaller games and game-makers (ie indies); there’s so much interesting stuff happening in the indie space that it’s no wonder my backlog of games is so long.

That’s not the only way, though. There’s also emulation, and a ridiculous number of games that were made before some of the industry’s worst tendencies took hold. To that end, there was a time when a game was expected to be feature-complete when it shipped, and buggy messes were rightly derided! Oh to be so lucky! What might this look like for you as a player? It could mean returning to the games of your childhood; there’s plenty of good times and nostalgia to be had going down that road. I think there’s something special about discovering great games that you didn’t play as a kid, though, like Summon Night: Swordcraft Story was for me. I never played this game as a kid, and I don’t recall it even being on my radar. I still got almost 20 hours of fun out of it, though, and there’s even a sequel for me to dive into when the time comes!

Emulation devices are also more ubiquitous than ever, too, from devices that play original cartridges (like the GB Operator, Analogue Pocket, etc) or companies that specialize in producing devices to play emulated retro games (Retroid, Anbernic, etc). If the best time to get into retro emulation was before the AI bubble (the thing that’s driving up the cost for basically every tech product), the second best time to get in on the game is probably now. There’s so much fun to be had, and so many great games to play! I could see myself going months or even years without opening Steam if I so wanted. (I don’t think I’ll go down that road, but it’s nice that it’s an option.)

So, do I recommend Summon Knight: Swordcraft Story? Yes! It’s not a perfect game, but it’s given me hours of fun and even a broader series to look into. I’d definitely call that a win! The fact that it keeps money out of the pockets of shitty video game executives is just the icing on the cake.