Amazon.com Review: Septerra Core is a role-playing game in the style of Fina Fantasy, with vivid characters and lots of puzzle-solving tests of player mettle. Its combat system runs smoothly and provides lots of chances to display your tactical prowess by combining various characters' Fate cards to create different spells.
You play as Maya, a young woman at the center of a power struggle to control her world. A fabulous, multilayered planet with a gigantic computer at the center, the planet was designed by an ancient creator. The Creator's plan works in such a way that once every century, the continental layers align so that light can reach the planet's core, powering up the computer and making its secrets accessible to anyone possessing the right keys.
Unfortunately for Maya and her friends, a Chosen Lord named Doskias has decided to hurry things along, and is prepared to destroy the planet if it means he can activate the Creator's computer 40 years early.
Recent role-playing games have a tendency to combine a fantasy quest and combat sensibility--including swords, spells, and, above all, healing--with what is otherwise a science fiction concept. Septerra Core is no exception. However, the layered setting of the Creator's world is vigorously thought out and beautifully drawn, putting this particular genre hybrid in a class above most of its competitors. --Alyx Dellamonica
Amazon.com Product Description: You are Maya, a junk scavenger, surviving on refuse dumped from above. Yours is a world of layers, in which continents orbit at different elevations around the planet. Those at the top, the Chosen, consume massive amounts of energy and dump their waste down to the layers below. Now, they have begun a descent to the Core, a living computer, in search of the Gift of the Creator, fabled to bestow great power. At first you stand in the way of the Chosen, fighting to slow their march to the Core and protect your homeland. But it is you who will ultimately discover Septerra's true nature, as you journey out of the familiar surroundings of your home country, and come face to face with the Legacy.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - This is truley the greatest game ever
I can think of nothing that can compare to this game the whole idea of it is so great i wish more people bought it..... poor poor valk. studios bankrupt
Rating: - Some good with some bad, but all in all, it's a solid game.
Okay, first things first. Septerra Core is built around a fairly unique story, which is something of a rarity in this day and age.
Now that we've gotten past that little step, let's look at this from an indepth perspective:
(FYI Each comment has either a pro or con mark following them.)
Story: The storyline moves at a good pace, without bogging down too much along the way. +
Characters: The list of playable characters is short, only 9 total. The total combinations for the party are limited as you must ALWAYS have Maya, but otherwise, you can build the party to fight certain circumstances. - The characters, though, do have their own personalities and motivations. Makes them believable, even recognizable to players. +
Graphics: The backgrounds are beautiful. + Some of the area maps are a bit too repetitive, which makes it too easy to get lost in. - The characters themselves could have used more animations. -
Sound: The voices are nicely coordinated, HOWEVER, there are problems in some of the actors getting the right feel for certain lines. - The overall music is very short and gets looped too early, meaning it's usually the first thing players will disable. Combat sounds are probably going to be following right behind. -
Mobs: Very few differences in mobs. You see one human type, one animal type, you've seen them all. Aside from coloration, almost no distinctiveness in mobs. - Mobs have too few attacks. There's not quite enough to keep a player from reading a book while they run fights. -
Combat: Slow and tedious. - The use of the limited number of Fate Cards (Spells), and the special skills you find/acquire is rather poorly used. 90% of the mobs, even the bosses can be put down with merely your basic attacks. Using the Cards and Skills isn't really necessary. - It can take a while to get used to the combat system, even if you were familiar with most of the Final Fantasy games or Chrono Trigger. -
Dungeons: There are some HUGE dungeons in the game, getting through them can be a quest in itself. + The dungeons are huge, and getting through them AND then WALKING back out often can push a player's patience to the breaking out. - There is no mention in any of the literature on the game that speaks of the map function, which makes navigating the dungeons so much easier. -
Replayablity: Moderate/High. It's one of those games you beat, then shelf for a few months/year, then dust off when you need something to do. Given the length of the game (I think I clocked it at 75 hours to beat during my rush trial of it), it will keep people going if they pace themselves.
Overall: It does have it's flaws. Every game does. If a player can overlook them, then they can enjoy the game pretty much to it's fullest. Remember that this is an old fashioned RPG, a real gem in this age of FPS and MMOs. Some folks will enjoy it for that fact, some folks won't. It's really a personal call.
Rating: - Great Game but kind of slow
Septerra Core is a great rpg. It has great game play, a good story behind it but only a couple cons. It is very fun and has lots of cool features like weapon customization which lets lets you add attacks to your weapon. I also like the fact that you can pick you party instead of just taking what the computer gives you. The only things i can think of that would give this game a 4 star rating is how slow the battle system. Its not that bad but at times i can get kind of boring. And the only other bad thing, and this really bothered me, there was no map! I dont know how many times i got lost because i had no map. But anyway its a great game and it should be added to every rpg-gamers collection
Rating: - great game!
lemme tell you...this is a great game. the graphics aren't the best...no 3D, but RPGs were never really graphic-intensive anyways. gameplay, storyline, and battles are much more important than graphics. however, this doesn't mean septerra core doesn't have awesome graphics.
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first off, this game has the overall feel of the final fantasy series. keep in mind septerra core is fashioned after CONSOLE RPGs. hence, this is NOT an action RPG (a la Diablo), so for those of you who are NOT interested in ATB (active time battle) or turn-based time battles, this game is NOT for you. these type of CONSOLE RPGs are usually slower paced and requires more patience....which those of you who play action RPGs may find a tad bit slow...but then of course, final fantasy (which is a great series, btw) would also be slow.
for the critics who claim that septerra core is linear, try playing any of the final fantasy series (or any other CONSOLE RPGs)...most of those are very linear.
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the battles reminds me of chrono trigger very much. you get to see the enemies walking on the map, rather than random battles as you walk around (i.e. final fantasy). also, unlike final fantasy, the battle takes place directly on the walking map, rather than teleported to a different backdrop.
also, the fate cards (magic) that can be combined by several characters is similar to chrono trigger's dual and triple techs. using more than one fate card allows you to summon up greater magic (i.e. greater than the sum of the parts)
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the graphics remind me of the diablo series. however, the backgrounds in septerra core are actually much, much better than the diablo series. they did a really good job on that. however, keep in mind this game is 2D, so no 3D special effects. nonetheless, the characters, enemies, and attacks look great....and the sound is even better.
Rating: - Good game got kind of boring!
This was a really good game for like the first couple of hours. Then it was all repetitave you kill the same people over and over again. Plus if you don't level up enough you can get stuck just like I did I had to start all over again I started to play like 5 min then turned it off. Something that was pretty good about it was that it was turn base fighting. But it is a pretty good game but should have more varitey in the game.