THQ’s Summoner didn’t fill that void completely, but it made an admirable attempt. Here is a game that combines some of the best stylistic elements of both types of RPG to blend them into a very engaging package.

The game follows a pretty formulaic and relatively linear plot, which is no less engaging despite those facts. It centers on Joseph, a young man who is the latest in a long line of extremely powerful people, the Summoners, and who whines all the time about not wanting the power. Heard that before. According to the narrator, Summoners in the past have toppled empires and challenged gods. Of course, Joseph can’t do that, or the game would be real short. Actually, Joseph can’t even summon at all at the beginning of the game, and it’s little things like that which make the game so engaging.

As Joseph journeys through his kingdom, trying to figure out why he’s being hunted, he meets up with some other companions. Unlike many RPGs, you don’t have a lengthy list of characters to select from to make your party. You’re stuck with who the game gives you. Fortunately, fate has provided you with a well-balanced party. Joseph himself is the most well-rounded, having the potential to be simultaneously a powerful sorcerer and skilled warrior. Flece, your first companion, is a clever thief who quickly learns to hold her own with a sword or bow, and whose lack of magical abilities is compensated for by her unique thieving skills. Rosalind, on the other hand, will never be a warrior (or have lots of friends, for that matter — the chick is cold!) but she can throw spells with the best of them. And Jekhar probably can’t even read, but he can circumcise a gnat with his eyes closed. The final member of your party can be any creature that Joseph summons, all of which are quite scary and will turn on your party if Joseph is killed (which just makes things go from bad to worse really quickly).

The storyline provides for some creative uses of your party: In certain situations, it’s best to go off solo with one member and leave the others waiting for you, perhaps in strategic positions. Other times, the game doesn’t give you a choice, forcing you to play only as one character, and not always Joseph, until you accomplish a particular quest. This gives the game a very novel feel, though you will often find yourself wishing you had held onto all those healing draughts when you find yourself suddenly without a healer.

While the main plot of the story is epic unto itself, there are a plethora of mini quests, most of which are not mandatory, but very useful when it comes to building up experience and gold. Summoner follows the usual RPG rules, using gold to buy stuff and experience to advance to new skill levels. At the advance of each new level, characters are awarded skill points that the player can distribute to their certain skills. Very straightforward. Gold is not very important in this game; the useful items like healing draughts and revive scrolls are relatively cheap, and it’s rare when you come across a powerful weapon for sale. Most of the good weapons are found lying around that you stumble across as you attempt to complete your quests.

The game has a more action-oriented feel than most RPGs. It uses a third-person perspective with camera controls. For the most part this system works well, though there are times when the camera chooses the absolutely wrong perspective, and the angle that is set for the towns is quite annoying. Battles take place in real time, but all of the character’s AI will handle the fighting. You can control one of the characters if you so desire, but only to an extent. You can tell any character which spell to cast or which monster to attack, but you can’t tell them when to swing their sword.

This is offset somewhat by the ability to set each characters AI to six different settings: Melee, Support, Range, Healer, Caster or Healer/Caster. Also, you can execute maneuvers called chain attacks, which improve the fighting ability of whichever character you are controlling directly. Chain attacks consist of pressing a certain arrow on the directional pad, and are more of a matter of timing rather then selection. I would have preferred the battle sequences to be entirely user controlled, at least for the lead character, but this method is acceptable.

A lot of the battles are surprisingly easy, however, especially the bosses. Since the AI is so thorough, your main responsibilities will be making sure everyone maintains their health. While any character with the Healer or Healer/Caster AI designation will do so to an extent, its wise to take a first hand interest in your party’s health. The biggest challenges come not in the form of boss fights, but of multiple opponents, which occur far more often during regular game play. Collectively, your party is more powerful then just about anything on the planet, but individually they ain’t so hot. I would have liked to see a little more challenge when it came to the boss battles, seeing as most of them are the culmination of a very long quest through a temple, cavern or whatever. I was usually looking to vent some frustration over the fact that one wrong turn had cost me two hours of searching. But there were many times when I would no sooner have Joseph cast a protection spell and be ready to enter the fray himself only to discover that his companions had already hacked our opponent to pieces and were going through his pockets.

Overall, the game has a nice blend of action and questing. While the World Map isn’t enormous, the actual levels are immense, and Summoner obviously uses the PS2’s large memory capabilities. Some of that memory could have gone towards more spells and characters rather then a few more dungeon levels however, or at least a few more quest items to find. And while the game is challenging, it’s not the type of game where you get stuck on one puzzle and spend hours not making any progress. The game flows nicely, and while you are given plenty of time to complete side quests, you don’t have the entire game like other RPGs to complete quests at your leisure. There are a few turning points in the story that make it impossible to complete certain quests past that point. This adds a nice realistic aspect to the game.

The ability to save anywhere at almost anytime (there are few exceptions) might make the game too easy for some, but considering the size of the game, I didn’t mind. Also, the fact that NPCs that are important to you are indicated with a exclamation point hovering over their heads might also draw criticism from hard-core gamers who have no need for such help. However, this is offset by the huge size of the levels and the fact the mapping system was less then adequate, forcing you to rely on your own memory in order to find the latest quest giver.

The graphics are well done, the landscapes are excellent, and you don’t confuse members of your party for enemies or townspeople. There is a huge population of NPCs, and while most of them don’t have anything useful to say, all of them have comments that add to the depth of the world that has been created. You can tell a lot of thought went into the making of this game, the plot centers around an entire mythology that has Greek, Asian and Christian elements to it, woven nicely into a unique story. As I said, the plot is relatively linear, but there are choices to be made that have effects during the game. Most of them are found during mini quests, but some come during more crucial times. Sound on the other hand is lacking, the only voice-overs are found during the cut scenes, and it would have been nice to hear all those NPCs talking to you. There is also not much in the way of a score, and I found myself often turning the sound off altogether and listening to a CD instead.

Summoner is a rare game that I would happily pay full price for. While it will cause you to purchase a memory card for the PS2 if you don’t already have one, the hours of enjoyable game play that the game provides will more then make up for the cash expenditure. Its not a perfect game by any means, and definitely hasn’t replaced Might and Magic in my heart, but its nice to see a console RPG that is this good and was not made by Squaresoft.