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Game Review: Shaman King: Power of Spirit

By By Nick Finnegan (Contact)

Thursday, February 24, 2005

Label: PS2

Normally I’m not a really big fan of strategy games, but Shaman King takes a different approach to the genre. Instead of the action being totally turn-based the game incorporates two styles of play into a unique experience.

The story of Shaman King follows a young man named Yoh Asakura and his dumb friends as they fight enemies and learn life lessons while they journey to become the champion of the Shaman King tournament. Naturally, they come across many people who wish to thwart their ambitions and cause them mental anguish. OK, so it may be the same clichéd story we’ve seen a thousand times and delivered in crappy non-animated storyboards, but that’s not the point. The gameplay itself is the interesting part.

The first part of the game is strategy, where you maneuver your characters around the play field to position them for attack. Once a battle is initiated you are taken away from the strategy screen and into a semi 3-D fighting arena. At the beginning of the game your character is limited in combos, but gains new powers from experience gained in battles. Battles start off rather easy and get progressively more difficult as the number and strength of enemies increases with each successive episode, or level. Most battles are short and far outweighed by the cutesy Japanese anime scenes.

As with any good anime offshoot, a diverse number of stereotypical characters are portrayed. There is the nonchalant protagonist, the dumb, spiky-haired kid, and the mean-nice guy. Each of these characters is annoying and forgettable, much like the story. So basically this game provides some unique, entertaining gameplay at the cost of a whole bunch of whiny kids and bad animation. If you can deal with that, then give it a go.

Grade: C

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