![]() Along the way a cast of characters ranging from a loyal robotic dog and his Mohawk-sporting creator to elite guardsmen and a rebellious cyborg teenager join Maya on her quest. ![]() Will it be you who ultimately discovers the true nature of the world? Or will your journey to the core end in an ignominious death?Īs Septerra Core’s storyline unfolds, you will find yourself enmeshed in an increasingly complex plot that has many surprise twists and turns. Soon her fight to save her people becomes a race to unravel the secrets of Septerra and reveal the legacy found in the Core. Now Maya, a junk scavenger surviving on refuse dumped from above, has been pushed into a quest to stop the war that threatens to destroy everything she knows. From the power-hungry Chosen who live on the outer shell to those who haunt the dark of the inner shells, all the inhabitants know the legends that speak of keys that can unlock the power of the core. ![]() Septerra is a world where seven World Shells orbit a living computer core. Striving to set things right, she leaves her home and soon becomes the central figure in a quest to stop a world-destroying war. One of her friends has become involved in smuggling weapons and once Maya finds out what is going on, she tries to stop him and quickly gets caught up in the mess he’s made. Unfortunately, things aren’t going to stay that way. Since the destruction of her village when she was very young, Maya has lived a fairly simple life. A hint to SCs developers: next time, try harder. So, Septerra Core tries to beat Final Fantasy at its own game and fails, but proves to be mildly entertaining nonetheless. You can't explore the game world freely until you get your own ship late in the game (this is also true of FF, but at least FF has glorious FMV to keep you interested until the game itself opens up). Also, the first half of the game is very linear. Other members in the group often get in her way too, so pacing up and down the environment until they move out of the way is common practice. All too often your main character (Maya) will get stuck in the play area and much messing-about with the mouse ensues to get her out. The character-movement interface is utterly awful. There are, however, a few major minus-points worth mentioning. Towns and villages are liberally scattered throughout the game world and in this department SC shines: all the locations in the game are densely populated with people you can talk to in order to further the plot, and places you can go to buy new weapons, armour, and magic items. There are many side-quests, which are not particularly exciting, but are handy for levelling-up your characters if the current main-quest area proves too difficult for your team. You are never left in any doubt as to what you should be doing next or where your next mission is, and the battles, although derivative, can prove quite challenging (particularly in the first quarter of the game). This may sound dull on paper, but in practice it can be quite fun. A typical mission consists of entering the defined quest area, disposing of bad types, flicking switches, pulling levers, finding 'key' items, and buggering off to the next mission to do exactly the same thing all over again. Oespite its lack of innovation, Septerra Core proves to be perfectly playable, and at times even quite enjoyable. Admittedly, it was never going to be easy to emulate one of the most famous RPGs of all time, but if you're going to do it, do it right, right? Going Through The Motions Sad? You wouldn't say that if you'd seen them). The cut-scenes are passable, but nowhere near as good as the breathtaking interludes in FF (some people are happy to play ffjust to get to the next cut-scene. The visuals are crisp and clear, but lack the panache of FPs beautifully-drawn backgrounds and character animations. Septerra Core falls soundly into the latter category of imitate 'em ups. It's quite another to rip it off shamelessly and make it worse. ![]() It's one thing to take an established series and improve upon it. Is this a bad thing? Well, it depends how you look at it. The anime-style characters, the turn-based combat (complete with energy bar, which must be full to perform the strongest attacks), the slowly unfolding plot with token love interest, the OTT animations for spell effects, all of it is very, very reminiscent of Final Fantasy, sometimes to the point where it is almost laughable. There's nothing wrong with that, up to a point, all the greatest games have drawn their inspirations from old classics, but this one quite simply takes the pass. They must have liked them too, because this game wears its influences on its digital shirt like a large shiny badge. The designers of Septerra Core have clearly spent a lot of time playing the Final Fantasy games. ![]()
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