Everyone’s A Sacrificial Lamb in Soul Sacrifice

The world of Soul Sacrifice is an intriguing blend of mythology, mysticism, and deformities. The sorcerers of this very, very dark fantasy carries a heavy cross, with their powers being the source of their demise and madness. It’s about making the sacrifice – the game rewards you with power for doing so, and Soul Sacrifice is all about power. Your travels inside a Necronomicon-like encyclopedia named Librom allows you to discover that everyone in it has a sad, depressing fable to tell.

The game opens with a sacrifice, and then it’s followed up with a gruesome infliction of forbidden magic that disintegrates an unnamed prisoner. With the ashed leaving this pitiful scene, you, another prisoner that lacks an identification and storyline persona opens a talking book complete with sharp teeth and an eye socket. The book is your portal to an adventure where blood is required for you to challenge the grand wizard who imprisoned and tortured the nameless sacrifices.

Enter Librom

Soul Sacrifice follows the quintessential format of role-playing that relies on recycled environments, but you will forgive this flaw when you venture deep into a world where everything lies in a corrupted stasis. The story focuses on a sorcerer who after sacrificing her combat companion, develops a signature lust for blood after inheriting this particular trait from her.

There is a lot to tell, including one man’s desperate attempt to sustain his sanity, while another, an ally acquired during the later stages of the game, scratches his chest because he thinks killing monsters is both a good and bad idea. The questionable traits of Soul Sacrifice’s anti-heroes are well-developed, often over-arching with a truthful conclusion that not everyone should be judged based on their actions.

Librom is your gateway to the main storyline and other important elements of this cruel game. Sorcery in the game has been enriched and twisted with the core ingredient called SACRFICE. You don’t have MP neither you don’t drink potions to make yourself magically-proficient. Your character’s arm is imbued by power called Offerings, which grants you the ability to harness powers that range from destructive to regenerative.

Offerings are battle spoils and the better you perform during battle, the more advanced the prizes become. Stages have their own determined sets of Offerings, and it’s practical to come out legendary if you want to come prepared for that next epic battle.

Most intriguing is your choice to sacrifice or save monsters. The world inside Librom is harsh; everything has a price in return for power that seeks for greed, redemption, pride, and lust. Soul Sacrifice is an average compendium that retells that stories of the villainous elites, the damsels-in-distress, and the bullied commoners, and how they were promised with great power in exchange for their soul.

Your main duty is to sacrifice or save these damned souls. Purging increases your proficiency in using your magical gifts, while saving gives you a defensive blessing alongside a restored ally that you can bring along in your battles as a valued friend or a sacrificial tool.

The Nightmarish Rogue Gallery of Soul Sacrifice

There are a lot of monsters in Soul Sacrifice, and the minor ones pose no threat if you know how to balance between conserving Offerings and restoring your health. Absolutely, the rogue gallery of Soul Sacrifice boasts a revamped line-up of creatures born from a poet’s wide imagination – the hideous designs of these beasts will impress you, but it is your job to cleanse the world of it.

Large-scale battles will test you with carnivorous slimes that throw out an endless stream of damaging waste, a Cyclop that travels underground with its heavy trident, and a Krakken that envelops the area with a watery field that slows down time for your companions. Creatures have weak points (don’t they all?), and paralyzing body parts to weaken your target is crucial if you want to leave their territory in one piece.

It’s not their fault that they ended up with a neurological function to destroy. The emotional narrative behind Soul Sacrifice is brilliant, and it’s about time that a hard choice is made after felling a giant made from the forgeries of the pit.

Farewell Thoughts

Soul Sacrifice is the PS Vita’s temporary savior with mechanics that go above its contemporaries. Enough with the long-bearded sorcerers with oak staves! You’re a sorcerer endowed with many pain-inflicting curses that can take down huge monsters in minutes. You must make the ultimate sacrifice to do so. Will you surround your body in flames? Will you sacrifice a fallen comrade for a final lethal attack?

This game is a virtual teacher that gives you a hard lesson that the best decisions aren’t always good, but they have to be made.