Hands on Preview With Soul Sacrifice : PS Vita

Posted on 13th April 201323rd April 2013 by

Developer Comcept

Publisher Sony Computer Entertainment Europe

Platform PS Vita

Release Date May 3rd, 2013

Early hands on preview these days have turned into little more than 30 mins of game time at a press events, so it is refreshing to see Sony send out a good solid 4 hour long preview of Soul Sacrifice to enjoy on the PS Vita at home at my own pace.

After a decent spell of getting used to the controls I finally started to settle into the game. It opens with your character being taken hostage by an evil demon and locked in a gruesome hell hole. As your captor’s henchmen come to take you away you discover a talking book. This book is your ticket out of this prison and you must leaf through its pages to learn new skills by reliving different adventures. This will allows you to unlock your true powers and defeat your captor and escape.

It is confusing initially to know exactly what is going on from just the preview. This may be a new way of exploring a story or the full game may have a longer introduction. Although I did enjoy the fact that everything was not laid out in front of me straight away and it took a good few hours before it started to come together. By the end of the demo/preview I was fully invested in the story.

The controls are perhaps the most daunting part of the preview and took a long time to get to grips with. The left and right thumb sticks allow you to move and look around. You control your attacks with the square, triangle and circle button. The X button allows a range of options from dodging attacks and interacting with your environment. The shoulder buttons allows you to lock on to targets and the right shoulder button is another attack option. Figuring out what each button does is not easy as most have multiple uses in different areas.

The name of the game is Soul Sacrifice and the singular notion is “would you make the ultimate sacrifice”? This plays a big role throughout and will perhaps play an even bigger role once multiplayer is available in the final release. When you kill enemies you can choose to sacrifice or to save them. The different choices yield different rewards.

You can even chose to make the “ultimate sacrifice” by offering yourself up, when you are downed you can call on your allies to revive you but if you chose to make the ultimate sacrifice your allies will kill you and the resulting death will deal a huge blow to the enemies you are fighting. This does have consequences though as if they kill you do die and must complete the level as a ghost and lose out on not only gameplay but all the spoils at the end of the mission.

There is much more to come from Soul Sacrifice but from what we have played so far it is looking like a very solid Vita title. One that has some interesting ideas to keep you busy this summer.