Black Sigil: Blade of the Exile Review
Title: Is it really… old school?
Opening Statement
To start off, I must say that I am not much of an old-school gamer unlike many of you. I’m just a gamer that does not mind playing old-school classics and actually does enjoy many of those titles. So when Black Sigil was announced, I was excited, as it was title that was catered for old-school gamer.
How was the experience at first? It was horrible, however, reading around the discussion area a little more, I decided to give it a little more time and eventually, I’ve completed the game. Now I’m ready to give my review of the “Black Sigil: Blade of the Exile”
Story – 8/10
Bel Lenora, a continent where magic is part of every person lifestyle. However, there was one particular guy, Kairu, have been living in Bel Lenora with no magical power. Due to the history of a particular person with no magic, stepping into Bel Lenora and caused disasters, many believed that Kairu might be carrying that curse with him. Everyone in Bel Lenora started to treat him badly, however, there was a few person in Bel Lenora believed that Kairu have a magical talent, Duke and Aurora. Duke, Kairu’s father and a general, always have been training Kairu hard, hoping Kairu will be able to unleash his magical power, but, it never happened. From the higher power, an instruction has been given to Duke to end Kairu’s life. However, due to the relationship between both party, Duke was unable to end Kairu’s life and decided to lock Kairu in a magic cave, where the entrance can only be open via magic power. Will Kairu survive in that cave?
Overall, the storyline was more than the typical “saving the world from bad guy” story. The stories contain twist here and there to make the story more interesting, as well as uniqueness that have not been heard or seen anywhere(For me at least). But definitely, some will be able to get reference from other games as the idea was not entirely new.
The characters in this game was excellent as the character have their own uniqueness and personality that portrait their character. Those characters personalities are vividly shown through dialogue and event in the game. Not to say that some of the characters that are not in the main party are also interesting as well. Such as funny antagonist or evil but kind character on the party.
Not to say there are a few different endings(Not worth getting all imo) to the game. The story does not only progress through the main storyline, there are side quest that affects the overall storyline. Hence, it is your choice of playing, to understand only the main plot, or to understand the entire plot. There are a lot more than just the main storyline.
Graphic – 7/10
If I were to compare this graphic of this game to more of the modern graphic, this game will probably score less than 5 in this category. So I’ve decided to rate this category base on all the old-school game that I’ve play.
I must say, the graphic will definitely reminds you of the old-school era, the 16-bits graphic. When I slot my game into my DS, I immediately like what I am seeing. However, as compared to other old-school game, this definitely does suffer a bit due to the colour. The colour in this game was much duller and boring as compared to most games that are more vibrant and colourful.
The character and monster sprites are definitely well done in this game; especially one of the boss in the final dungeon, that boss was epic. But there are some sprites that are being reuse throughout the game with only colour alteration, but that was not a problem for me. The only gripe that I’ve has with the graphic was the design of some of the dungeon. Like I said, due to the colour, there was some path that was rather hard to detect.
But of course there are nice thing to say about the graphic as well. The animation were very well done, I really enjoy all the skills and combo animation offered by the game. There were other small bonuses like you are able to see the different weapon design with each different weapon.
Overall, I am quite pleased with what Black Sigil has offer on the graphic department. Great map, great animation and great sprites. Despite of me did not give a high mark on this category is that, there are other old-school game, 16-bits graphic, that have better graphic and colours.
Soundtrack – 7/10
For me, music is definitely one very important aspect for me. It will greatly affect the overall satisfaction or entertainment offered by the game. To me, the soundtrack was just rather average and passable. But there are just one or two great track in the game, such as the sad theme, which really does invoke the feeling of that particular scene.
But I was greatly disappointed to find out that there is no final boss soundtrack. For me, a final boss fight must be epic, and by epic, epic music is needed. Also, the common theme such as the over world theme, battle theme and boss theme wasn’t that good either. Due to us have to listen those soundtracks very frequently, it is important that those are good.
With all being said, the soundtrack did not feel out of place, rather, it has been nicely composed and mixed into the game.
Gameplay – 5/10
Black Sigil has a blend of both new and old mechanism of the RPG genre. There is an overworld, where characters are able to roam about to get to different destination. On the world map, there are various landmark such as towns, dungeons, ocean and sky, which are all displayed on the bottom screen. The top screen of the Nintendo DS helps on giving information, such as your character HP and SP as well as an overworld map. The overworld map on the top screens also helps to identify some of the areas, like dungeons and town with different colour dots.
Like said before, the world map contains towns and dungeons. The place will be shown as a mini landmark on the map (of the bottom screen), upon touching the landmark, you will be transferred into the enlarged or actual place. In the town, there are various shops for selling different type of items, inn, houses and many more for exploration. The town sometimes also contain secret path, treasures and secret treasures; treasure are shown in a chest form, secret treasure are hidden in barrels, pots and many other more possible area and can be identify by pressing the A button, the dungeon have similar features, however, some dungeon might require you to play with a little mechanics to proceed to the next area.
Next, moving on to the battle system, that uses Active Time Battle (ATB) System. The battle are induced via random battle that are found on overworld map and dungeon, where I will elaborated a little more in a while. In the battle, three characters are able to be used, with ATB, each character are given a time bar, where they will be filled over time. After the bar is filled, the character will be given the few basic choices; Attack, Skills, Combo and Items. However, there are two options which are not really told (Or maybe I’ve missed), which is Run and Walk. Run, for running away from battle by pressing the B button when one character got their time bar filled. Walk, walking around in the battle by pressing the L button when the time bar are filled; one down side of this is that you cannot attack normally after you’ve walk on that turn, however, you may still use Items, Combo and Skills. And obviously, the battle is won when you defeat the entire monsters in that battle and lost when all your character have certain status or died. But, there are certain battle where winning is not an option.
After the battle, you are awarded with Experiences Point, Money and sometime, Items. Experiences Point are for levelling up your character, where it will improves their overall stats and possible of learning new skills. Money is earn for purchasing new equipment and items from store, as well as spend in inn. Items dropped are random.
Skills, like I said, are learnt via levelling up to specific levels and learning Combos are similar. Let me get this straight first, Skills are done by only one character in the party, Combos are skills done by only two characters in the party that have their active bars filled up. Combos are gain quite differently from Skills, yet at the same time similar. By learning new combo, both the character are required to learn a specific skills in their own arsenal, a new combo will be added once both required skills are learnt.
Next I will be going through some of the basics of the battle system. The characters are given both HP and SP, which are quite self-explanatory. However, I will slightly elaborate for those that do not know. HP are your health point, where you will die when your HP hit 0 and SP are your skills point, using skills required SP, after your SP runs out, you are unable to use anymore SP. Yes, they can be recovered by many means like healing spells, inn and items. Item to be used in battle have to be equip to the character first. However, each item can only be equip to one character (E.g Healing Item A can be equipped to character X and cannot be equipped to other any other character, unless Character X unequipped). Not to say, you are only able to bring limited quantity of item to the battle, each item have different amount (E.g You might have 99 Healing Item A, but you can only bring 3 to the battle, you cannot use the other 96 in the same battle).
The story progress as you visit the destination needed, by talking to the needed person or by doing the needed quest. But of course, you are allow to side track away from the main storyline by doing some grinding for levels or items, doing side quest or just plain exploration. But do note that there are missable items and one time only dungeon.
However, with such low score, there definitely got to be some negative points about the game. It is no game breaker, but it is enough to make me felt frustrated for various occasion. But if you are able to overlook those flaws that I’m going to list, then you are surely in for a very nice gaming experience with Black Sigil. But for now, let me talk about the negative parts of the game.
Big world map, you might think what is wrong with a big world. Having a big world with many locations are definitely a big plus in a game, however, not for this case. Perhaps I’ve missed it, but there is no labelling on the map in any form (Via game or on the net). With such a big map and chances of you going to the wrong place due to no marking on the top screen map, there are a huge chance that you might waste your time going to the wrong location, pairing with the horrendous random encounter (explained later), you are either going to reach the destination with a sense of relief or an emotion of frustration. This of course can be solved in the later part of the game, however, majority of the time, you probably have to suffer.
Bugs and glitches, nothing game breaking so far, but still frustrating when happens. In my own experience, I’ve suffered two freezes, two dungeon bugs that caused me unable to complete the dungeon (Hence got to replay and hoping it won’t happen again) and missing one piece of equipment. Before reporting this reviews for illegal activity (Fake games), I want to say that I do own the original copy of Black Sigil and the original copies of Black Sigil have these problems. The freeze can happen anywhere, there isn’t any spot that will specially trigger the freeze, and it is all random. It can be so frustrating when you play over an hour and it freeze and you didn’t save, yep, it happened on me. There other various bugs and glitches in this game, but all these are what I’ve encounter. Nothing game breaking, just frustrating.
Random Encounter, probably the biggest complain for me and for many others. It is just way too common, I’ve done a little experience for myself, within a time limit of one minute and running from each battle, the battle I’ve encounter are in a range of 4 to 5. So it is basically like every three to five steps and a random encounter. But of course there are lucky times where you don’t get any monster within that one minute, but the chances are way very low. This is extremely bad for start of the games, due to low level and low on cash, you are basically suffering along with the high random encounter. Pairing with the huge world map and sometime frustrating dungeon design, high random encounter is definitely one of the biggest issues with this game.
If you do not mind all the negatives points I’ve said on Black Sigil, you are definitely looking at one hell of an experience on your Nintendo DS. But for me, I wasn’t able to look pass all this flaws, which make playing this game to be quite a torture. Not to say with the poor, lazy and predictable ending, this makes me regret playing this game throughout to the end.
On a personal experience, I almost gave up this game thrice, twice on the beginning, due to the horrendous encounter rate, but I was told that that the game will be way better after I hit certain part of the storyline. So I did pushed on, after that part, I am truly enjoying the game. But soon, that high random encounter hits me again; despite of me able to demolish those monsters quickly, it does not help at all. But since I was so near of completing the game, so I really forced myself to finish that game.
I’m usually a perfectionist when it comes to gaming; aiming for 100%. However, this game, after I defeat the last boss, I totally don’t have the mood to aim for 100% anymore. Reasons being that it is not worth it, high encounter rate, already miss-able items.
Replayability – 3/10
The Replayability is definitely very low for me. Especially with those problems in the game, I do not even want to think to pick up and visit a dungeon or two, not to say replay the whole game again. The side quest in this game does not really affect the game in any huge way, so by replaying, just to complete it, I’d say it’s not worth it.
Despite of having many endings to the game, I felt that the different ending won’t be much of a different, especially when I am already quite disappointed with the best ending. But there are many different character in the game, it is possible if you want to play with different character for the new game.
However, with a strong storyline, it is possible that I might pick it up and replay just for the storyline again, but the chances are very low.
Conclusion
“Black Sigil: Blade of the Exile” is definitely a good game, but ruin by many glitch and high encounter rate. Especially at the starting, the encounter rate might be too much for all the new comers. But if you persist and push a little more, you are definitely in for a treat. Even better if you do not feel the high encounter rate does not affect you.
I will definitely recommend this game to only old-school gamer that would want to play something similar to old-school game but as a new package. But of course, other gamer are welcome to try this type of game, but if you are new to this types of game, I’d suggest you to look at other old-school game on this handheld.
Personal Rating – 6.2
Average Rating – 6.0
Opening Statement
To start off, I must say that I am not much of an old-school gamer unlike many of you. I’m just a gamer that does not mind playing old-school classics and actually does enjoy many of those titles. So when Black Sigil was announced, I was excited, as it was title that was catered for old-school gamer.
How was the experience at first? It was horrible, however, reading around the discussion area a little more, I decided to give it a little more time and eventually, I’ve completed the game. Now I’m ready to give my review of the “Black Sigil: Blade of the Exile”
Story – 8/10
Bel Lenora, a continent where magic is part of every person lifestyle. However, there was one particular guy, Kairu, have been living in Bel Lenora with no magical power. Due to the history of a particular person with no magic, stepping into Bel Lenora and caused disasters, many believed that Kairu might be carrying that curse with him. Everyone in Bel Lenora started to treat him badly, however, there was a few person in Bel Lenora believed that Kairu have a magical talent, Duke and Aurora. Duke, Kairu’s father and a general, always have been training Kairu hard, hoping Kairu will be able to unleash his magical power, but, it never happened. From the higher power, an instruction has been given to Duke to end Kairu’s life. However, due to the relationship between both party, Duke was unable to end Kairu’s life and decided to lock Kairu in a magic cave, where the entrance can only be open via magic power. Will Kairu survive in that cave?
Overall, the storyline was more than the typical “saving the world from bad guy” story. The stories contain twist here and there to make the story more interesting, as well as uniqueness that have not been heard or seen anywhere(For me at least). But definitely, some will be able to get reference from other games as the idea was not entirely new.
The characters in this game was excellent as the character have their own uniqueness and personality that portrait their character. Those characters personalities are vividly shown through dialogue and event in the game. Not to say that some of the characters that are not in the main party are also interesting as well. Such as funny antagonist or evil but kind character on the party.
Not to say there are a few different endings(Not worth getting all imo) to the game. The story does not only progress through the main storyline, there are side quest that affects the overall storyline. Hence, it is your choice of playing, to understand only the main plot, or to understand the entire plot. There are a lot more than just the main storyline.
Graphic – 7/10
If I were to compare this graphic of this game to more of the modern graphic, this game will probably score less than 5 in this category. So I’ve decided to rate this category base on all the old-school game that I’ve play.
I must say, the graphic will definitely reminds you of the old-school era, the 16-bits graphic. When I slot my game into my DS, I immediately like what I am seeing. However, as compared to other old-school game, this definitely does suffer a bit due to the colour. The colour in this game was much duller and boring as compared to most games that are more vibrant and colourful.
The character and monster sprites are definitely well done in this game; especially one of the boss in the final dungeon, that boss was epic. But there are some sprites that are being reuse throughout the game with only colour alteration, but that was not a problem for me. The only gripe that I’ve has with the graphic was the design of some of the dungeon. Like I said, due to the colour, there was some path that was rather hard to detect.
But of course there are nice thing to say about the graphic as well. The animation were very well done, I really enjoy all the skills and combo animation offered by the game. There were other small bonuses like you are able to see the different weapon design with each different weapon.
Overall, I am quite pleased with what Black Sigil has offer on the graphic department. Great map, great animation and great sprites. Despite of me did not give a high mark on this category is that, there are other old-school game, 16-bits graphic, that have better graphic and colours.
Soundtrack – 7/10
For me, music is definitely one very important aspect for me. It will greatly affect the overall satisfaction or entertainment offered by the game. To me, the soundtrack was just rather average and passable. But there are just one or two great track in the game, such as the sad theme, which really does invoke the feeling of that particular scene.
But I was greatly disappointed to find out that there is no final boss soundtrack. For me, a final boss fight must be epic, and by epic, epic music is needed. Also, the common theme such as the over world theme, battle theme and boss theme wasn’t that good either. Due to us have to listen those soundtracks very frequently, it is important that those are good.
With all being said, the soundtrack did not feel out of place, rather, it has been nicely composed and mixed into the game.
Gameplay – 5/10
Black Sigil has a blend of both new and old mechanism of the RPG genre. There is an overworld, where characters are able to roam about to get to different destination. On the world map, there are various landmark such as towns, dungeons, ocean and sky, which are all displayed on the bottom screen. The top screen of the Nintendo DS helps on giving information, such as your character HP and SP as well as an overworld map. The overworld map on the top screens also helps to identify some of the areas, like dungeons and town with different colour dots.
Like said before, the world map contains towns and dungeons. The place will be shown as a mini landmark on the map (of the bottom screen), upon touching the landmark, you will be transferred into the enlarged or actual place. In the town, there are various shops for selling different type of items, inn, houses and many more for exploration. The town sometimes also contain secret path, treasures and secret treasures; treasure are shown in a chest form, secret treasure are hidden in barrels, pots and many other more possible area and can be identify by pressing the A button, the dungeon have similar features, however, some dungeon might require you to play with a little mechanics to proceed to the next area.
Next, moving on to the battle system, that uses Active Time Battle (ATB) System. The battle are induced via random battle that are found on overworld map and dungeon, where I will elaborated a little more in a while. In the battle, three characters are able to be used, with ATB, each character are given a time bar, where they will be filled over time. After the bar is filled, the character will be given the few basic choices; Attack, Skills, Combo and Items. However, there are two options which are not really told (Or maybe I’ve missed), which is Run and Walk. Run, for running away from battle by pressing the B button when one character got their time bar filled. Walk, walking around in the battle by pressing the L button when the time bar are filled; one down side of this is that you cannot attack normally after you’ve walk on that turn, however, you may still use Items, Combo and Skills. And obviously, the battle is won when you defeat the entire monsters in that battle and lost when all your character have certain status or died. But, there are certain battle where winning is not an option.
After the battle, you are awarded with Experiences Point, Money and sometime, Items. Experiences Point are for levelling up your character, where it will improves their overall stats and possible of learning new skills. Money is earn for purchasing new equipment and items from store, as well as spend in inn. Items dropped are random.
Skills, like I said, are learnt via levelling up to specific levels and learning Combos are similar. Let me get this straight first, Skills are done by only one character in the party, Combos are skills done by only two characters in the party that have their active bars filled up. Combos are gain quite differently from Skills, yet at the same time similar. By learning new combo, both the character are required to learn a specific skills in their own arsenal, a new combo will be added once both required skills are learnt.
Next I will be going through some of the basics of the battle system. The characters are given both HP and SP, which are quite self-explanatory. However, I will slightly elaborate for those that do not know. HP are your health point, where you will die when your HP hit 0 and SP are your skills point, using skills required SP, after your SP runs out, you are unable to use anymore SP. Yes, they can be recovered by many means like healing spells, inn and items. Item to be used in battle have to be equip to the character first. However, each item can only be equip to one character (E.g Healing Item A can be equipped to character X and cannot be equipped to other any other character, unless Character X unequipped). Not to say, you are only able to bring limited quantity of item to the battle, each item have different amount (E.g You might have 99 Healing Item A, but you can only bring 3 to the battle, you cannot use the other 96 in the same battle).
The story progress as you visit the destination needed, by talking to the needed person or by doing the needed quest. But of course, you are allow to side track away from the main storyline by doing some grinding for levels or items, doing side quest or just plain exploration. But do note that there are missable items and one time only dungeon.
However, with such low score, there definitely got to be some negative points about the game. It is no game breaker, but it is enough to make me felt frustrated for various occasion. But if you are able to overlook those flaws that I’m going to list, then you are surely in for a very nice gaming experience with Black Sigil. But for now, let me talk about the negative parts of the game.
Big world map, you might think what is wrong with a big world. Having a big world with many locations are definitely a big plus in a game, however, not for this case. Perhaps I’ve missed it, but there is no labelling on the map in any form (Via game or on the net). With such a big map and chances of you going to the wrong place due to no marking on the top screen map, there are a huge chance that you might waste your time going to the wrong location, pairing with the horrendous random encounter (explained later), you are either going to reach the destination with a sense of relief or an emotion of frustration. This of course can be solved in the later part of the game, however, majority of the time, you probably have to suffer.
Bugs and glitches, nothing game breaking so far, but still frustrating when happens. In my own experience, I’ve suffered two freezes, two dungeon bugs that caused me unable to complete the dungeon (Hence got to replay and hoping it won’t happen again) and missing one piece of equipment. Before reporting this reviews for illegal activity (Fake games), I want to say that I do own the original copy of Black Sigil and the original copies of Black Sigil have these problems. The freeze can happen anywhere, there isn’t any spot that will specially trigger the freeze, and it is all random. It can be so frustrating when you play over an hour and it freeze and you didn’t save, yep, it happened on me. There other various bugs and glitches in this game, but all these are what I’ve encounter. Nothing game breaking, just frustrating.
Random Encounter, probably the biggest complain for me and for many others. It is just way too common, I’ve done a little experience for myself, within a time limit of one minute and running from each battle, the battle I’ve encounter are in a range of 4 to 5. So it is basically like every three to five steps and a random encounter. But of course there are lucky times where you don’t get any monster within that one minute, but the chances are way very low. This is extremely bad for start of the games, due to low level and low on cash, you are basically suffering along with the high random encounter. Pairing with the huge world map and sometime frustrating dungeon design, high random encounter is definitely one of the biggest issues with this game.
If you do not mind all the negatives points I’ve said on Black Sigil, you are definitely looking at one hell of an experience on your Nintendo DS. But for me, I wasn’t able to look pass all this flaws, which make playing this game to be quite a torture. Not to say with the poor, lazy and predictable ending, this makes me regret playing this game throughout to the end.
On a personal experience, I almost gave up this game thrice, twice on the beginning, due to the horrendous encounter rate, but I was told that that the game will be way better after I hit certain part of the storyline. So I did pushed on, after that part, I am truly enjoying the game. But soon, that high random encounter hits me again; despite of me able to demolish those monsters quickly, it does not help at all. But since I was so near of completing the game, so I really forced myself to finish that game.
I’m usually a perfectionist when it comes to gaming; aiming for 100%. However, this game, after I defeat the last boss, I totally don’t have the mood to aim for 100% anymore. Reasons being that it is not worth it, high encounter rate, already miss-able items.
Replayability – 3/10
The Replayability is definitely very low for me. Especially with those problems in the game, I do not even want to think to pick up and visit a dungeon or two, not to say replay the whole game again. The side quest in this game does not really affect the game in any huge way, so by replaying, just to complete it, I’d say it’s not worth it.
Despite of having many endings to the game, I felt that the different ending won’t be much of a different, especially when I am already quite disappointed with the best ending. But there are many different character in the game, it is possible if you want to play with different character for the new game.
However, with a strong storyline, it is possible that I might pick it up and replay just for the storyline again, but the chances are very low.
Conclusion
“Black Sigil: Blade of the Exile” is definitely a good game, but ruin by many glitch and high encounter rate. Especially at the starting, the encounter rate might be too much for all the new comers. But if you persist and push a little more, you are definitely in for a treat. Even better if you do not feel the high encounter rate does not affect you.
I will definitely recommend this game to only old-school gamer that would want to play something similar to old-school game but as a new package. But of course, other gamer are welcome to try this type of game, but if you are new to this types of game, I’d suggest you to look at other old-school game on this handheld.
Personal Rating – 6.2
Average Rating – 6.0
Posted By Pianovin On 12:38 AM
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2 
-Xeno
