Posts tagged song summoner

Excited by the news that the original Final Fantasy Tactics (or, at least, a port of the PSP version of that game) is coming to iPhone, I loaded up Song Summoner, for the first time in about a million years. Or so.

What's this? It's got a good beat.

I didn’t actually play it, I just leveled-up my characters and then tried making some new ones.

We got married in a fever...

That done, I closed the app. Somehow, I don’t think I’ve got my priorities quite right.

I’ve actually played this again now. Like, actually played it. Just one free battle, but for the first time in a long, long time I’ve actually started it up tp do more than just level up my troopers. It’s really quite fun, you know. I should remember that.

I also love the way the way I managed to take the most dull screenshot possible, there. Well done, me!

I haven’t actually been playing this. What I have done is set up a Song Summoner playlist in iTunes and I listen to it on my iPhone on the way to and from work. Every day or so I start up Song Summoner and get Play Points for listening to the songs I’ve made troopers from.

And then my troopers get experience points. They get a few points every time, but those whose song I’ve listened to get more.

Still haven’t managed to level anyone up yet, though. I’m only in the car for about fifteen minutes a day, after all.

Yes, I had this on my iPod Nano (still do, even) but there are several good reasons to get the iPhone version.

1) The screen is bigger and thus it’s easier to see what’s going on and read the text.

2) The touch screen interface is much, much better than the Click Wheel interface.

3) The game includes all of the iPod version, plus the content from an unpublished sequel.

Still, it’s worth trying the Lite version out before parting with your £5.99. Not only will it give you a good idea of whether or not you like the game, but if you complete it you get a password you can give to the shopkeeper in the full version that will get you a whole load of goodies.

If you’ve not heard of the game before, it’s basically a simple Final Fantasy Tactics title, the twist being that your units are generated from songs on your iPhone.

Let’s try Boulder to Birmingham by Emmylou Harris.

We select the song and then see the results.

Excellent, it’s a Silver-ranked Monk. I’ve not had a Spirit Velocity before, so that’s good. Her stats aren’t great so she only gets a C grade, but that’s good enough. I can up her rank to Gold or Platinum by spending pearls you earn in battle and raise her level by listening to her song a few of times. (Or more slowly by listening to songs I’ve made from other troopers.)

Once you’ve got a team together (and you’ve been through the initial cut scenes and tutorials) you’re sent out into the big wide world on a possibly epic quest to find your brother and, I assume, save the world. You spend a lot of time reading dialogue and playing around in menus, but the meat of the game lies in the battles, which are your standard turn-based tactical affairs.

It’s all very good indeed, requiring thought but not (yet) being overly difficult. I’m very much enjoying it and I’m already much further through this version than I ever got in my iPod Nano version.

The only real problem is the lack of documentation. There are some basic help screens, but you really only find out how things work by getting stuck in to the game. I’m fairly comfortable with it now, but I had to work on it. It’s slightly off-putting to have pages of numbers and tiny icons and no real idea what they mean or how everything hangs together. Still, it’s been worth the effort.