by Am I just a sucker for Indie games? Say “Hello” to Paper Sorcerer.
Paper Sorcerer is a rough-around-the edges indie-RPG adventure that bears heavy semblance to the Shin Megami Tensei series or the (more popularly known in America) Persona series. Don’t be fooled by the cutesy Templars above; you won’t even be playing as them. They’re the bad guys.
You play the role of powerful sorcerer who was sealed in a magical book by a party of heroes. The book is a magical artifact that the king uses to seal away unwanted entities that pose a threat to his kingdom. Aside from you, there are a multitude of other creatures locked away in this magical prison. By its design, the prison is supposed to hold those trapped inside in a cell that drains all energy, both physical and magic, until the prisoner loses all power and will to escape. Occasionally, the process fails and a prisoner escapes. In your case, you were released by the “Spirit of the Book,” a woman who originally took the form of a mouse to communicate with you. The Spirit of the Book wants you to go to each section of the book and destroy the bindings one by one until the book can no longer be held together. She promises that when this happens, you and her will escape but I have my doubts as to the integrity of her loyalty.
As stated before, the game shares many similarities to Shin Megami; especially Shin Megami Tensei: The Strange Journey. You play the role of yourself (a sorcerer in this case) and summon demons to fill in the other slots of your party. Unlike Shin Megami, you don’t convince the demons to join your side in combat, but instead summon a new one to add to your team when reaching new levels of the dungeon. Additionally, you don’t fuse the demons together to create new ones. Aside from that though, it’s pretty spot-on. Demons come with a unique set of abilities but you’ll need to use them intelligently to defeat stronger foes. The combat doesn’t exactly seem like a walk in the park either, adding challenge to the gameplay. Of particular interest to me is the way that the game handles “Energy” (MP) and Defense. Energy counts are very low (so far all party members have only had a max of 4) but it recharges by 1 after each combat round and some party members can use a skill to regenerate it. Defense on the other hand is a dynamic stat that can be broken down with multiple attacks. This means that combat has a time-limit of sorts and a stronger foe’s resistance to damage can be slowly whittled down.
I’m sure you’ve noticed by now, but the entire game is monochrome. (Well, not quite monochrome but close enough.) It lends to some pretty interesting visuals and sets a unique tone for the whole game. It’s very hard to forget that you really are trapped in the pages of a book–in fact, the game’s currency are actually gems that for a few seconds let you see the color and life of the outside world. To those trapped inside, this is more valuable than any commodity found within their papery cells. At times, the art is a bit questionable. This is most notable when looking at some of the character portraits. However, given that there are a decent number of portraits and quite a few animations in combat, it’s easy enough to forgive some of the wonkey faces you might come across.
This game is not amazing, or even fantastic. However, I remind you that the difference between Tier 1 and Tier 2 is not necessarily quality, but personal desire. There are many games of a higher quality than Paper Sorcerer that I’ve placed in Tier 2 but I did not feel a strong desire or need to see more of them. In contrast, when it comes to Paper Sorcerer I wish to see more of its design, how its combat develops and I’m curious of the fate of the world that the game created resulting in its award to Tier 1 .
