One Life Left: Soul Sacrifice

“Save me!” yelled the avatar of a complete stranger. The Harpy overhead flapped its massive wings looking for its next victim to devour with a devastating multi-hit combo that would demolish more HP bars. My other two teammates had begun to use their summoning or transformation spells. Since these are usually saved for last-ditch efforts, I could tell that we were all running low on resources. This fight had gone on for too long, and it was starting to show. A female sorceress gets a concentrated hit on one of the Harpy’s wings using a projectile flame spear attack, taking this opening I rush over to my teammates near lifeless corpse. Sacrifice? Or save?

Sacrificing him would have surely given me the power boost I needed to fell the winged demon, but it would have permanently killed him. I mean, he is just a stranger after all, right?

“Save me!” I hear his character claim again. Not being able to ignore his pleas, I “save” him, which brings him back to life and grants some life back to me too.

The fight continues for a few more minutes as the ally I had just saved lands the final blow on the boss. Victory was at hand!

His character says, “This is for you” and grants me the privilege of deciding whether we save or sacrifice this beast, I sacrifice it, as the permanent boost to my offensive magic was too good to pass up. The team says good-bye and we all continue onto more quests. Welcome to the demo for “Soul Sacrifice.”

“Soul Sacrifice” is an arena-based Japanese RPG, a new IP and a game exclusive to the Vita. These three things alone set “Soul Sacrifice” apart from similar games such as “Monster Hunter.”

Despite what I had just described, you don’t actually play as a sorcerer but rather a faceless, nameless prisoner who will soon be the next in line to be sacrificed to a powerful arch-sorcerer. In your small bone-made prison you find Librom, a living book who can re-tell you the tale of his original author, which will, in turn, teach you sorcery so that you may stand a chance against your captor.

Using Librom, you can partake in shadow quests, where your character will relive the memories and missions of the previous owner. These quests usually have you entering an arena, finding a specific monster and killing it. As you kill enemies you will always have the option of saving or sacrificing it. Saving it increases your defense and health while sacrificing increases your offensive power. As the game progresses picking one option or the other will eventually begin to subtract from the other.

At your disposal is a repertoire of spells that do different things. Some throw shuriken, others turn your arm into a giant fist and some even have you transform into a monster for a small amount of time.
Then come your big spells, the black rites. This is where the game’s title comes in. Certain spells, like the black rites, require a sacrifice from the player. The one I received in the demo was one that requires me to burn the entirety of my skin off (thus suffering massive damage and a huge permanent loss to my defense stat) but temporarily transformed me into a Fire Demon and proceeded to burn all in my path.

The risk-reward system of Soul Sacrifice makes for some really compelling gameplay, all tied up in an interesting universe that gives it context.

The demo is the entire first chapter of the game, plus the multiplayer, which is a blast. On top of all this is an insane amount of lore about the characters, the monsters, the bosses, the spells, everything. And all of this makes sense, because obviously it’s all contained inside a book! The best part of the demo is that once you complete it, you can still play the multiplayer and then transfer your character from the demo into the main game.

“Soul Sacrifice” is exactly what the Vita needs and anyone a fan of handheld RPG’s should check out. The demo is available now, for free on PSN while the full game releases both as a download and in retail on April 30.