Sudeki was supposed to be THE role-playing game for the Xbox, the marquee title from Microsoft and Climax that would prove that the Xbox was capable of supporting a role-playing game franchise that belonged only to Xbox and didn't rely on any existing intellectual property (like Morrowind or Knights of the Old Republic). Unfortunately for Xbox RPG fans, Sudeki is not the great white hope after all, but rather an RPG experience that feels like it isn't quite complete. Sudeki isn't a complete wash, but it's got enough problems to warrant some caution before purchasing.

Sudeki is an action role-playing game that chronicles the struggle between the forces of light and darkness. Players take on the role of Tal, a young soldier on the side of good, and three companions he'll meet along the way that will do most of the fighting during the game. The backstory for the game is that once the world was one until two gods split it into two. The dark god Heigou grew tired of sharing with his kinder brother Tetsu and divided the light from the darkness. The world was split into two and an epic battle ensued. During this time four heroes of legend battled against the dark god and put him in his place. Fast forward to present day, several hundred years later: Heigou has returned and is attacking the realm of light, Haskilia, with soldiers and monster that appear out of thin air. Tal and his friends, the focus of the story, take the place of the four heroes of legend to battle the evil forces of Heigou and put him down for another dirt nap.

In the early parts of the game, Tal is solo, battling the invading forces of darkness all over the countryside. A short while thereafter Tal will join up with three other companions - Ailish, the outgoing and headstrong princess (a magic user); Elco, a scientist with a jetpack and some other cool gizmos; and Buki, a hot tempered cat girl. Each character has unique skills and fighting styles that compliment the team nicely Ailish uses her magic to fight and heal, Buki use her melee skills to beat down the bad guys, Elco uses ranged attacks and Tal uses swords to cut the forces of darkness to bits..

The fighting system is probably the most remarkable part of the game. Climax obviously put a lot of time, effort and thought when it put this system together, and it really shines. Combat is fully real-time, with a neat slow-down effect when using skills and magic. Tal and Buki are melee fighters, while Ailish and Elco use ranged attacks. Depending on who you are using the experience is different. For melee you get a nice real-time third-person perspective, while ranged attacks players are served up in a pretty decent first-person shooter kind of perspective. The combat system does a nice job of combining these two different play styles affectively. No matter who you are using, your companions will also be there to give you a much needed helping hand during combat. Players can tweak their AI settings to one of three - attack, defend, and retreat, though sometimes the effectiveness of doing that is questionable. Each character has special skills that they can use (we mentioned that the game slows down when you access them which is kind of neat) called Skill Strikes. Each uses skill points that players must either replenish via potions or equipment that makes them replenish automatically.

Most of the time though players will be using three-button combinations of the X and A buttons to slice and dice enemies. Certain combinations will give players unique attacks, so its pretty important to figure out which ones are the most effective. Admittedly, it can be frustrating controlling four characters on the screen at the same time, especially when they need to be managed to do various things. Throw in a large amount of enemies and the difficulty increases considerably. Still the combat system is fun, if not a bit hectic to manage at times.

As players rack up kills and experience points, they level up. Leveling up gives players advancement points that they can spend on Skill Strikes or to raise stats. Most of these are offensive in nature, save a few that are used for healing. Players can also use special items to enhance weapons and armor by taking them to the blacksmith - these enhancements offer bonuses against status effects and things like critical strikes. The combat system, skill system and inventory systems (and enhancements) are the best part of the game, though not as refined as they could be.

Sudeki is also a great looking game. There's no denying that the world looks good and that the character visuals had a lot of time and effort put into them. Combat animations and effects are also pretty spiffy and flashy, taking good advantage of the Xbox's hardware capabilities as well as a myriad of other visual aspects that offer a lot of eye candy.

The biggest problem with Sudeki is that many of its other aspects seem incomplete or half baked. The voice acting in the game ranges from good to terrible, the story is forgettable and the characters and settings are so RPG clich? that it all gets old quickly. Just about all the NPCs have voice dialogue but players will quickly grow weary of having to listen to it all, because it's so bad. The dialogue isn't particularly well written either, nor is the story, and players that are looking forward to these elements being deep or entertaining will be disappointed.

There are also a few questionable design decisions in the game that may agitate sensitive players like using save points (and in my opinion in all the wrong places in some parts of the game) and the way players manage characters in combat. Sure, you can get through the game pretty easily, but a good role-playing game doesn't use these kinds of elements to necessitate challenge.

Overall Sudeki will take players about 20 ·30 hours to complete (20 without following the side-quests), and consumers will have to figure out if that's meaty enough to warrant a purchase or a rental. The combat part of the game is pretty nice (but not perfect), and as we mentioned earlier, many of the game's key components are weak or just plain bad. In the end Sudeki feels like an incomplete RPG experience that needed a lot more development time. I'd recommend renting this game before running out and purchasing it ·that way if you beat it or just plain hate it you can just return it.