Tsugunai: Atonement Review

Introduction
As an educated gamer, I have learned that if I find a new game brought out Atlus to grab it quickly no matter what the gaming genre is or what the asking price may be. While they might not be well known titles, their offerings are always unique and enjoyable. Moreover, they usually turn into rare and hard to come by gems. Tsugunai: Atonement is another interesting import conversion brought over to the North American market from the Land of the Rising Sun. Released during the time that all RPG fans were awaiting the arrival of Final Fantasy X, Tsugunai fell through the cracks and faded quietly into oblivion.

Gameplay
Even though the game starts out in the middle of the story, I’ll give you a more linear view of the happenings. You are a Raven, a mercenary who makes a living going from town to town completing difficult tasks. You have been hired by the Lord of Walondia to obtain the legendary Treasure Orb made by the Goddess of Light, Danu. Once the Raven retrieves the Orb, he has angered the Goddess and she splits his soul from his body. No longer able to die, you have to heal those with extreme sadness in their hearts to earn the right to regain your body and your life.

Now you must possess the innocents that you have to save and use their bodies to accomplish what your disembodied soul cannot. Even though you are an accomplished warrior, your skills and abilities are restricted by the person that you possess. Monsters galore and daunting puzzles stand in your path to becoming whole again. Only by the use of your mind and a borrowed body can you ever expect to live the life that you once knew. Once you heal the sadness in their heart, you become free of the body you have possessed and partially atone for your sin. You then move on to help another and another until you have redeemed yourself in the eyes of the Goddess of Light.

For being a three year old game, Tsugunai: Atonement still has an above average visual presentation. Even though some critics have complained that the game is “too brown,” the earth-tones of the game fit and flow well. All of the people in the game are realistically drawn with no deformed body parts or spiky pink hair that is commonly seen in the modern imported games. The game’s cut-scenes are interesting, drive the plot of the story and make you actually desire to help the main character become whole again.

One of the biggest disappointments is the audio of the game, or rather the lack of it. Like most old school games, the conversations are all text based without any voice-over work, so plan to do a bunch of reading is you want to keep up with the interesting storyline. This seems to be a small thing on paper, but during the game it is a screaming omission that only could have made the game more complete. The background music varies in style and tempo but neither adds or subtracts from the game as a whole. In fact, I completed the majority of the game while listening to the radio and it never affected my playing experience. However I can say that all of the text actually makes sense and is understandable, which usually is a problem with translated imports.

Extras
There are no extras available in this game.

Conclusion
Tsugunai: Atonement breaks all of the established rules that dictate what a successful RPG should be and somehow manages to still be an above-average performer. Atlus brings us a nice and tidy adventure without all the messy extras. The game is long enough to make you feel like you have accomplished something without forcing the player to dedicate hundreds of hours of time wandering throughout a virtual land looking for that last needed gem to save the world. This game in no way will replace the multimillion dollar adventures that we all have come to drool over, but is definitely worthy of your attention during one of those rainy weekends when you have nothing to do.

Final Score: 7.3