Right, the first completely new review for "Know Your Classics" since the move from the forum to this blog, and also the first non-DOS game.

Septerra Core is an RPG game with a few point-and-click-adventure elements created by Valkyrie Studios and released in 1999. RPG is the main element in the game though.

Quick Story Summary:

Septerra is a rather strange planet. It has seven shells (hence the name Septerra, as "sept" means "seven" in French and "terra" means "earth" in Latin) which form multiple layers floating over each other. Shell #1 is the most outern shell and shell #7 is the shell closest to the center. Speaking of the center, in the center is the core (hence the name of the game) which is also the energy source people living on Septerra, use in their every day life, well that is the oversimplefied version of what the world of Septerra is.

Now on Shell #1 an elitist population named "The Chosen" lives, who feel themselves revered over the people on the other shells. Among these people is a guy named Doskias, who believes to be the reincarnation of Marduk who played a very important role in the history and mythology of Septerra. He believes this gives him the right to obtain the secrets of the Core. However this is only possible when the shells are positioned that way that the light of the sun can reach the core, and that only happens once each 100 years. This phenomenon is called the "conjunction". Doskias will have to wait over 40 years of the next conjunction, but he's not willing to do so, and wants to force the conjunction on his own terms, and with the secrets of the core, he will have access to unlimited power.

When Maya, a junker living on shell #2 the game's main protagonist gets wind of this, and also learned that Doksias destroyed her hometown when she was but a little girl, she not only takes it onto herself to save the world, but also to fight a personal vendetta against him. However to stand a chance against Doksias, she needs to gain more knowledge about Septerra, its Core, and the mythology about Marduk. Of course, she also needs help of friends who join her in her quest.

The playable characters

• Maya is the game's main protagonist. She is a Junker living on shell #2. She delves junk hoping to find usable stuff among that, and that is basically her job to make a living. As she is the oldest female in the younger generation of Junkers, she has a kind of a mother role. She can be a bit stiff and straight to the point, however she takes no nonsense and manages pretty well when people try to (sexually) intimidate her. As typical for main characters in RPGs she's a jack of all trades but a master of none. In other words, her stats are pretty average.

• Grubb is a good friend of Maya's (not in a romantic way) and an engineer. His social skills are not that wonderful, and he easily gets absorbed in his work. In combat he's physically the weakest character, but when it comes to magic he's the strongest character at your disposal. Although, magic lives in a form in this game that makes it not the best way to go. I'll go in the deep of that later in this review.

• Runner is Grubb's "Robodog". He behaves like a dog, and even barks like one. Unlike a real dog he can be used as a vehicle. Runner is very loyal to Grubb. In combat Runner is (contrary to what his name suggests) very extremely slow, and magically he sucks completely. When it comes to brute strength he outclasses all the others and due to him having "line attacks" he can hit multiple characters in one regular attack, providing they are in a straight line from Runner's point of view.

• Corgan is a knight of Wind City on Shell #3. He's a pretty cliché kind of "Begone evil, good shall prevail" kind of guy, and always devoted to his duties and his idea of "good". This causes him a lot of hatred towards Selene, and when Corgan is teamed up with her, he'll occasionally attack her in stead of the enemy. You do need to be aware of that. In combat Corgan is basically a sword fighter (you didn't see that coming, eh), with stats more aiming for strength, but he doesn't do too bad as a magician either.

• Led is a female mechanic living on Shell #5. She's the daughter of General Campbell. Although she's officially a soldier, her father doesn't allow her into actual fighting, as she lost her lower legs doing her work in the military (as a result she now walks on robotic legs). She's very cute and she knows it, and bringing her can cause her to charm male NPCs who easily give you good stuff as a result. In combat Led is not as weak as Grubb physically, but also less well versed in magic. Still after Grubb she's the best magician, and she's also very fast and she's more able to take a blow than Grubb, making her the better choice of the two in most situations. She has a crush on Grubb, but Grubb's lack of social skills make him appear to respond rather bluntly, although it may be he's merely hiding his true feelings. Led hates Lobo, and when teamed up with him, she may occasionally attack him in stead of the enemy.

• Selena is a high-ranked soldier of the Chosen and Doksias' girl-friend and therefore officially Maya's sworn enemy. Selena however does not agree with the fact that Doksias intentions to walk the path of evil, and by joining Maya she hopes she can find a way to protect the people from the damage Doksias is causing and also (perhaps against better judgment) to see if she can make him see the errors of his ways.

• Arayn is a bounty hunter working in the service of the chosen, however, as he swore to never follow the path of evil again, he turns against them. When he is saved by Maya and her allies, he decides to join her. Arayn is very popular among most players of the game as playable character due to him being pretty strong, quick, and like Runner he has a line attack. His magical capabilities are not too bad either.

• Badu is a strange creature living on Shell #7. He cannot speak human languages, and therefore he cannot really show his personality. In combat he's strong, but slow, yet still quicker than Runner. He's very inaccurate though, and also not very good with magic.

• Lobo is the last character to join you. He is a robot soldier of the republic of Jinam. Since Jinam is the sworn enemy of Ankara (where Led is from), Led is very hostile towards him, and also against trusting him. In combat Lobo is pretty much comparable to Maya.

Now what is good to know about the characters hating other characters and therefore attacking them in combat in stead of the enemy, there are some sidequests in which the hated ones can prove their haters they can trust them and that they are really trying to walk the path of good. Completing these sidequests will stop them from fighting each other.

The Game

Well, I must be honest, the game is very enjoyable, but also flawed. And some parts of the game are either brilliant or terrible depending on who you ask. As this game is entirely set up for Windows 98 (and later only adapted in order to work on more modern Windows versions, Mac and Linux), the game is entirely developed to be used on a desktop computer. Except for needing a keyboard in order to name your savegames, all you need in this game in your mouse. By clicking in the field Maya (the blue-haired girl) will try to walk to your mouse pointer and when you double click she'll run. Her companions (in the case of this screenshot Led (the blonde girl) and Runner (the robot)) will just follow her. Don't expect a Dijkstra based pathfinder walking style, like you'll find in LucasArts adventure games. Maya will therefore not always go around obstacles. You'll have to lead her around them. This can be very irritatingm but you'll get used to this soon enough. When items can be used the mouse pointer will change to a gloved hand, and then you can simply click it and Maya will do with it what she's supposed to do. With you hover the mouse over a human being it will turn to a speak-balloon allowing Maya and her companions to talk to that person. This is pretty obvious.

The field menu may require a bit of a work out to get used to, but once you are used to it, the way it works appears pretty obvious and logical, so finding the features the field menu provides shouldn't be that hard.

Now one thing that got me is that the value noted by "Exp" is always the same for all characters, meaning all characters always get experience points from combat, regardless if they survived the fight, regardless if they are even in the party at the time. For the casual gamer this may be wonderful, since the game works with limited spots where you can change party members, and you are always obligated to take Maya with you, because she's the main hero... A kind of system pretty similar as in Final Fantasy 7, 8, 9, Chrono Trigger and in Breath of Fire II and III. In Septerra Core you therefore don't have to worry about characters falling behind if you don't take them with you. What I must note though that the amount of experience points needed to gain a level varies per character. Selina goes up with a minimal amount of exp points, and Led needs a very big crapload of points to gain a level, and all other characters are somewhere in between. The game does balance this out as Selina gains less stat points when going up than Led does. The die-hard-no-life gamer may find this terrible, so I guess this depends on what kind of gamer you are.

Of course, a very important portion of an RPG game is the combat engine. The basic setup is pretty refreshing, as Septerra Core features an ATB style combat engine, however with some very important different twists. The time gauge has three levels. You can already act when the time gauge reaches the first level, but if you wait a little longer for level 2 or 3, you can do more damage or do more healing with healing spells. Each character has also his/her unique abilities based on their level or the question if certain scenario has come to pass yet. Which of these abilities can be used is also based on how much time levels you waited up, and these abilities can also use up Core Energy (in the screenshot the bar op top).

Magic also takes core energy, but I'll get into the deep of that later. Magic works with cards. You can drag them to your character and they can cast the spell attached to that card. But you can, if you have enough time levels with multiple characters make them combine cards for more powerful spells.

What I hate about this system is the Core Energy system. The entire party has one Core Energy pool. The stat "Core" defines the max of this pool, and is basically the sum of the three characters you have with you at the time. All three characters use the same Core Pool, and both their special abilities and cards take a lot out of this pool, and although you can buy items to refill this pool, they are quite pricey, and due to this magic only becomes interesting when you are getting in the final portions of the game. Which is a bit of a letdown at first. Later in the game, when your Core stats are higher, this can add a bit of challenge in the game, although it can also be a bit frustrating. A bit more balancing would have been in order here. The game can as a result get easier the further you get... That's not really the way it should be....

Speaking of balancing, the hardest fight in the game is somewhere halfway the game, and the final boss is a pushover. Yeah, we can consider this a bit of a flaw.

Map Design and puzzle elements

Here I have mixed feelings to be honest. The art style of the maps is wonderful, as are the in-game sprites, so that is not the problem. Some dungeons are a bit over-designed making you search forever in a dungeon, and though a bit of searching is fine, there is such a thing as "overkill" and a few dungeons, especially in the last portions of the game, are definitely overkill. It's also here that some point-and-click-adventure aspects come in play. Some key items you need cannot be found in the dungeon you need them, but in nearby towns, or sometimes you even need to more to entirely different shell. Some are for sale in shops and it can take quite a trip around all shells sometimes to find out which one. This can easily get you stuck over the most trivial puzzles sometimes, and there is a reason many RPGs refrain from doing this. On the bright side there are no random encounters, and enemies walk on fixes positions and disappear after you kill them. However when you leave a dungeon and come back they'll all respawn, and when the key of your trouble lies outside the dungeon, this can be a bit frustrating. I am more of a fan of puzzles you can solve on the spot without having to leave a dungeon entirely. Now I did write a walkthrough for this game, and it's pretty unique I link to that in a review.

Cosmetic Flaw in combat

In most RPG games the combat music is hated. Not because it's bad, but because you hear it all the time, as it's quite often the same for all dungeons. In Septerra Core they have therefore made multiple combat tunes and the game picks one randomly, which I think is very good (My Star Story and The Fairy Tale REVAMPED do the same, and frankly for the reason I just stated). However you read "flaw" in the title, so you can expect a "but", and nothing someone says before the word "but" really counts....

Okay, here goes... But, the game has no boss battle tunes, so during boss fights, even against the final boss, the same tunes are being played as in regular fights, and that kills one of the effects in my humble opinion. Boss tunes really help to make you realize you are now in actual serious business, and they also help the scenario a bit when the boss is special to the scenario... That is a bit of a downside.

Final thought and how to play this game in modern times

All in all, despite its flaws, Septerra Core still hits it on some very important points. Although the story is not the best I've seen it does keep your attention well. The voice acting is also not the best, but also not worthy of Golden Raspberries. The game focusses most of all on the gameplay, and due to some different insights on RPG gaming compared to jRPGs, this game does offer something new and refreshing, and since the challenges the game offer outrank the flaws most of the time, we still have an RPG I really enjoy playing, and the graphics and audio do most of all give the right mood. If you are an RPG fan you should really try this game, and add this game to your collection.

This game is available now on Steam, and also not expensive. So I'd say go for it.