REVIEW

Sorcery Saga Curse Of The Great Curry God Review

by Rob Pritchard, June 8th, 2018

Over the last few years, several games which received critical and commercial acclaim on the PlayStation Vita, such as Conception II and Danganronpa, have been given a second home on other consoles and PC. Sorcery Saga: The Curse of The Great Curry God is one of these re-releases, which has been given a high definition facelift for its debut on Steam.

The game’s story focuses on a young cookery student named Pupuru who is on a mission to save her favourite local restaurant Smile Curry from being put out of business by a greedy restaurant franchise that is eager to eliminate any competition. In order to complete her journey, Pupuru must find four elusive ingredients which make a dish known as the Legendary Magic Curry, which will have the potential to save her favourite eatery from a corporate takeover. Like most RPG’s of its type, the plot is ridiculous yet thoroughly plausible, and is filled with slapstick humour and larger than life characters played for comedic effect, such as the mascot character Kuu who is only able to speak its name and a strict teacher who refuses to listen to completely plausible reasons for failure.

The player takes control of Pupuru, who is joined by a group of warriors who support her cause. Each of the dungeons you travel through are randomly generated, with several bonus floors providing additional bonuses along the way. If you have ever played the Mystery Dungeon series, you will be familiar with the battle system of Sorcery Saga. Every time you move, attack or use an item, you will use a turn and if any enemies are present on screen, they will respond in kind. While travelling through each dungeon, you will need to dodge traps, collect treasures and reach the stairway to the next floor. Unlike many traditional RPG’s, your level of experience resets back to 1 every time that you leave either through death or non-fatal methods. While this can be mildly frustrating, there is never a situation where the difficulty spikes make losing your gained experience a common consequence.

Outside of the four dungeons which contain the ingredients for the Legendary Magic Curry, you can visit a hub world known as Dish Town, which contains all the usual equipment management facilities as well as the aforementioned Smile Curry establishment. You can also visit Pupuru’s room at her academy, where it is possible to stash items and money so you do not accidentally lose them when you are forcibly evicted from a dungeon. As you may expect, you can also change Pupuru’s attire to suit your personal preference. None of the clothes affect your vital stats or your battle potential, so it is purely an aesthetic feature rather than a valuable gameplay mechanic. Over time, Smile Curry’s inventory will grow dependant on Pupuru’s progress, which helps to reinforce the narrative that Pupuru’s efforts are assisting the curry house in it’s survival against the tyranny of the restaurant chain.

The weapons, items and equipment that can be found inside the dungeons share the common theme of food and cookery, with Pickled Onions increasing your maximum health capacity, a Cracked Pot Lid being used as a shield and a Carving Knife being used as an offensive weapon. Most of these are genuinely useful in battle, with the usual array of joke items being available to sell in times of dire straits. Any junk items can also be fed to Kuu, whose surprisingly resistant digestive system can absorb practically anything you throw at him. Feeding Kuu in this way satisfies his hunger, and increases his experience level so he can assist you with secondary attacks during battle.

From a visual perspective, Sorcery Saga: The Curse of the Great Curry God is filled with a vibrant user interface during the visual novel sections of the game, as well as high quality visual novel portraits during the conversations. The dungeon portions of the game use low polygon 3D models for the environment and enemies, which have been given a clean high definition facelift for the PC release of the game. The soundtrack is a mixture of soft incidental music during the dungeons and visual novel sections, with the occasional higher speed tracks appearing at the beginning of the game and during boss fights. Like the original PS Vita version of the game, there is no localised English dub for the dialogue. This is not a reason to be disappointed however, as the high quality vocals perfectly display the wacky nature of the entire cast.

Overall: Sorcery Saga: The Curse of the Great Curry God is a fairly average dungeon crawling RPG that will make you smile at every opportunity it gets. The lack of keeping your earned experience may not be to everyone’s taste, but the tried and tested gameplay will keep you coming back every time you lose all of your health. If you are looking for a unique RPG that has a distinct theme and a memorable cast, this culinary dungeon crawler will be an experience that will leave you reasonably satisfied.