Preview

You can say anything you like about Pikachu and the rest of the Pokémon characters, but at least that franchise was original and likeable. Why else would it have spawned a number of carbon copy shows with variations of the same theme: a boy realizes his potential for controlling certain objects, people or creatures, and is out to claim the title of top dog. Konami’s Shaman King Legacy of the Spirits: Soaring Hawk is a Game Boy Advance game that features characters straight out of the Fox Kids Saturday morning cartoon. The show’s popularity is still rising but it already spawned three other games and a second version of this particular game subtitled Sprinting Wolf. How good is this game? Allow me to be your guide.

Shaman King tells the tale of Yoh Asakura, a boy born into a centuries-old clan of shamans whose power dates back to the ancient Aztecs of our Central America. Yoh seeks to become a Shaman King, a sort of protector of the universe using the spirits of the dead (all of which range from normal people to the spirit of a dishonored samurai) that seem to appear all around him. Tagging along are his friends Morty and Anna as well as some other familiar faces.

Unlike the recent Shaman King: Master of Spirits game on the GBA, the Legacy of the Spirits games play like old-school role-playing games. You start the game in a graveyard where we meet one of the most powerful spirits that teams up with Yoh - a samurai named Amidamaru who died in battle more than 600 years ago. That’s not all, though, because like Disneyland’s the Haunted Mansion ride there are more than a thousand haunts that surround our young shaman and all of them are willing to join up with him. He comes across everything from dead karaoke singers, irritated store clerks to cats and other assortment of household pets.  If you think it’s odd pitting a cat against the spirit of an evil dead seamstress then wait until you combine your spirits (but we’ll get into that a bit later) in battle.

As you might have already guessed, this is an unusual game with a story that just keeps getting so strange that it becomes too outlandish. Really, it borders on the absurd and that’s too bad since the side story that centers on Amidamaru is both interesting and heartbreaking. Things get even stranger when you get into a random battle - an event that comes up often in this RPG. You’ll be up against evil spirits, all of them more unusual than the other but that’s okay because your motley crew of spirits are pretty bizarre as well. There is a limited number of spirits you can have with you (up to six of them) and you can gain more by defeating certain tormented souls in battle or helping out a soul in need (talk to them and they’ll tell you what they need). One spirit might not join until you do something for them and that takes you to different places on the world map. Other times they’ll just join up the minute you walk up to them.

Traveling to other parts on the world map is just a question of walking off the screen and this will take you to a map that allows you to choose where to go next. The Flame Inn is Yoh’s home and the place where you can save the game while the graveyard is the perfect place to pick up some extra spirits to take with you on your quest. You’ll even meet other shaman who will challenge you for a spot in the tournament to become Shaman King.

Battles have you summoning your collection of spirits, switching them on the fly whenever you’d like. You’ll find that some spirits are naturally stronger than others and some do far more damage to enemies thanks to their specialty attacks. The battles themselves will bring to mind those old classic RPG battles where portraits of the combatants just quiver when they attack or when they’re hit. You can select some items to help you out but there’s no real skill or strategy used during battle. In fact, this is the aspect of the game that really drags this one down. Battles become so repetitive that you’ll be using the flee option regularly. You can even combine two different spirits to make a powerful offspring of the two ... a combination that ends up with some pretty hilarious results. I mean, combine a human seamstress with a grizzly bear and get a lizard is just too wacky for my tastes.

Here’s the somewhat cool part: there’s another version of the game called Sprinting Wolf that is identical to Soaring Hawk in every way except the box cover and the fact that certain spirits seem to pop up more frequently than in the Soaring Hawk version. If I had to chose between both versions I would definitely buy Sprinting Wolf, but that’s just for the slightly cooler spirits. The fun part is that you can trade spirits with a friend who owns the other version using the GBA Link Cables. That way if you missed out on obtaining the grizzly bear you can get it from a friend who did manage to collect it.

Graphically speaking, the game is not bad on the eyes. The backgrounds are nicely colorful and there are details aplenty when it come to the different environments. When you engage characters in conversation you’ll get their anime-styled resemblance. Because there are no battle animations, combat is dull and lifeless so don’t expect some flashy effects in this game. As for the sound, while there are no distinctive sound effects the score works well in this game. You’ll find music for every different screen - even your menu screen has a different tune. 

I wanted to like this game but there are too many things that make this one a completely flawed and occasionally boring experience. Shaman King Legacy of the Spirits: Soaring Hawk tries to bring us something fresh but fails in almost every aspect. With characters that are pretty neat, the story isn’t compelling or interesting for that matter. Top this off with boring battles and you get an RPG that just doesn’t have what it takes to compete with the likes of Pokémon.

Gameplay: 5.0
Yoh’s quest to become a Shaman King goes from offbeat to pretty darn bizarre, but not in the good kind of way. There are plenty of spirits to collect but you won’t be tempted to collect them all, and combining spirits just results in some truly nonsensical combinations. The battles can become so dull you’ll just want to skip them altogether.

Graphics: 6.0
Visually, Shaman King is not a bad-looking game and you’ll love the game’s colorful backgrounds. The diverse characters are decently rendered, but when it comes to battles the game lacks animation besides the visible shaking of a character’s portrait.

Sound: 6.2
There’s music for every different screen and it works surprisingly well, but it would have been cool to find some more sound effects - especially during battles.

Difficulty: Easy
Take away the Golden Sun-styled strategy of its old-school RPG battles or those of the recent Pokémon GBA games and you get Shaman King. There’s very little skill needed to win battles - especially if you have Amidamaru on your team. No real challenge found here, sorry.

Concept: 7.0
The fact that you can trade spirits with owners of the Sprinting Wolf version of the game and vice versa via the GBA Link Cables is a fun way to help out a friend who hasn’t found the spirit they were looking for, but don’t expect any multiplayer modes here. With hundreds of spirits it’s easy to miss a spirit or three and this is the best way to get them.

Overall: 6.5
Legacy of the Spirits: Soaring Hawk dances between likeable and overwhelmingly dull. The characters can be mildly amusing and there are enough spirits to use or trade with friends who own this or the Sprinting Wolf versions of the game, but the battles are far too repetitive to be much fun. Fans of the Shaman King cartoon will want to skip this one altogether.