The First 3 (Actually 7) Hours: Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiled

I had been following Black Sigil (also previously known as Project Exile) since at least summer 2006 (maybe longer, it’s hard to remember that far back). For anyone keeping score, that’s about 3 years. It’s worth mentioning that at the time, the game was promised to be coming out that very year. And so here we are. Finally, 3 years later, I have the game in my DS that promised a new 16-bit RPG in the style of RPGs of yesteryear. Was it worth the wait? Was that extra 3 years enough time for new start-up Studio Archcraft to make a game worthy of the games it harks back to? I’ve now been playing the game for about 7 hours. Let me tell you about it.

Black Sigil follows the story of a young knight in training named Kairu. Kairu is the adopted son of the noble Averey house in the land of Bel Lenora, and very gifted in swordplay. But there’s a problem: Kairu can’t use magic to save his life. This is more than just an inconvenience, however, as everyone in Bel Lenora can use magic, and the only other person in recent memory who couldn’t, betrayed the land and lead an army of cursed demons throughout the countryside. As you might well imagine, this makes many people a lot less friendly to our young hero, and after a bunch of spoilerific events that I won’t go into, eventually leads to his exile.

After leaving Bel Lenora, Kairu finds himself lost in a new land, with new enemies and allies, and various other plot twists. Which brings me to my first main point in this preview: Black Sigil’s story is very interesting. Since I’m only 7 hours in, I can’t yet tell you if the story works itself out, or if it stays coherent throughout, but I can tell you that so far it is what is keeping me coming back. The characters are interesting, the plot is often intriguing, and the game is generally well-written. If you like RPGs for their stories, Black Sigil (so far) is a winner.

However, before you even get into the story, you are probably drawn to Black Sigil by its graphical style. The first easy comparison is Square Enix’s classic Chrono Trigger, and this comparison is not unfounded. The character sprites look patterned exactly after Chrono Trigger’s. Let me just say here, that if there is any 16 bit RPG that had character sprites worth mimicking, it is definitely Chrono Trigger. However, the game’s dungeons and towns are actually a little more reminiscent of Final Fantasy VI (released as Final Fantasy III on the SNES back in the day). Just to make things simple, suffice it to say that if Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI were to have a baby, it would look like Black Sigil. And if you have nothing but good memories of either of those games, Black Sigil’s graphics are sure to make you very happy.

So there are two things that I, so far, adore about the game. Now let’s talk about something that I don’t like, and is actually a pretty big deal: the battle system.

Probably a lot of you, if you’ve seen gameplay of Black Sigil, are thinking that it has a lot in common with Chrono Trigger. And you would be (partially) right. Your party consists of three active members who wait for their time gauges to fill up before they can attack, cast magic, use a special attack, initiate a combo skill, or use an item. Combo attacks require your characters to learn certain skills with other members of your party, and require that both characters’ gauges are filled. Some of your skills will hit only one target, while some will hit a group close to each other, or all the enemies in a line, and so on. So far very Chrono Trigger, right? Well, here is where things get a little ugly. See, unlike CT, your characters don’t actually encounter the enemy on the field you’re exploring. Instead, battles are random, and your party is whisked away to a battlefield. I guess that’s forgivable, right? Except that these battlefields are littered with holes, rocks, and various other obstacles that prevent you from just being in a big, open field. In order to attack your enemies, your characters will actually have to move around this field into a position where you can attack from.

Wait, you say. That sounds like a good idea. I don’t want to be in some boring flat field every battle, you say. This sounds like it adds some spice to an otherwise overused battle system, you say. And in theory, you are right. In practice, however, this is incredibly aggravating.

Consider this: you have three characters in your party, and you are in a battle against five enemies. Not bad odds. But you need to realize that this battle field is such that several of your enemies are in a narrow area behind a wall of rocks, which each of your melee characters will need to go around in order to attack. Now realize that your characters can only walk a certain distance before their turn is up. Though walk-only turns allow your gauge to fill faster, if multiple characters are on the move, it means people are taking staggered turns all over the place. Now realize that when your first character makes it into the narrow area where the monsters are and attacks, your second character is now completely blocked and cannot do anything. Instead of giving you a turn back, this character auto-defends (i.e. they just stand wherever they are). Sure, on your turn you can move your character manually by holding the L button, but this prevents them from attacking.

At the beginning of the game, this is typically not much of a problem, but the further you get, the more narrow and obstructive the battlefields become. In fact, in the area I’m in right now, some of the battlefields allow only one character to move period. This is alright if you want to make your other characters cast magic all the time, but as you probably understand already, MP isn’t free. Not only that, but not all of your magic is necessarily usable at any one time. Only certain spells hit enemies regardless of where you are.

I should also note that your characters will probably auto-defend if the enemy they were targeting is defeated by someone else. Yeah. I thought we were done with that after the original Final Fantasy too.

By now you should have gathered that I don’t particularly enjoy Black Sigil’s battle system. What you may not have gathered is that the enemy encounter rate is extremely high. I’m talking every 2-3 steps. World map, dungeon, it doesn’t matter. You will be fighting a lot. Might as well make peace with it now.

Oh, I forgot to mention that your characters will randomly have bad status at the start of battles. One of your guys might be Blind, or another might have a Broken Arm (which is like Mute for your non-magic skills), or someone might be Poisoned. It’s not every battle, but it is frequent enough that I notice it. And seriously? Bad status right from the start of the battle?

Battles are hard and frequent. What makes this terrible is that they are hard and frequent for really no good reason. Honestly, I can’t see how you could truly enjoy the battle system unless you enjoy hurting yourself.

Next up, I am obligated to mention that the dungeons are mind-bogglingly long and filled with things that your characters will inexplicably get stuck on. Things that any normal human being could walk over, like rocks and cracks, present an insurmountable object for your character, resulting in you just getting “stuck” every so often. Coupled with the previously mentioned ridiculous encounter rate, this makes dungeon exploration incredibly painful. Remember when you didn’t want to turn the camera in Xenogears because you didn’t want to get in a fight for no good reason again? That’s what exploring dungeons in Black Sigil feels like. Sometimes I just make my characters stand there because I want a few seconds that I’m not fighting. No lie.

Oh yeah, and save points are few and far between. If it wasn’t for a quicksave system, the lack of save points would make the game completely unplayable. Seriously.

Last, but not least, let me touch on the game’s soundtrack. It is very well-done. The songs are haunting and original, while retaining that 16-bit era feel. If you liked RPG music back in the 90s, there is a lot to like about this game’s soundtrack. It is, therefore, with a heavy heart that I must inform you that you won’t get to hear much of it, as every time you get in a battle (or save, for that matter), it stops the track that’s playing, and starts it back from the beginning. With the battles as frequent as they are, this means that you will become very familiar with the beginning few seconds of each track, and not much else. If you enjoy video game music, I would advise you to let your characters stand idle for a minute every so often so that you can listen to a well-composed score.

I’ve rambled on for quite a while now, so if you skipped everything above, just read this: Black Sigil has a very interesting story and is beautifully nostalgic in its art and music design. Unfortunately, its ruthlessly frequent and questionably designed battle system kicks you (the player) squarely in the gonads repeatedly, draining much of the fun that could have been had out of the game. If you play RPGs to experience a good story, and can bear the battle system rubbing bleach in your eyes, I would definitely recommend it. If a frustrating battle system ruins a game for you, avoid Black Sigil like the plague.

I personally, am quite astonished that I am so eager to play a game that I find so frequently not fun. I think that says a lot about the game.

As always, if you have any questions or comments about something you feel I neglected to mention, please feel free to post below.