Saint Seiya: The Sanctuary – Review

Saint Seiya? Never heard of it before. Hmmm what is it? The cover looks interesting full with anime characters. Is it an RPG where I’m going to meet all of these characters? An alarm goes off, as it is the wrong answer. It’s a fighting / beat em up game based on the Japanese anime which is hardly known in Europe.

Every two hundred years evil returns to earth to take control. At the same time the incarnation of goddess Athena takes place to defeat the evil together with the help of the holy knights dark powers. The incarnation is called Saori but gets deadly killed by a golden arrow. The corrupt pope is responsible for the wounding. Saori can survive if the bronze knights Seiya, Shiryu, Hyoga, Shun and Ikki can defeat the golden knights and find her within 12 hours. They have to battle their way though twelve golden palaces to find the cure for the poison arrow which has been fired into the heart of Saori. Each golden knight seems to have too much air on themselves as they’re very confident to finish you by just snipping with their fingers. A bronze leveled knight may look harmless, but don’t be mistaken as you, the gamer, needs to control them in battle and fight against the evil golden knights!

The story is the bottom line for the twelve palaces mode. You’ll take control over the bronze knights and try to conquer the golden knight which is quite simple after you’ve found out which buttons to press. It’s quite odd that the tutorial mode states buttons such as “G” And “D” needs to be used to make certain attacks. I took a look at the controller and thought that they had made a game for a different console instead of the PS2 with the cross, the circle and so on. But just like any other fighting game, just try to button bash and see the result. Within a short period of time I knew how to make special combos / attacks and could finish easily the golden knights. Difficulty level therefore is really low! As soon as you’ve beaten a knight, the story continues and is visualised in a cut scene. As it is based on an anime, the developers thought it would be cool to let the player watch the cut scene for a couple of minutes before moving on to the next palace. In my case, I’m on a mission to rescue Saori and wanted to find the poison cure as soon as possible, without taking the time to watch the anime in between. Anyway, besides the cut scenes and the battles there are also bonus stages. Again I wasn’t impressed by these as the bonus reward wasn’t that great. What to think of getting an extra sound or a anime picture? No, not impressed at all, can we skip it? Although the twelve palaces mode is the main mode to play and covers the story, it is way too easy and within a couple of hours all golden knights were beaten. At the end I understood why they made the cut scenes long; either it was made to please the anime fans or they just wanted to expand the gaming mode. Another way of expanding the gaming “pleasure” is including a “versus” mode where you can play with lots of characters from the Saint Seiya series.

As already stated, the controlling seems quite odd and results in a button bashing activity as if you were playing like a five year old kid. But as soon as you understand each button functionality and even can make some combo’s you can concentrate on how to beat the opponent in the best and quickest way. There are a handful of moves and combos but the most important attack can take place when you’re “inner cosmos” is fully energized. When the energy bar is full you can make a special attack and perform a variety of special moves. If done correctly, a cut scene takes place in slow motion and you’ll see how you beat your opponent. Regarding blocking the opponents attacks, which is normally not in my vocabulary as I’m always focused on attacking, there aren’t that many blocking moves. Actually the best way in my opinion was to stay out of the opponents’ attacking range instead of trying to block. Whenever trying to block a move, it seemed that the opponent had a special move to beat me anyway. Very disappointing but it proves that attacking is the best way. Blocking or trying to is for losers.

The graphics quality could be defined as good IF the game was released four years ago. Although the story has been visualized in a proper way, it’s not the quality we expect these days. That also counts for the battles and the attacks / special moves. You would expect extreme flashy and breathtaking effects while performing the special attacks, but the only interesting visualised on screen is the slow motion and neon flashes. Also the character design isn’t spectacular, although if you’re familiar with the anime series, you would probably state that they’re quite equal. The battle arenas are in 3D and contain some background lights and some statues. Does it contribute to the rest of the graphics? You’ll probably can guess the answer.

Sound – Anime – Japanese. That would be a simple sum and assumable, right? Guess again and be just as surprised as I was when finding out that all voices were speaking French! Parlez-vous Français? Everything has been subtitled and you can choose between different kind of languages, but the French voices cannot not be changed. It’s distracting to listen to French words and read the English subtitles and you’ll find out that your brain isn’t able to split the reading / hearing ability which results in the fact that concentrating on the story is hard. Switching of the sound is of course an option and won’t effect the game actually.

Regarding the female point of view it all starts with the great Goddess of War, Athena, and her incarnation Saori. The game is based on helping Saori, to find the cure in time to heal her as she was shot in the heart with a poisoned arrow. The battling is of course for the male knights. I haven’t seen or recognized a female character although some of them seem female with the long pink hair. Yeah I know that Japanese anime characters can be mistaken when it comes to their sexes as some male really look like female characters.

To end this review I was wondering what I would have done with this game if I’d bought it, instead of getting it for free for reviewing. Well, let’s see. A: I would run back to the store mentioning that I bought the wrong game for my brother (bad excuse of course). B: I would rap it up in paper and give it to somebody as a present who likes anime / fight games hoping that he or she likes it or C: burn it or throw it in the bin and never think of it again. It’s one of the worst games played in a long time as it was totally not challenging. The gameplay is way too easy, the graphics are boring, the French language (merde!), the long taking animations (cut scenes). I wonder what the developer had in mind after finishing the game. Either it was my option C or just trying to make some bucks after all that work and investment. Better luck next time!

Review by Wencke
Thumb Bandits European Correspondent & manager of GGU.