As I trudged through Wild Arms XF and slogged through Disgaea PSP’s Etna Mode, I couldn’t help but think of that good old N1 gem, Soul Nomad& The World Eaters, which incidentally would be a great death metal band name. (The Japanese title Soul Cradle, on the other hand, would be a great whatever-the-hell-genre Savage Garden is band title.) So, I started tearing through it again, going at a respectable pace because, get this, SOUL NOMAD HAS A RESPECTABLE PACE. I really haven’t any part where I was forced to level up for hours on end in order to pass an enemy formation that was only tough because they had about double my main character’s level. In fact, there are many times where I found myself grinding willingly because I like the game engine. I’d even go on to say that I like the bite-sized Inspection quests (SN’s equivalent to Item World) better than the protracted story battles that are usually plagued with waves of reinforcements, and the good old ‘Defeat All Enemies’ condition that forces you to hunt down every last archer and gypsy on the map even after killing the boss.

It’s a shame that Soul Nomad doesn’t have quite the following as certain other N1 games- the squad based fighting is much more strategic than simply leveling everyone to 9999 so that the actual meat of the game can be completed in about a half hour. Like Makai Kingdom and Phantom Brave, it’s pretty much doomed to being one of those games that was knocked out in between Disgaeas and had some vague surface similarites to said game. Though unlike those two, its divergences don’t cripple you or leave you utterly disconnected from the plotline (though I know not everyone is as bugged by the seeming laziness of Makai’s near-entire cast being player-made generics. Soul Nomad instead makes the story characters gussied up versions of the extras- Levin being a Bareknuckle with blonde hair, or Vitali as a Cleric wearing a hat instead of a headband. Woo.)