Tag: recommendations

Recommendation: Mushishi

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Edit: Rest in Peace, Steve Jobs…

I’m heading off to New York Comic-Con this weekend, mostly for touristy reasons (since I’ve never been to NYCC before). As of now I haven’t packed much yet, so I’m panicking while trying to get things done at the last minute. At NYCC, I plan to just mostly hang around the BentoComics table, as well as try and cram some sight-seeing into the 10 days I’ll be in America.

After the last recommendation of Mononoke, it’s inevitable that I will continue my journey into the weird-Japanese-supernatural genre. So this week, I recommend the manga and anime series Mushishi.

 

Mushishi CoverMushishi (Yuki Urushibara)
10 volumes, plus a 26-episode TV series

Mushishi is available in English from Del Rey, where I first heard of the series. I admit that I didn’t know what it was about when I first read it, and it took me two tries before I was able to get into it. Part of it is because it’s a series that has a pseudo-scientific fantasy universe, that is quite unlike anything I’ve encountered before. This series is strange and complex in a way that is difficult to describe.

 

Plot
In the world of Mushishi, there are creatures known as mushi that are ubiquitous, but just another life form like humans, animals and plants. These mushi can have supernatural powers, and when they become “off-balance” they can infect humans or geographical areas, and cause a lot of problems. Mushi are described as being closer to the essence of life, and more basic and pure than other living life forms. Most people are oblivious to their existence, while a select few can see and interact with them.

 

 

The story follows Gingko, who is one such person. He is known as a Mushi-shi – people who travel from place to place, dealing with problems that mushi can cause. Because mushi are just another life form who sometimes have symbiotic relationships with humans, they’re not evil, and aren’t trying to be. The series is episodic, with no over-arching plot, and follows Gingko from place to place as he encounters different kinds of mushi, and subscribes different methods of dealing with them.

 


 

Why I Recommend this Story
When people talk about unusual takes on the Japanese supernatural, they may mention the psychedelic anime series Mononoke (which I recommended 2 weeks ago). In the next breath, they would then say that Mononoke is like Mushishi. Ask them to explain that further, and they will be at a loss for words. Heck, I can’t explain how Mushishi is in any way like Mononoke. Both stories are unique and original in the way they imagine their universes, and perhaps the best way to describe them is that in the Forest of Genres, they’re relatives in a obscure, distant branch of the “Japanese Supernatural” Family Tree.

At least Mononoke is about an exorcist who exorcises monsters. I’m not sure what to call Gingko in Mushishi – he’s definitely not an exorcist, though some parts of his job may qualify as exorcism. There are no monsters in the traditional sense in Mushishi, though there are these creatures called mushi that are the cause of a lot of strange problems. Gingko goes from place to place, helping people who may be having problems with the mushi (sometimes they’re not), and then perhaps solving their problems (though sometimes he doesn’t). Since “mushi” is the Japanese word for “insects”, perhaps I can call him a cross between a pest-control agent and a biologist with a special streak of curiosity for the insect kingdom.

 

 

As a Mushi-shi, Gingko certainly seems more curious than most towards the mushi. While this is never addressed directly, other Mushi-shi seems to treat their jobs just as pest-exterminators, and that’s it. Gingko at least seems to take a scientific interest in the mushi, though considering the way he sometimes wanders into situations that didn’t ask him to become involved, he may just be a person who takes an interest in everything he encounters. I’m not sure. This series don’t make things clear-cut in the way some people expect their stories to be clear-cut. Situations are given, things happen, decisions both good and bad are made by the people in the story, and readers are left to ponder the results. Also, because humans need to co-exist with mushi irregardless, those looking for bombastic action scenes aren’t going to find any. There’s no good and evil in this story. There are just people, and mushi that act up for a variety of reasons.

No over-arching plot, and no special objectives to for Gingko to achieve either. And very few recurring characters except for Gingko and one or two of his friends. The art, while lush and beautiful in depicting nature, backgrounds and “the weird”, seems to be pretty forgettable when it comes to people. Urushibara doesn’t seem to be good at character designs – a lot of the characters have faces so similar it can be hard to tell who is who sometimes. So does this make the series boring? Some people complain that it’s boring after a while. Those expecting a pay-off, or a climatic boss-fight scene won’t get anything close to that. So why read this series?

 

 

One word: Originality. You won’t find anything else like Mushishi out there. This is a fully-formed universe, with its own eco-system, its own classifications of different mushi, and its own unusual methods of “curing” the “illnesses”. Heck, in one story, a character’s problem is solved just by moving to a coastal area – the mushi affecting her are dissolved by sea air, so all she has to do is to live by the sea. The stories often play out in the way a medical or scientific thriller would, except there’s no actual science involved. There is instead a humanistic approach to the characters and their issues in the stories, and it often deals with universal themes such as love, loss, the capacity people have to fool themselves, and the value of life. Perhaps a better comparison is not Mononoke, but Osamu Tezuka’s manga Black Jack; about a maverick surgeon who doesn’t so much heal patients, as helping patients heal themselves.

I’m not sure I did a good job in selling Mushishi, but then this story isn’t for the average person. Its strongest appeal is in its lack of predictability, and its sense of discovery – what mushi will we encounter next? What strange symptoms does it cause in people? What unusual methods will be used to get rid of them? To some people, it’s the most interesting thing in the world. To other people, they don’t see the point of it. If you want to have a crack at Mushishi, have a think about which camp you fall into. It will certainly affect your enjoyment of the series.

* I should mention that a lot of the stories in Mushishi are alternate re-tellings of Japanese myths and monsters. If you have prior knowledge of this, it will be more interesting and enjoyable than if you don’t.

Recommendation: Mononoke

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Okay, I’m officially getting to work on the next book “Small Shen” (with Kylie Chan) in November, but I’ll hopefully be doing some work before October (where I head off to NYCC). I’ll talk more about that in a week’s time.

This week I recommend Mononoke. No, not Studio Ghibli’s Mononoke Hime. As worthy as that is of a recommendation, this is a completely different story, and a 12-episode TV series rather than a single movie. This series is obscure but highly underrated, and while it shares half of the more famous movie’s title, it’s simply titled Mononoke, nothing more.

 

 
 

Mononoke PosterMononoke (2007 – Toei Animation)
12 Episodes + 1 Short Story

Mononoke is an unusual TV series, not least because of its visual look. It began life as the third tale in a series of short Japanese horror stories, called Ayakashi. The first tale was famous Japanese horror tale Yotsuya Kaidan (Strange Tale of Yotsuya), the second was Tenshu Monogatari (Tale of the Goddess), and the last was Bakeneko (Monster Cat). Bakeneko was the one which introduced the enigmatic main character of Mononoke, a nameless, wandering medicine-seller who appears to do sidelines in exorcisms. Being the most interesting of the three tales, both due to its story and its art direction, audiences quickly demanded a new TV series based on the medicine-seller, and that was Mononoke.

 

Plot
“Mononoke” is a term for Japanese demons, and unlike conventional demons, the Mononoke in this series are often supernatural phenomenon created by people who died in unhappy circumstances, or who otherwise have grievances. The creatures take physical form, and is fully capable of doing real harm.

 

 

Enter the mysterious albino-elf character with face-paint and a snazzy fashion sense. This nameless, wandering merchant claims to sell medicine, but it’s really a cover for exorcisms he performs on the Mononoke he encounters in each episode. Despite having an impressive demon-busting form and an exorcism sword, the power of the medicine-seller is very limited. Since Mononoke usually have some kind of human origin (often psychological), it’s impossible to exorcise them until you discover the source of the phenomenon, and the reasons for their manifestation. For the medicine-seller, this involves finding the Katachi (shape), the Makoto (truth), and the Kotowari (reason) of the Mononoke.

Unlike conventional demon-busting shows (which tend to be action-oriented), this show is like a detective story with psychological puzzles at its core, all viewed through a Japanese supernatural lens.

 

Why I Recommend this Story
Mononoke is a gem. In both writing and art direction. Even if you’ve only seen a few screen caps of the series, you will probably already notice the bold, experimental style. The series looks like someone crossed traditional Japanese art with psychedelic art, adding a dash of Art Nouveau, Gustav Klimt, and surrealism along the way. I probably haven’t listed the wide range of art styles that this series sampled from, to create its unique look. Either way, it was a dream to look at, and its difference to the “conventional” anime look should be celebrated. For once, the experiment not only didn’t fail, but was a dramatic success.

 

 

All the more reason to marvel at the way this artistic style came to be. From what I can tell, the original series Ayakashi was a low-budget thing, and no one really had high expectations of Bakeneko, especially since top-billing went to Yotsuya Kaidan (famed illustrator Yoshitaka Amano was working on the character designs for that). I’m guessing the animators on Bakeneko thought, whatever, we can try something new with this since no one cares. Instead, Yotsuya Kaidan was a dull disappointment, and none of the lovely character designs by Amano translated well into anime. Conversely, Bakeneko was the triumph, and it was way more interesting to watch and look at than the other two stories.

The stories were also complex and engaging. You won’t expect a demon-busting story to be so cerebral and psychological, but these are – and many are also intensely internal. In every episode, there’s a number of other characters involved apart from the medicine-seller, and discovering their labyrinth psychological turmoil is part of the series – and the medicine-seller’s – job. Mind you, this is a horror series after all, and some of the stories get pretty grotesque in plumbing the depths of the human condition. The art can sometimes reflect the ugliness of the situation, but it’s never exploitative or truly disgusting. The writing also has a literary quality to it – by that, I mean it seems free of a lot of cliches and archetypes that an industry (in this case, the anime industry) often builds up over time. Like Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, I wonder if the writer comes from outside the anime/manga industry (in my mind, that is always a plus).

 
Mononoke - Umbrella
 

Perhaps the one “criticism” I have of Mononoke is the story-telling. It’s opaque, a tad jerky, filled with strange camera angles and is often straight-up trippy. But then, given the art-style and the subject matter, I shouldn’t have expected any other kind of story-telling that would have worked with the stories and the art. Mononoke is an unusual, strange take on a tired genre, and to use traditional methods of story-telling would have been a death-knell for the “feel” it was trying to evoke. It’s not, after all, a story for someone looking for something mainstream. No one I know had any trouble following the story, but its unapologetic weirdness will probably put off a lot of people who want something more… conventional. Average. Typical. If you want a more “normal” demon-busting story, stay the heck away from Mononoke – it’ll blow your mind in ways you’re not prepared for.

 
Mononoke - Pregnant
 

Lastly, the story is very, very heavily Japanese in origin, meaning that if you’re not familiar with some aspects of Edo-era Japanese culture, you may miss out on a few things. You don’t need much to understand the series, but someone with background knowledge will get more out of it. The story also ends at 12 episodes, which is a crying shame. In some ways I’m grateful that no one wants to run the series into the ground to milk more money, but I also wish more industry people will take notice of its artistic triumphs and act accordingly.

Recommendation: Hikaru no Go

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Well, I am back from Brisbane, and back at the working table, ready to work on my next book. I can’t say much about it yet, except that it’s a prequel to a series of best-selling fantasy novels, by Kylie Chan. It’s a Chinese-fantasy story, so I’m going to be in my element. So excited to be able to draw Chinese fantasy! I need to sort out the schedule with the publisher first, so you’ll hear more about it when that’s done and I start work.

As promised, this week I recommend an oldie but a goodie – Hikaru no Go. A manga about… the ancient Asian board game of Go. Drawn by one of my favourite artists (Takeshi Obata) this sits right in the middle of his work to date, so if you’ve been following Obata over his long career, this manga shows his biggest evolution in style. Obata has done other, better-known works since then (such as Death Note and Bakuman), but I assure you, Hikaru no Go is heads and shoulders above his other works.

 

hikarunogo-coverHikaru no Go (Takeshi Obata)
23 volumes

It’s impossible to mention Hikaru no Go without talking about its artist. Takeshi Obata is a manga artist I’ve followed since the beginning of his career, since I was 12. At the time, I picked up some random manga magazine, and read some goofy gag story about a meddling robotic grandfather (yeah, you read that right). This is unusual. Normally, I dislike gag stories, but this artist was… different. Special. He had good comic timing, a pleasant style of story-telling, and I really liked the characters. The art style resembled the artist who does Magical Taruruto-kun (a wacky gag manga with a style I dislike), but this artist’s style was inexplicably acceptable to me. I made a mental note of this guy, to see what else he has done. And then I totally forgot about it.

Unknown to me, that work was the debut work of Takeshi Obata, and was called Cyborg Jii-chan G. He had just started working for hit manga magazine Shounen Jump, and so talented was he that even some random 12 year-old knew he was the real deal. The editors at Shounen Jump clearly did too, and he was soon plucked from the ghetto of gag, and paired up with a number of writers in the hope that he can deliver a hit. It took him 9 years before he found it (with writer Yumi Hotta) – and that super-selling hit was Hikaru no Go.

 


 

Plot
Shindou Hikaru is an ordinary 6th grader scrabbling in his grandfather’s attic one day, when he comes across an old Go board. Hikaru doesn’t know (or care) about Go, but he noticed that this board had a blood-stain that no one else but him can see. The reason for that soon becomes clear – the Go board is haunted by a ghost named Sai, a highly-skilled Go player who committed suicide 1000 years ago. No one else can see Sai but Hikaru, and Sai has no desires other than to play Go, and now that he’s haunting Hikaru, badgers him non-stop to play Go on his behalf. With little choice in the matter, Hikaru gives in and agrees, and begins to frequent Go clubs so he can play on Sai’s behalf.

On his first trip, he meets a young Go prodigy named Touya Akira, who he develops a rivalry/friendship with. Eventually, Hikaru grows tired of being only Sai’s proxy, especially when he’s the only one in the room who can’t understand what’s happening on the Go board right infront of him. Immersed in a world full of people passionate about Go, Hikaru starts to take an interest in the game, and begins to play for himself. He’s terrible at first, but under Sai’s tutelage, comes to realise his own innate talent for the game, to the point where he decides to become a professional Go player. And so the story follows him, through his trials and tribulations, as he struggles to become a great Go player.

 

 
 

Why I Recommend this Story
Hikaru no Go means “Hikaru’s Go”, but is really the story of two people – Hikaru, and his arch-rival Touya Akira. Akira is a boy Hikaru’s age, a Go prodigy who appears in the first volume as Hikaru’s opponent. Sai plays him through Hikaru and soundly defeats him, something that has never happened to Akira before. Naturally, Akira thinks that Hikaru was the one who had so easily beaten him, and tries to initiate a re-match. This sets into motion something resembling a game of tag, fraught with obsession, strong character drama and suspense. For those who think Hikaru no Go is about the relationship between Hikaru and Sai, you probably missed the true heart of the story. While the relationship between Hikaru and Sai is characterised well, it pales in comparison to the passion Hikaru and Akira create in each other – for the game of Go.

Alright, you can read all kinds of homoerotic subtext in the above paragraph, but Go, like chess, is about a meeting of like-minds. You either ‘get’ the game or you don’t – and if you have a mind built for Go, you’re in a separate structural universe, speaking a different language. The people in this story converse with each other over a Go board, in ways that words can’t express. A Go game needs two people to play after all (preferably both living), and Hikaru and Akira’s “relationship” exists entirely within the world of Go. They have little in common outside their game, the same as most of the people who live in their world, so it’s a testament to the importance of Go in their lives, that these people form a community with a playing board at its centre. Go is the glue which binds them all together, and what this story excels at is showing what it’s like to live, work and breath in the narrow world of competitive Go-playing.

All this passion and single-minded devotion. Does this mean that it’s one of those dreaded… sports manga? People who read my recommendations section will probably know that I can’t stand sports manga – that special genre replete with cliches, grandiose speeches, and people silhouetted against the setting sun. Go is a game that is won by calculating the number of stones you take from your opponent, so the “matches” have a sporting quality to them, but like that great basketball manga Slamdunk, Hikaru no Go manages to gracefully sidestep all the pitfalls, and be about its characters. Yes, there is enough technical information in the manga about Go for you to grasp all the basic strategies and important rules. No, there’s not so much that you won’t understand it if you don’t care about Go. Like the very best sports manga, it’s a manga about people who happen to be into Go, as opposed to a manga about Go with people filling in as actors.

And it’s a story that is told in a subtle, realistic way, rather than bombastic and fantastical. Only Takeshi Obata can make people laying down Go stones seem like action-suspense, but Sai is the only supernatural element in the story. Like Genshiken, the characters may not seem realistic, but they have the feel of the real. They’re devoted to Go, but they also have to fill out tax applications, go to boring charity events, and deal with lost-in-translation issues with Go players from other countries. Top Go players sometimes go on a losing streak, have their confidence shaken, is plagued by bad luck, is hit by health issues, is followed around by journalists… all the sort of things you would expect with being a professional in an insular industry with its fans, hangers-on, schools, clubs, championships, governing bodies and celebrities. All of it drawn in great detail, probably based on real photographs.

 

All this activity is anchored by the game of “tag” between Hikaru and Akira, an undercurrent that runs through the entire series, and comes to a calm and satisfying conclusion that isn’t really a conclusion. But you wouldn’t expect there to be a conclusion in the traditional sense, would you? At the beginning of the story, both Hikaru and Akira are 12, and Akira mistakes Sai for Hikaru. A re-match ends up seeing Akira play Hikaru (without Sai’s help), and Akira is horrified and insulted at seeing how badly Hikaru played. Hikaru spends the rest of the series trying to raise his level up to Akira. The end of the series sees both Hikaru and Akira as 15 year-olds, with an equal level of skill, acknowledging each other as proper rivals, a dynamic that will probably last for the rest of their lives.

It’s just as well that the story ends here, at volume 23. It was popular, and could have easily continued, but it ended at the right place (a miracle, in manga terms). Everything that needs to be said about Hikaru and Akira, and the people that revolve around them, has been said, and said very well. Rarely has a story that is so encompassing about a world and its inhabitants been ended so perfectly.

Recommendation: Castlevania – Symphony of the Night

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This week I was going to recommend the manga Hikaru no Go, but then I had a change of heart. I’ve recommended a lot of manga (and a few books) in my “Recommendations”, but I now feel I should recommend things that aren’t necessarily book-related. It’s true I read a fair amount, but I also play video games and watch a lot of movies. There’s a number of works in the latter 2 categories that I would recommend without hesitation to anyone who’s interested, so why not include these in my recommendations list too? I guess HoG will have to wait a week or so.

 

I’ve recently revisited a game that I like very much, a game that’s been around long enough (in gaming years) to qualify as a “classic” game. Not a “retro” game by any stretch (that would require going back further than 20 years), but a game that’s been around 15 years, and yet still hold up reasonably well to a lot of its contemporaries. Not just those games in the same genre, but also those in the same series. Yes, this week I recommend Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

 

 

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Konami)
(1997, Playstation)

SOTN is the, oh, I dunno, tenth in a series of games in the Castlevania series, I’m guessing. Most of the older games have been straight-forward action-platformers, none of which I particularly liked, largely because I wasn’t good at any of them. Heck, as a kid, I couldn’t even get past the first stage of the original Castlevania. So when SOTN scaled back the otherwise murderous difficulty level of the earlier Castlevanias, I was pretty darn grateful.

 

sotn-poster

 


 

Plot
Castlevania is a series that’s been around almost as long as Super Mario Bros. has, and the plot has always been very simple. Every 100 years, Lord Dracula awakens and his demonic castle materialises out of nowhere, filled to the brim with monsters from every mythology ever. Before evil spreads across the land, someone has to stop the Lord of Darkness and put him to sleep for a while. Usually, this is the job of the Belmonts, a family of warriors who wield a vampire-vanquishing whip known as the “Vampire Killer”. However, in SOTN, you only get to play briefly as Richter Belmont, the current generation of vampire slayers (up until you beat the game anyway). You instead spend most of your time as Alucard, the damphir son of Dracula.

sotn-alucardAlucard has a beautiful character design. I feel compelled to mention that – so gorgeous and gothic are Ayami Kojima’s designs that an entire generation of fangirls descended on SOTN to sigh at the male characters. Anyway, Alucard gets involved when he hears that Richter Belmont has vanished, and that Castlevania has once again appeared – with no Belmont around to stop it. He decides to storm Castlevania himself, and find out what happened to Richter.

 

Why I Recommend this Game
I love Metroidvania games. “Metroidvania” is a term used to describe a rather uncommon category of games – games that play like a cross between 2D-action/platformers and RPGs (role-playing games). Mind you, the original “Metroidvania” game was the Metroid series, again a series as old as Mario. However, while Metroid was reasonably popular, for some reason everyone rushed out to clone Super Mario Bros., and nobody wanted to copy Metroid. Why? All the Metroid games were great games (at least the 2D ones were), but even the original Castlevania resembled the Mario games more than the Metroid games. SOTN was the first Castlevania game to copy the Metroid formula, and since it was so successful, all the subsequent 2D Castlevania games just followed in its wake. Which can only be a good thing. More games for me to play.

 

Part of the reason why I love Metroidvania games so much is the exploration element. Unlike a lot of people, I play games mostly to explore virtual worlds, and SOTN gives you the whole of Dracula’s castle to explore. The game was a lone 2D game in a sea of 3D games, and to make itself stand out, it pulled out all stops in the design and rendering department. Alucard is beautifully animated in fluid 2D, the likes of which I’ve not seen since. Each segment of the castle has its own theme and accompanying music, and it was simply lovely to backtrack your way through all the various spooky environments, meeting unique monsters along the way, and then killing them. There are loads of weapons, armour, items and familiars to collect; dozens of special powers and magic spells; an encyclopaedic array of monsters and bosses to destroy… and a massive map (with many hidden areas) to discover and traverse. For people who like to explore virtual environments, this is the best kind of gaming experience to have.

 

Interestingly, the biggest “problem” with this game is also the reason why I like it so much. SOTN is quite an easy game. Since it has an RPG leveling-up system where you increase your stats from gaining experience points, you can get really powerful, really fast. Combine that with some of the stronger weapons you collect, and the game becomes a total cakewalk only halfway through. Some people will complain about that, but any game that doesn’t get in the way of me doing my exploring gets a big thumbs up from, so curiously, I mark it up in this department. Besides, those who want a SOTN-style game and a decent challenge can look up the other games in the series.

 

Other Castlevania Games (in the same style)
Castlevania, like a lot of game series, has evolved into the 3D realm, but not with much success. I haven’t played the 3D games (nor do I want to), but at least the 2D SOTN clones are of a reliably good quality. I’ve listed all the ones I’ve played here, so if you’re a huge fan of exploration-action games, you can check these out:
 

Circle of the Moon: This game was made for the Gameboy Advance, and given the limitations of the GBA, it’s decent. You play as Nathan Graves, something of an honorary Belmont, so he is armed with a whip. The controls aren’t great, but then it was made cheaply to capitalise off SOTN on the handheld market. It did well enough that they decided to make more of them on the GBA.

 

harmonyofdespairHarmony of Dissonance: Also made for the GBA, but this is a little strange. Graphics-wise, it is far more intricate and detailed than Circle of the Moon, but the colours are scary-garish, especially the reds. You play as Justin Belmont, armed with his whip and a glaring red coat that will stab you in the eyes. Justin’s sprite is also strange-looking… with what appears to be an oversized head. Rumour has it that this was originally made for a console like the Playstation, but scaled back to a GBA release. Hence the weird graphics.
 

ariaofsorrowAria of Sorrow: This is the GBA game to play, and is definitely the best game out of the GBA Castlevanias. It goes back to the inventory system of SOTN, and you play as Soma Cruz, an exchange student in Japan. The game has a soul-collecting mechanic, which allows you to copy the attacks of your enemies, making for a lot of variety. It also drives completion-ist types crazy, as they go back and forth in Dracula’s castle, trying to collect all the souls to make 100%.
 

dawnofsorrowDawn of Sorrow: This is the first Castlevania game on the Nintendo DS, and it is exactly like Aria of Sorrow but with much better graphics and a few new additions. It’s an improvement in every way on AoS, except for the designs, which all of a sudden has gone anime-ish. It’s a small complaint (done to appeal to a younger market), but I miss Ayami Kojima’s designs (though by then, they were getting a tad old).
 

portraitofruinPortrait of Ruin: A solid follow-up on DoS, this DS game stars Jonathon Morris and Charlotte Aulin – two vampire slayers instead of the usual one. This game has some kind of buddy-system going, and due to the story having them go into portraits, a wide variety of terrains and areas are available. A welcome change from Dracula’s castle again, I guess. Unfortunately, I didn’t much enjoy this game, possibly because I wasn’t much taken in by the buddy system.
 

orderofecclesiaOrder of Ecclesia: This DS game is possibly the hardest game in the whole series – you play as Shanoa (a girl! Not since the ret-conned Sonia Belmont!), a member of a secret cult sworn to destroy Dracula. You go through a vast array of environments before you end up in Dracula’s castle, so it’s more varied and feels longer than the other Castlevania games. It also has a soul-absorbing magic system where you can absorb enemy powers, but also at the cost of collecting no actual weapons. All-in-all, I like this game, but I’m too ham-handed to play it at anywhere near its best.