Soul Nomad and the World Eaters

by Zekrom​

Soul Nomad and the World Eaters (known as Soul Cradle in Japan) is a SRPG made by Nippon Ichi Software and released in 2007 for the Playstation 2. You've probably never even heard of this game, or have only heard it mentioned through Disgaea DLC. But I don't care, I'm writing a review for it anyway.

Story and Characters:
The basic premise of the plot is that once upon a time, the Master of Death, Gig, came to the world with his 3 behemoths, the World Eaters, and laid waste to the land. However, before humanity was wiped out, Gig was defeated and sealed away by Layna, the daughter of the man who conquered the world decades ago. The World Eaters become dormant, and all is well.....for a time. Jump ahead 200 years and the World Eaters are beginning to awaken. The main character (whose name and gender you get to pick, default name is Revya) is forced to house Gig inside their body and is tasked with using his immense power to destroy the World Eaters and deal with the other problems of the world. And then things go from there.

Anyway, Soul Nomad's story and characters are a mixed bag. The majority of the characters are kind of uninteresting and somewhat underdeveloped, maybe even a little cliche, even with some of the optional conversations you can have with them. But there are a few good characters in the game, such as Gig and Revya. They carry the story really in my opinion, mainly because they have the most screen time, interaction, and character development. Gig is also just a terribly amusing character, and Yuri Lowenthal's voice acting for Gig is fucking fantastic if you ask me.



The story itself jumps between boring moments that occasionally feel like padding, and more interesting ones, usually during the parts that involve the World Eaters. There's also a lack of lore/world building. Not saying that the story is terrible or anything, but there's better ones out there. There is enough to keep you going though. The game constantly hints at some interesting things that happened in the past and about what's really going on. The end of the main story has multiple ending variations, depending on which character you built the strongest "relationship" with during the game. There's also a few other endings you can get to prematurely end the story for fun, as is typical with Nippon Ichi games. Speaking of Nippon Ichi, Soul Nomad also sports their wonderful brand of humor that you're familiar with if you've played some of their other titles. There's also a few characters from other Nippon Ichi games too, though all but one of them is entirely optional.

The best part of the story is (though admittedly it, or even just the story of Soul Nomad in general, is not something I expect everyone to like) the alternate storyline you unlock after completing one cycle. Not spoiling anything on that one though.

Gameplay:
Nippon Ichi's games tend to be some sort of SRPG, but each one plays fairly differently from each other, and Soul Nomad is no exception. Battles take place on a grid-based map and are menu based and turn based, although units can sometimes move more than once in a single turn. Battles are done with whole squads of characters (up to 9 in a squad/room), but on the map they're represented by the leader character. The actual battle animations are carried out on a separate scene, a little bit like in La Pucelle, if you've played that. Initially the only squad on the field is Revya's, but you can summon other squads onto the field in exchange for a little money. You are unable to revisit cleared maps for grinding purposes though.



Unfortunately, in typical for Nippon Ichi fashion, the game only gives you a quick run through of the bare basics of battle, rooms, etc and then leaves you on your own to figure out all the other important details you need to know. It makes things a bit of a pain in the ass for most of the main story really. The room system isn't very intuitive, but it does have its good points too. Generic characters can be bought in order to fill up your army (since you only get about a dozen or so story characters to use), and what's even better is that they can be bought at whatever level you want so long as it is less than or equal to Revya's current level. Leaders also get a boost to their stats from the other units in the room, and you can increase the boost that they give, effectively making it so that Revya is the only unit you have to power level in the game, saving you some time and grief. At first you'll have to budget yourself, but like with all Nippon Ichi games, you'll eventually have enough cash to pay off the US national debt so unit and summoning costs don't really matter.



The game also has "Room Inspections", which is basically Soul Nomad's version of Disgaea's Item World, where you dive into a room (they have names and special effects) and battle through floors of randomly generated maps to make the room better via things like increasing unit capacity, getting more out of equipped decor items, boosting a specific unit's move/attack range, etc. Fortunately, unlike in Disgaea, you do not need to go very deep in order to gain all the bonuses you need, nor do you need to spend hundreds of hours grinding for levels (though that partly has to do with the fact that the game's strongest enemy is only level 2000 and all non-HP stats cap at only 99,999 for some reason).

Also if you're looking for a game with strategic challenge, this is not the game for you. Kinda like with Fire Emblem Awakening, what is far more important to success is your level/stats and equipped decor items rather than clever thinking in most cases. Most battle maps are also kind of large, wide open spaces with little strategic merit. They're kinda dull-looking too. Not that you can just charge in and expect good results, unless you are absurdly over leveled.

Oh but the game has what is probably my favorite special attack of all time, Demon Blast:


That shit is fucking glorious

Graphics and Audio:
Soul Nomad's not visually amazing, but it's also a Nippon Ichi game from 2007 on now-outdated hardware. However, the sprites are pretty nice for the most part and are fairly well animated, and it does have an art style different than what I've seen in Disgaea, La Pucelle, and Phantom Brave.

Comparison I suppose:
Disgaea 2:

Soul Nomad:


One gripe I do have with the visual presentation though is the world map and towns. They're so lifeless. Towns are basically just a bunch of text menus with a background picture. The world map is little more than a bunch of lines connecting town icons on a dull looking backdrop. That's pretty unappealing.

The soundtrack though.....the Soul Nomad music is, like most of what Tenpei Sato (who does most of the musical composition for Nippon Ichi games) makes, really fucking good. Give it a listen and you'll see:

Desperado
The Last Supper
December Street

That's just a little taste for you.

Final Words:

Like I said in my previous review, I'm not gonna give a summary of the review (even though this is a bit long), and I ain't gonna give a number score. What I will say is that I personally love Soul Nomad, but I recognize that it is flawed and is not something that will appeal to everyone.

Anyway, feel free to comment, or ask questions, or like the post, or whatever it is you wanna do.