Sudeki is an action RPG being made exclusively for Xbox by Microsoft Game Studios, or more specifically, Climax, based in the UK. You take on the role of Tal, a young swordsman and servant of the Bright Empire who must stop a plot by Kuria, the Kingdom of Darkness, to consume the world in darkness. As you progress through the game, other characters will join you in your adventure. There will be up to three allies with you at any point in the game.
The game plays in a third person view. While the game uses a lot of menus, all the action takes place in real time. Each character can perform many different blocks, attacks, spells, and lightning fast combos of up to six moves. You also have the choice of quick but weak attacks, and stronger but slower attacks. The game will be action packed, with you and your allies fighting dozens of enemies at a time. You can play as one character, while the other characters are controlled by AI. It is also possible to switch between playable characters during the battle using the black and white buttons on the controller. You will also be able to summon monsters to fight for you, with spectacular special effects.
You will fight against many different types of enemies, ranging from realistic creatures such as wolves and bears, mechanical enemies such as the "Mobile Battle Fortress" and Demons such as the many armed succubus. Players can gain levels by defeating these monsters, but also by making good decisions and completing quests. Characters have 6 main statistics - hit points, skill points, strength, wisdom, constitution, agility, and intelligence. These affect the damage of your attacks (strength), how much damage you can take (hit points), your resistance to magic (wisdom) and the power of your magic (intelligence) among other things. When you level up you can also add points to your abilities - resistance to different types of magic, or new skills. Depending on the choices you make in the game, some skills may or may not be available when you level up. On top of this, each character has his or her own set of exclusive skills and abilities. These could be healing, temporary statistics advantages, unique attacks, seeing concealed objects, lifting heavy objects or climbing rocks and walls.
All this will take place at a constant 60 frames per second, according the developers. As well as the constant frame rate, the game will feature high polygon models, and real time lighting, where shadows move as the sun moves across the sky. The games level will also be streamed and cached on the hard drive. What this means, is that there will be absolutely no loading times except for the one at the start. The game features "inverse / forward kinetics", which will allow for extremely advanced and authentic looking animations. The music is also dynamic. This isn't just about having a different set of music for combat, the music will change depending on the location and intensity of the combat as well.
Climax aims to target all players, from casual gamers to the ultra hardcore with Sudeki. The game's design philosophy is "easy to pick up, hard to master" - which means someone should learn the basics of the game within a few minutes of picking it up, but it will require many hours put into it if you want to learn all the spells and use all the weapons. The game will also feature a massive world, divided into three kingdoms. Whether massive means Morrowind size, we don't know, but it should still be big enough. Unfortunately Xbox Live support will not be included, since Climax is focusing on the single player element, but Climax has said they take the series in an online direction, so a sequel could already be in the works.
Sudeki is looking like an interesting hybrid of ideas from Japanese style and American style RPGs. Due for release later in 2003, it could satisfy Xbox owners in search of a good Japanese style RPG.
