Spectral Force, Spectral Souls, Blazing Souls, Generation of Chaos, etc.

This seems to be one of the most unknown long running rpg series outside of Japan. But something I've become interested in lately because of getting introduced to some of the characters and the story through Chaos Wars for PS2.

There are countless of titles released for various systems, but only few were released outside of Japan. One of them is a PS2 game ported to PSP, one that's about to be released for X360 (not sure if that one is also a port), and a fighting game for PS2. Those are the only ones I can think of that have been translated.

One reoccurring character in all these games, or a vast majority of them, is Hiro, who is also one of the first characters you get introduced to in Chaos Wars.





(Also Mue, who appears next to her.)
Her personality and background story (being the most well known character in the Spectral Souls universe, and apparently the daughter of the main villain demon, but a goodguy) got me interested to learn more about her and other characters. And Chaos Wars has a nice encyclopedia for various terminologies and profiles. So after learning about the characters there, I tried to dig up some more info on the games online. But you're lucky if you even get a Wikipedia page that has more than five lines.

Look at this for example: Click

And that's the one that was actually released in English. The lack of info doesn't exactly help the games settle in with the western audience. But I think it's a shame because it looks like an interesting series, with many interesting characters. And I'm looking into which games I can play, and if they have a good story translation guide. I'm hoping that Spectral Force 3 does well for X360. (Although I hear it isn't one of the better games in the series) And some Spectral Force/Souls characters are going to be in the next big crossover game called Cross Edge. With characters from Darkstalkers, Ar Tonelico, Disgaea, Mana Khemia and Spectral Souls for example.



Hopefully it gets translated to English, like Chaos Wars, and that the series becomes more recognized outside of Japan, so that more games in the series might get translated in the future.

Haven't played anything Spectral Force, but every single game in the Spectral Souls series has sucked hard balls.
I'm not trying to take a piss on your thread dude, because you're a cool guy, but wow, I can not stand Spectral Souls games, for any platform. And man, the PSP port that made it to America was just made worse with those laughable load times.

I heard about the loading times for the PSP game, which is why I was looking into playing the Jap version for PS2 with a possible story translation. But it's good to hear from someone who has actually played something from this series, whether it's positive or negative criticism. I don't have much of a clue how the games are, since I've never played any of them. The only thing I know of is some of the characters stories and personalities, and that's the part I liked.

Have you played any other game in the Spectral Souls series besides the PSP port? And if so, which ones? And did you play in Japanese?

I played the Shinseiki Whateveritwastitled Spectral Souls for PS2 -- the PS2 version of the one America got on PSP.
And yeah, in Japanese.

Don't get me wrong here, it was way better than the PSP version thanks to those rdiculous load times not being an issue. However, I just found everything still pretty bad. The story was interesting what with those different branches and all, but I didn't feel it really ran with its idea. Furthermore, everything was still kinda slowly plotted out. For example, they had you go into towns to do your stuff, right? Like a regular RPG instead of menu-based like most TRPGs. But here's the thing, there was absolutely no reason for it. There were no advantages or cool perks, just the wasted time of running around a bland, uninspired, #### environment.

I even sent this letter to Idea Factory about it.


Also, Spectral Souls suffers from a problem common in so many other crappy tactical RPGs: even easy enemies take entirely too long to kill. Players will have to fight enemies who are weak and have no chance in hell of defeating the player, yet have high amounts of HP and require some time to actually kill. It's dumb. My game time shouldn't be spent wasting hours killing enemies that have no hope of defeating me.

All this added up, and the generico J-cliches begin to be more grating than they would be in a game where other stuff is done right =/

I've only played Spectral Souls for the PSP. I'm currently in the middle of the game at the moment. The loading times can be a turn off to people and it's understandable. It would take a long time to finish the game. Along with the fact that adding equipment to the shop is a long and tedious process. All of these things are understandable reason to avoid and dislike Spectral Souls (II) for the PSP.

I just turn off the animation all together and the game moves along a decent pace. But, that could lead to a very boring gaming experience for people. I've turned off battle animations in a number of Strategy RPG titles, such as Disgaea, so playing without battle animation is not foreign to myself.

The basic concept of the game is nothing different from any other Strategy RPG. The only difference is you control three separate parties. It's like playing on three separate save files with different characters. Obviously, due to this fact, it takes quite a lot of time to complete the game, not taking the loading times into consideration. The game is split up to chapters and at the end of each chapter a Historic Moment appears. Choose one of the armies and go to Historic Moment. The choices you make in the game effect the ending and whether certain characters live or die, like Garnet from Rozess Army.

All in all, unless you're interested in the plot and characters, not just being amazed by the characters' appearances and personality, then try it out. The series is not that popular among the English viewers, so good luck finding a translated script for Spectral Souls I and II.

Also, all the games you mention are part of the Neverland setting.


I agree completely. I hate visiting towns in general in any type of RPG looking for ridiculous hidden items I won't find without guides. It worst going to plain looking towns. Each town only has three stores you can enter and that's it. Oh, there's one generic villager in each village, too. All these features should have been made available in your menu. This is more unbearable due to load times where the game will slow down while walking in town.

I agree with your second point to a degree, but since most RPG suffer this weaknesses, I won't hold against Spectral Souls II all that much. What I would hold against it is the game makes optional maps available while playing the game. The problem? The game setup where it's not exactly optional since you'll never acquire enough EP to upgrade weapons to level 5, then register, so you purchase the weapon in the store. Purchase the weapon again, upgrade it to level 5, then transform the weapon to next level tier. In short, that would cost a lot of EP. Leaving you with no choice, but to do the optional maps, which would make you that much stronger than the standard level for plot battles. Not to mention there's too many generic enemy battles while proceeding with the plot. If you fought more custom characters, it would be more of challenge, since a custom character can kill you with their special skills.