Oh how the mighty have fallen...at one point Summoner looked to have some real potential with a solid story line and full screen anti-aliasing to boot. R.P.G fans couldn't wait to get this one from Volition, in the end though, what we got fell far below our expectations.

The story in Summoner is one of the best to come along in great long while. Every character has a deep history with lots of defining moments and each one deals with another member of the party in interesting and often conflicting ways. This complex social interaction should have been the basis for a great game but poor draw in, camera placement, texture glitches and a pathetic automap feature pull the game so far down that it never gets back up again.

The character design in the game is rather interesting at first if a little to low polygonal for some tastes. In time you begin to notice that NPC characters are repeated over and over again so that the sword smith in one town looks identical to the farmer in the next town. The architecture in places is breathtaking at times but most areas are quite barren or repetitive. The real problem with the game is the horrendous amount of draw in and while the developers attempted to hide this with matching backgrounds, their most common solution to the problem was to tilt the camera at an angle that would hide the horizon. Not only does this impede the players view it also makes the games sprawling environments feel really claustrophobic. I have difficulty excepting that PS2 couldn't handle a farther draw distance when games like Smugglers Run have a horizon that seems infinite.

The combat system has been touted as being both ground breaking and original, supposedly a combination of real time combat and strategy. How it really works is like this, you select the enemy you wish to attack and then wait for your chosen character to take a swing, a signal appears at the moment he/she is about to attack and you must decide what their next attack will be by pressing a direction on the digital pad as quickly as possible. If your timing is off your character will simply swing and then step back waiting to start the whole process over again. Your character swings automatically, you really only have control over what type of attack they will perform next. If your reflexes are poor your going to spend an awful lot of time simple hacking away at your enemy instead of parrying and dodging and slicing like a real swordsmen. You do have the ability to maneuver around your enemy which I suppose accounts in some small way for the strategy element of the game, but when ever you move to far away from an enemy you lose the lock you had on them forcing you to relock them whenever you accidently move too far out of range. It's an interesting concept that just isn't fully realized or well thought out.

Summoner does have it's moments, like puzzles that require players to split their party up and go on solo adventures to open gates, search for clues or even work cooperatively to solve a riddle. The game also has some nice equipment options as well. The player has the ability to summon (hence the name Summoner) creatures such as Imps and Minotaurs. Each summons is handle with style and beauty, similar in fashion to the Final Fantasy series. The spells are spectacular to look at and thankfully not as drawn out as some of Squares annoyingly long cinemas. Finally the music and voice acting are top notch and really help to alleviate some of the frustration of the poor camera work and draw in.

We have yet to see a truly awe inspiring R.P.G on PS2, but that's usually the case during a systems launch. Not to worry though, for a first attempt this isn't that bad and the boys at Volition weave a great story, have some terrific ideas and a wicked sense of humour (Check out the hilarious cinema when you cut the credits off). A little more time and polish and these guys could have something wondrous.