How is it?

[Kittens Are Awesome]

Like the title asks, how is Sorcery?

I noticed, not that many people have it yet. I thought more would have bought it since it seemed like a fairly anticipated release. Personally, I haven't bought it yet because I don't currently have any funds for new games since I'm preparing to move half way across the country.

Any input would be awesome.

[ShadowGandalf]

There's supposed to be a demo releasing today (EU Store). You could try that. I'll certainly try it. I'll tell you what I think later.

[Piggie_Pie]

I had this game pre-ordered at one point but canceled it because i knew i wouldn't play it right away (due to the fact that i already have a massive backlog).

I will most likely get it on a buy-2-get-1-free deal at gamestop or something... but i will for sure check out the demo... i think the demo was in the playstation store last night (NA).

[ShadowGandalf]

Well, I tried the demo... I can honestly say... IT WAS FANTASTIC. I wholly enjoyed it and can't wait to play the full version. The way you aim is great. Some games might have you hold a button to lock on then shoot by randomly flicking, but not Sorcery. In Sorcery you must flick in the direction you wish to shoot. Of course I knew it worked like that from trailers, but experiencing it really told me how good it actually was. You can even curve flick to bend your shots, you know, like in the film Wanted... except with magic instead of bullets.

Even little touches like drinking health potions. You shake the Move to shake the potion, then tip the Move as if your drinking from it. It's a pity the demo didn't include potion creation because it looks awesome in the trailers, but at least it's something to look forward to.

I will definitely buy this.

[Kittens Are Awesome]

Nice. I'm glad to hear it wasn't a disappointment. Medieval Moves was a big let down for me. I would try the demo out tonight if my PS3 hadn't gone and YLOD'ed on me yesterday. I figured I'd check out this thread for responses while I wait for the motherboard to cool down. That's right, I'm attempting the fix myself. I figured, since I repaired the laser last year, I could tackle the YLOD. *Fingers Crossed*

[ShadowGandalf]

Best of luck with that.

[mjc0961]

Extremely poor so far. You can't really aim at all. You're supposed to flick the controller in the direction you want to shoot, but usually the game ignores that in favor of some realy poor auto lock-on that you can't disable. This lock-on also comes with centering the camera on the particular enemy. This really causes problems when you want to try and focus on killing (and dodging attacks from) one enemy, and then suddenly it decides to focus on another enemy without giving you any input on the matter. Now the original enemy gets all its health back, you're in a bad position to dodge things due to the new camera angle, and no matter how you aim, your shots will go to this new enemy or off in the background rather than hitting anything. I actually find it laughable that this game even tries to tell you that you need to aim when it flat out ignores how you're aiming every single time you fire a shot. Getting your health back is a pain in the ass too. Instead of just using a potion, you have to dick around with shaking the potion and then tipping the remote upside down to make the guy drink it. This would be nice if there wasn't always a flock of enemies that constantly swarm you and knock you on your ass which cancels the entire health potion sequence. You just want to heal mid-combat but you can't because you can't simply use a health potion, you have to go through an overly-long sequence that gets interupted. Usually, you end up dying. Even if you try to use a potion when you aren't too low on health yet, you still end up dying because there's no way to break the cycle of enemies rushing you and interrupting your potion usage. Very poor form on that one, it makes me wonder if anyone playtested this game before it shipped.

Oh, and all you do to fight is flick your wrist. You flick OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER. I'm finding this to be even more annoying than early Wii games that just made you waggle instead of pressing a button (using the sword in Twilight Princess, spinning in Super Mario Galaxy, etc). At least in those games, you only have to lightly shake side to side. Sorcery requires you to flick your wrist and then keep on flicking to keep firing. And you HAVE to keep firing, because if you let the enemies rest for even a few seconds, they get all their health back. This game is a good purchase if you want to purposely inflict yourself with wrist pain and frustration, but I can't recommend it for anything else right now.

I only played it for about a day before I got annoyed and turned it off. I haven't gone back to it yet. I'm trying to decide if I want to try and finish at least one playthrough and then sell it, or just sell it right away while I can still get the most money back from it. The fact that I just got a new computer, that Batman: Arkham City GOTY is coming out next week, and that I don't like hurting my wrist on purpose are really pushing me towards just selling it right away without playing any more of it. Truly a wasted effort to really show what the PS Move can do for gaming. It's games like Sorcery that give Nintendo fanboys who want to say "PS Move is just a Wii Ripoff!" ammo to keep running their mouths because they don't properly utilize the potential of the controller. Sorcery could have been done on the Wii without Wii Motion + for crying out loud; this is not a game to mention when trying to champion the PS Move. We need games like Skyward Sword for Move that do things that Skyward Sword couldn't do because of the advantages PS Move has over WM+, not waggle-fests, or rather, flick-fests, like Sorcery.

[ShadowGandalf]

Sorry to hear you not enjoying it. I've currently played the demo 3 times and fully enjoyed it. Of course, everyone is different, you have your own opinion and I respect that. I'll still buy it and I know i'll enjoy it.

[mjc0961]

Good luck with that. Hope you enjoy the full game a hell of a lot more than I do.

I ended up deciding that since I couldn't ship it out until Tuesday due to the long holiday weekend, I'd keep playing it until then to give it a chance to come around. Instead, it's only made me dislike the game (perhaps even hate it) further. All the issues I mentioned above have persisted for me, but now I'm also getting sick of the bad checkpoint system sending me back through all kinds of stupid things I shouldn't have to redo. Why is there not a checkpoint before this lengthy combat sequence with two ice trolls? Why do I have to go all the way back to 5 minutes before that part where all I do is walk a lot? Just put me back at the fight please, making me redo some walking isn't serving any purpose other than causing frustration. There are plenty of other bad checkpoints as well, I just mention this one because it's where I got too pissed to keep playing and turned the game off yesterday. And this is of course compounded by the fact that most of the time I die, it's because of the terrible camera locking itself into a horrible angle and/or because of the stupid way you have to drink a potion. I had just barely made it out of another stun-lock series of attacks from enemies and started shaking up a health potion when I backed into a tornado that I couldn't see due to the very poor camera and died, and then it's back to the 5 minutes of hiking before the fight again. FFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

It would be nice if selecting spells wasn't cheap as well. In some games, it will auto-pause when you open up a quick-select style menu such as this. In some games, you can still move around while the menu is up. In Sorcery, neither applies. The game keeps going and you cannot move your character at all (which is INSANELY stupid as the joystick is not used for selecting anything, so why the hell shouldn't it still be used for letting me move around so I don't get hit repeatedly while trying to change spells?!). And some spells don't seem to want to activate. So far, ground is easy, ice is easy, fire is easy, but wind is a real pain to select as the game doesn't seem to register that movement of the controller as well as the other spells. So if you need wind in combat, you get stuck in place for seconds at a time trying to select this spell while enemies get free hits on you.

I'll keep trying today and tomorrow, and it if doesn't start behaving itself, it's getting listed for sale Monday night and I'm not playing it again (Batman Arkham City shipped yesterday, it will be here Tuesday, so if Sorcery doesn't stop sucking by then, screw it, it's Batman time). As for my recommendation on whether or not to buy Sorcery, obviously I cannot in good faith recommend this game to anyone right now. Play the Sorcery demo all you want, but I do not recommend that anyone spend any amount of money on this game. I just want to say again that I have had absolutely no fun whatsoever while playing this game. Not a single second of this has been enjoyable for me, it's just been feelings ranging from mild annoyance to extreme frustration and rage.

Edited May 27, 2012 by mjc0961

[Kittens Are Awesome]

Best of luck with that.

Yea, I did get the YLOD fixed the night I originally posted. Wasn't that hard. However, I figure since I didn't do a full re-balling, I will get YLOD in a matter of months anyways. Hopefully, it will last longer than that. Hell if I want to buy a slim model.

On Topic - Damn, MJC. Tell us how you really feel. It's good to get an opposing opinion on the game though. I wanted to hear from both sides of the fence here anyways to get a better assessment.

[mjc0961]

On Topic - Damn, MJC. Tell us how you really feel. It's good to get an opposing opinion on the game though. I wanted to hear from both sides of the fence here anyways to get a better assessment.

Hey, I hope it helps, even if you do end up buying and enjoying the game. All I can do is share my honest thoughts about this game, and for this title, they happen to be that I'm not enjoying it at all. Tons of issues, be it with the controls (where your mileage may vary as it always will with motion controls) or with simple game mechanics that shouldn't have these problems (like the camera or the checkpoints). For some people, they will just be a mild annoyance that don't stop them from having fun. For me, they're actively preventing me from enjoying the experience and I just want to take the game out of my PS3 and smash it.

I will say this though: it is nice to be able to express these issues and frustrations I'm having without some rabid fanboys of the game accuse me of being a troll or claim that I'm "playing it wrong" without even offering any tips on how I might try to "play it right", or giving completely useless tips like "try aiming" when I've already said that even if I take my time and "aim" in the same spot and flick the controller the same way every time, I can watch as my shots just go off in random directions regardless. You guys are pretty awesome.

[skidmarkgn]

Was it the Wii version of Okami that you hated mjc0961? I only played the PS2 version and I loved it, I'm assuming the Wii port got messed up somehow.

If you're comparing Sorcery to Okami in general then I might go check it out, if you're specifically referring to the Wii version though then I'll skip it.

[mjc0961]

Was it the Wii version of Okami that you hated mjc0961? I only played the PS2 version and I loved it, I'm assuming the Wii port got messed up somehow.

If you're comparing Sorcery to Okami in general then I might go check it out, if you're specifically referring to the Wii version though then I'll skip it.

Yes, I hated the Wii version of Okami. And I'm not comparing the gameplay styles (they are COMPLETELY different in that regard). I'm only comparing them in the sense that they both have utterly broken, unresponsive motion controls. And maybe then that's not even completely fair, because Okami's bigger problem ends up being that the game doesn't properly recognize the shapes you have to draw for the Celestial Brush powers (why is everything shaped like a circle, the game cannot tell them apart!!). You can fix the motion control problem by switching to the rosary weapon as soon as you find it, as it's the disc weapon that doesn't respond properly.

In fact, to avoid further confusion, I'm just going to remove that bit about Okami in my earlier post. Sorcery and Okami aren't even remotely similar in terms of gameplay at all, so I don't want people to see that and think "Oh well I liked Okami so I should get Sorcery since they're similar" like you sort of did (good thing you asked me to clarify though).

[Wozamil]

Good luck with that. Hope you enjoy the full game a hell of a lot more than I do.

I ended up deciding that since I couldn't ship it out until Tuesday due to the long holiday weekend, I'd keep playing it until then to give it a chance to come around. Instead, it's only made me dislike the game (perhaps even hate it) further. All the issues I mentioned above have persisted for me, but now I'm also getting sick of the bad checkpoint system sending me back through all kinds of stupid things I shouldn't have to redo. Why is there not a checkpoint before this lengthy combat sequence with two ice trolls? Why do I have to go all the way back to 5 minutes before that part where all I do is walk a lot? Just put me back at the fight please, making me redo some walking isn't serving any purpose other than causing frustration. There are plenty of other bad checkpoints as well, I just mention this one because it's where I got too pissed to keep playing and turned the game off yesterday. And this is of course compounded by the fact that most of the time I die, it's because of the terrible camera locking itself into a horrible angle and/or because of the stupid way you have to drink a potion. I had just barely made it out of another stun-lock series of attacks from enemies and started shaking up a health potion when I backed into a tornado that I couldn't see due to the very poor camera and died, and then it's back to the 5 minutes of hiking before the fight again. FFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

It would be nice if selecting spells wasn't cheap as well. In some games, it will auto-pause when you open up a quick-select style menu such as this. In some games, you can still move around while the menu is up. In Sorcery, neither applies. The game keeps going and you cannot move your character at all (which is INSANELY stupid as the joystick is not used for selecting anything, so why the hell shouldn't it still be used for letting me move around so I don't get hit repeatedly while trying to change spells?!). And some spells don't seem to want to activate. So far, ground is easy, ice is easy, fire is easy, but wind is a real pain to select as the game doesn't seem to register that movement of the controller as well as the other spells. So if you need wind in combat, you get stuck in place for seconds at a time trying to select this spell while enemies get free hits on you.

I'll keep trying today and tomorrow, and it if doesn't start behaving itself, it's getting listed for sale Monday night and I'm not playing it again (Batman Arkham City shipped yesterday, it will be here Tuesday, so if Sorcery doesn't stop sucking by then, screw it, it's Batman time). As for my recommendation on whether or not to buy Sorcery, obviously I cannot in good faith recommend this game to anyone right now. Play the Sorcery demo all you want, but I do not recommend that anyone spend any amount of money on this game. I just want to say again that I have had absolutely no fun whatsoever while playing this game. Not a single second of this has been enjoyable for me, it's just been feelings ranging from mild annoyance to extreme frustration and rage.

Honestly, I haven't experienced the issues you've been having. The aiming has been fine for me. It does initiate a little auto aiming if your flicking in the general area of an enemy, but I think if it didn't it would be extremely frustrating. As for activating the wind spell, I don't know why you're having an issue. I just raise the controller slightly above my head and do a circular counterclockwise motion and it works fine. I don't know about the health potion issue since I was going for the trophy that requires you not to use it at all. I do agree that sometimes the camera works against you, but it was only an occasional annoyance.

All in all, I really enjoyed the game. It was one of my most fun platinum trophies I have. The ability to combine spells was terrific. I loved throwing down a fire wall, conjuring up a wind tornado and firing bolts through it. It does some serious damage. And the lightning spell is truly devastating. There are a ton of crappy Move titles, but this one is leaps ahead of the rest.

[mjc0961]

Honestly, I haven't experienced the issues you've been having. The aiming has been fine for me. It does initiate a little auto aiming if your flicking in the general area of an enemy, but I think if it didn't it would be extremely frustrating.

If it didn't, I might actually be able to finish off the enemy I was trying to kill instead of having it point all my shots at another enemy and letting the enemy I was going after get all its health back. The current aiming is extremely frustrating, no auto-aim would be fantastic so I could actually pick the target I want.

As for activating the wind spell, I don't know why you're having an issue. I just raise the controller slightly above my head and do a circular counterclockwise motion and it works fine.

Like I said, your mileage may vary. It only got worse after getting the lightning spell though, as now nearly every time I finally get it to give me wind, it instantly switches me over to lightning before I can let go of the Move button. Ugh! How about taking out the completely useless earth spell (be honest, outside of the part of the tutorial that forced you to use it, did anyone actually use that spell? I sure didn't) and changing lightning to moving the controller down (you know, like a lightning bolt striking down from the sky) so that it doesn't confuse Wind and Lightning anymore.

I do agree that sometimes the camera works against you, but it was only an occasional annoyance.

Not for me. It was working against me more often than helping, especially when it backed me into a wall so I couldn't even see my damn character. And there was nothing occasional about it for me either. It was very frequent; the camera actually working properly was an occasional relief.

The ability to combine spells was terrific. I loved throwing down a fire wall, conjuring up a wind tornado and firing bolts through it. It does some serious damage.

Ah, so that's why you didn't have problems aiming: you weren't actually aiming to begin with. All you have to do is shoot the tornado and the game takes care of the rest. Way different than using the normal arcane, ice, and bolt spells like I was. The aiming for them is horrendous. Don't even get me started on those stupid "hit the things in order with the wind spell" puzzles either...

There are a ton of crappy Move titles, but this one is leaps ahead of the rest.

I can't disagree more with this. It feels like a Wii launch title. It earns a spot motion control wall of shame spot right next to Red Steel and Call of Duty 3 (also other games that just had really bad, unresponsive motion controls. Sorcery doesn't play like either of those games either). There are plenty of great Move games (either required or supported) I can recommend to people: Tumble. Killzone 3. echochrome 2. No More Heroes: Hero's Paradise (might be a Wii port, but still great fun if you don't have a Wii or never picked it up for Wii). LittleBigPlanet 2's Move Pack (but only if you already have Move and LBP2, otherwise it's far too short to make the purchase of a brand new Move worth it). But Sorcery? You will never find me counting this among the must-haves of the Move's library.

But hey, I just beat the game, and I have discovered the single positive thing I can say about this game: it's short. My suffering is over now!

Oh, there's a glitched trophy though. Without posting spoilers, I got killed by a certain someone that's supposed to give you one of the secret trophies for dying in that fight, and as everyone can plainly see by checking my profile, I didn't get that trophy. Thanks for adding salt to the wound, game.

UPDATE: After a staggering 4 more deaths at the hands of that character, it finally unlocks. Oh well, should be expected really. They didn't test the controls, camera, or checkpoints, so why should they test the trophies? Time to sell this poo now. I'm not going to repeat the mistake I made with inFamous of continuing to play a game I utterly despise just for some trophies. One platinum trophy that left me feeling empty inside is more than enough.

Edited May 28, 2012 by mjc0961

[Kittens Are Awesome]

QUOTE QUOTE QUOTE. That made my head spin.

@MJ - Yea, of course you should be able to state you opinion and experience about a game without being ridiculed. I believe most that frequent the forums on this site are pretty sound of mind. In fact, I know your issues with the motion controller not responding to your actions well.

For example: Sports Champions was a marvel at registering everything I did. Pretty much the whole game was flawless for me. However, when I attempted Medieval Moves, I had to stand so far back from my TV for it to register, I couldn't see what was going on. This happened mostly due to the balancing sequences. I'm a fairly large fellow. My wingspan, while fully extended, is too great for the eye to see what I'm doing at a fair distance. During the demo, it became so frustrating that I didn't even finnish it. I'm glad I tried the demo before I had decided to buy it.

I hope you didn't end up breaking your disk. I also hope that you didn't buy it at EB or Game Stop (both owned by the same co.). Humanity knows, you'll only get 10c on the $1, if that. You are better off Ebay-ing it or CraigsList-ing it.

brrt

[Wozamil]

How about taking out the completely useless earth spell (be honest, outside of the part of the tutorial that forced you to use it, did anyone actually use that spell? I sure didn't) and changing lightning to moving the controller down (you know, like a lightning bolt striking down from the sky) so that it doesn't confuse Wind and Lightning anymore.

I agree, the earth spell was worthless. That definitely should have been the lightning spell in that slot.

[ShadowGandalf]

Well, i got Sorcery and just finished my first run through. I loved it, as I knew I would. I never really had too much of the troubles described in this thread (guess i'm just awesome with the Move lol). Switching spells was effortless and only a few times did my movement get misinterpreted. The camera wasn't a bother unless I unknowingly backed myself into a wall, which wasn't often, and the only times i got a bit frustrated were with: fighting the Banshee, i couldn't aim up, but it turned out to be a calibration issue. It was easy once I sorted it, and fighting enemies that just bundled me, like the Sylphs or those 3 Nightmare Spiders a bit before the end. Other than that, hugely enjoyable. I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it mjc, but, like i said before, everyone is different.

Edited May 31, 2012 by ShadowGandalf

[Artemisthemp]

Looks like this may become my first Move game Platinum (Heavy Rain don't count)

[ShadowGandalf]

Mine too. Also not counting Heavy Rain because I plat'd that WAY before I ever got Move. I just need to run through again (which I do gladly) and get the trophies I missed.

[Paranoimia]

Just for the record... I've just completed the game for the 2nd time in 2 days, and I had no real issues with any of the controls. The camera very occasionally cause a problem, but it's not a major issue - I've had far worse.

This isn't a game I'd usually enjoy, but for some reason it really grabbed me when it was first revealed at E3 a couple of years back. I was a little put off by some of the reviews, but bought it anyway, and I'm glad I did. It's fun, and probably one of the best Move games around. It makes good use of the controller in a variety of ways, and is possibly the first title to fulfil some of the promise shown by those early tech demos. I've got a few trophies left to get, and I've thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Lady Lilith]

I was slightly interested way back when this was announced, but my interest waned a little bit as it got delayed. After reading this thread, I decided to take the plunge and order Sorcery.

[yellowwindow7]

Good luck with that. Hope you enjoy the full game a hell of a lot more than I do.

I ended up deciding that since I couldn't ship it out until Tuesday due to the long holiday weekend, I'd keep playing it until then to give it a chance to come around. Instead, it's only made me dislike the game (perhaps even hate it) further. All the issues I mentioned above have persisted for me, but now I'm also getting sick of the bad checkpoint system sending me back through all kinds of stupid things I shouldn't have to redo. Why is there not a checkpoint before this lengthy combat sequence with two ice trolls? Why do I have to go all the way back to 5 minutes before that part where all I do is walk a lot? Just put me back at the fight please, making me redo some walking isn't serving any purpose other than causing frustration. There are plenty of other bad checkpoints as well, I just mention this one because it's where I got too pissed to keep playing and turned the game off yesterday. And this is of course compounded by the fact that most of the time I die, it's because of the terrible camera locking itself into a horrible angle and/or because of the stupid way you have to drink a potion. I had just barely made it out of another stun-lock series of attacks from enemies and started shaking up a health potion when I backed into a tornado that I couldn't see due to the very poor camera and died, and then it's back to the 5 minutes of hiking before the fight again. FFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

It would be nice if selecting spells wasn't cheap as well. In some games, it will auto-pause when you open up a quick-select style menu such as this. In some games, you can still move around while the menu is up. In Sorcery, neither applies. The game keeps going and you cannot move your character at all (which is INSANELY stupid as the joystick is not used for selecting anything, so why the hell shouldn't it still be used for letting me move around so I don't get hit repeatedly while trying to change spells?!). And some spells don't seem to want to activate. So far, ground is easy, ice is easy, fire is easy, but wind is a real pain to select as the game doesn't seem to register that movement of the controller as well as the other spells. So if you need wind in combat, you get stuck in place for seconds at a time trying to select this spell while enemies get free hits on you.

I'll keep trying today and tomorrow, and it if doesn't start behaving itself, it's getting listed for sale Monday night and I'm not playing it again (Batman Arkham City shipped yesterday, it will be here Tuesday, so if Sorcery doesn't stop sucking by then, screw it, it's Batman time). As for my recommendation on whether or not to buy Sorcery, obviously I cannot in good faith recommend this game to anyone right now. Play the Sorcery demo all you want, but I do not recommend that anyone spend any amount of money on this game. I just want to say again that I have had absolutely no fun whatsoever while playing this game. Not a single second of this has been enjoyable for me, it's just been feelings ranging from mild annoyance to extreme frustration and rage.

 

i know that this is a two years old post but, i have this game and plat it already. i kinda agree on the checkpoint system and auto camera lock on thing but other than that none of the issues you mentioned is correct or happened to me, you can't actually get killed by tornado's in this game as it only knock you back, unless one of the enemies take advantage of it and hit you while you're on the floor. changing the spells is not really that clunky, to use ice you have to point the move at your TV and draw a circle anti-clock way as for the wind point the move up and draw a circle anti-clock way, plus the camera angle is stupid yes, but it never leave an enemy you're shooting until it dies.

 

maybe the game is not your cup of tea?

 

in my point i highly recommend this game to anyone have a move controller, though i say wait for one of those special PSN sales that Sony is doing from time to time and they may include Sorcery on them with a good discount, currently the game in the EU PSN store is $15 while on the US i think it's $10. reason i said this is because if you're not into trophies hunting the game have 0 replay value for you. once you beat it it will shows the ending / credit then back to the start screen.... no extra clothes no art gallery of some sort no new game plus nothing!

 

in return it have an easy platinum trophy, one playthrough is enough to get the platinum, if you know your way around the game.  

[HMS_Victor]

I know this is really late but if you have Move and a PS3, I recommend this game. This was the one that got me interested in Move back when they were talking about it at E3. I bought it a year after it came out but it was just on my shelf collecting dust because I had already been so disappointed by other Move games. I wish I'd played this sooner because it is actually quite good. There is no real replayability though and I'd recommend following the trophy guide and collectibles guide on playstationtrophies.org if you want to get the platinum done in one playthrough. It's a shame there weren't more games like this