Written on 13/07/26

Summon Night: Twin Age

Suddenly remembered this game existed about 3 weeks ago and decided to check it out again after last playing it as a kid over 10 years ago. Back then I got stuck on one of the bosses early in the game and never got too far because of that, however I remember liking this game well enough despite that.
After completing it, I can say this game is pretty decent, just above average. It was good but didn't really leave a lasting impression and could've been better in some aspects.



The story is about these two fellas named Aldo and Reiha, who live on and island and eventually go leave cuz the spirits around them are giving bad jubies and causing bad stuff to happen. You meet other party members along the way and eventually reach the mainlain where the plot of the game truly gets going.

You can choose one of them to be the 'main' character when you start the game but I believe that only changes the perspective of choice making during cutscenes for the most part. The gameplay goes for a MMORPG style battle system using 3 party members at a time, with one of them being interchangeable with others but not playable for some reason. You move around interact with stuff using the touch screen. In battke skills are also used via the touch screen by tapping or drawing lines, which still manages to feel novel to for some reason, I quite like it.
Though the battle system isn't bad, it can get decently repetitive since all enemies are just regular guys to mowed down. Having mini-bosses like in xenoblade could've been really cool and would've added value to previous areas in the game that you don't really have a reason to revisit after clearing them. Some area bosses do respawn but I don't think they come back any stronger.

There's also a Skill tree for Aldo and Reiha which I think is neat, although after a certain point I just maxed out their cheapest skills which managed to maintain their usefulness even into the post game. I also think there's little reason to not play as Reiha given the nature of her skills compared to Aldo's. For example Aldo has a chain attack skill where you tap enemies and bounce from one to another. You can do this reasonably without an issue but the ai just does it better because it locks on instantly and won't mess up when enemies are crowded and stuff. Same applies to his trace a line slash skill which the ai does waaaaay faster once you upgrade it more.
Reiha on the other hand has skills that only really rely on tapping and drawing singular lines so there wouldn't be much of a difference in using her normally outside of the speed of mashing heal I guess. Aldo can also use different types of weapons but I stuck with swords because I didn't want to waste skill points.

The areas you explore are the most disappointing part of the game for me. The first few are good and fit the vibe of a small tropical island but everything that follows in the main continent feels really bland, no the mention the lack of any hubworld, towns or cities. Considering how it's built up to be the relatively more advanced and industrial country, all you see in the areas you explore there are, desert, swamp. forest, mountain and then interior of abandoned facility. It makes this part of the game, which is the majority of the game really just feel like levels in a video game rather than an actual place where people live.

The characters and story make up for the lack of interesting worldbuilding I suppose. I ended up liking those fellas more than I thought I would honestly. Favourites are Ticah, Ayn and Millisar. Ticah is just a pleasant fella that means well despite being suspicious early on. She's also my favourite 3rd party member to have around. Ayn is just nice and I like how she isn't nearly as timid and reserved as she looks. Lastly Millisar I like because of how him and Reiha interact. It's kinda cute watching those two bicker once he joins the crew and seeing him so shamelessly affectionate in his ending, after being a dickass earlier on, made me grin.

The actual story itself is pretty good and has elements from other summon night games but most importantly, summoners themselves and summon beasts. The unbalanced nature of the relationship between the them is brought into question along with the overall racism or perhaps ignorance(if I'm being generous) summoners show towards summon beasts as well as the Kascuza, the people of the island Reiha and Aldo live on.

I really like seeing this part of the summon night series as a whole being challenged considering other games in this franchise that I've played don't really go too deep into it, from what I remember. Summon beasts are effectively just nabbed from their world and brought to serve whoever summoned them, which in the best case scenario is a kind somewhat pure of heart jrpg protag.

Anyways, last thing to talk about is presentation and visually I think this game is good. I like the look of it and the character art is nice. They're drawn by the same guy who did the character designs for Riviera the promised land which is mildly funny to me because that game and the summon night game occupy very similar spaces in my memories as RPG's I played on the family computer and didn't finish until I was older.
I suppose I should bring up the areas in the game again regarding their presentation. Early portion of the game is good and the latter part falls off for me. It may be unfair to compare to the swordcraft games but I expected way better since those games, though particularly the first, have interesting settings conceptually and visually. Though tbh I really just mead SNSS 1, 2 is alright in this regard and 3 is what I thought Twin age would have been in it's latter half.

Finally there's the music which is alright but nothing really stood out to me the more I got into the game. Intro song is iconic to me since it's the one of the few things I vividly remembered before replaying it. All the music for the early is pretty good, though perhaps it is elevated by my nostalgia for it. I like the title screen music, world map theme and the song that plays during the end of day character support convos. All the chill tracks of the game are good but everything else is meh. Only track that really stands out to me is that one high energy area theme that plays earlier on, I like that one.

Anywho that's my thoughts on this game. I'd say for me it's a cozy game of sorts.
Nice characters, good gameplay to not bore me and good vibes.