I first played Summoner (or The Summoner) at a friend’s house at the time of the PlayStation 2’s launch (yes, I’m old). I remember enjoying it but never got a copy for myself after that. So now, more than 20 years later, I finally finished it. Was it worth revisiting? Let’s find out.
Introduction
Summoner is an RPG developed by Volition and published by THQ. Tragically, Volition closed this year, after 30 years of existence, leaving behind a great legacy as the developers of Descent, Red Faction, Saints Row, and their respective franchises. They also developed The Punisher (2005), a fun and underrated game.
Summoner was released on the PS2 on October 26, 2000, and for Microsoft Windows on March 20, 2001. There was even a Mac OS release roughly a year later, on July 12, 2001. The game also had a sequel, Summoner 2, released on 2002. Since 2014 Nordic Games, the current franchise owners, made the game available on digital platforms, and that’s what we will be playing.
It’s incredible to think that Summoner was released in the same year as Final Fantasy 9, Vagrant Story, Diablo 2, The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, and Deus Ex. A bad year for most titles, if you ask me. The game was also a launch title for the PlayStation 2, one of the four RPGs available for the system at the time (the others were Eternal Ring, Evergrace, and Orphen).
Summoner received mostly favorable reviews, with the good scores ranging between 7s and 8s. Most low ratings came from critics of the console release, who complained about its technical issues, like excessive draw-in, pop-in, and long loading times between screen transitions.
The Narrative
In Summoner, we follow the tale of Joseph, the titular summoner, as he rises from backcountry peasant to savior of nations and hero of legends. He’s call to action happens when Medeva, his home kingdom, is invaded by Orenia, the expansionist neighbor empire governed by Murod, a powerful sorcerer who rules with an iron fist.
But before the game begins, a narrator unveils our main character’s tragic past. As a young lad, after acquiring a summoning ring, Joseph tried to save his hometown from raiders by invoking a powerful demon. Sadly, he was unable to control the creature, and it destroyed the place and killed most of its inhabitants.
Full of shame and regret, Joseph relocated to Masad, and made a vow to never use his powers again.
The game finally starts with Joseph hiding from Orenian soldiers, as they raid his new home town.
Fleeing for his life, the raid magnet arrives at Lenele, the Medevan capital. The city is in a commotion due to the Orenian invasion, with every person having their own opinions about the war, ranging from selfish, to patriotic, to downright pessimistic.
After sightseeing through the city, Joseph befriends the rogue Flece, who helps him infiltrate the royal palace and talk to his old mentor, Iago, now counselor of the king.
After a heartwarming reunion, he reveals that a prophecy tells that a summoner will end the reign of Murod. Desperate, he attacked Medeva to destroy anyone who opposes him.
Iago then sends Joseph and Flece on a quest to find the rings of summoning, ancient artifacts necessary to call upon summons. Jekhar, a warrior that blames Joseph for destroying their hometown, will unwillingly join the party.
The trio first arrive at the Iona monastery, a fascinating place where warrior monks train to understand sacred texts that cause madness (a lovecraftian trope). There you will find your last companion: Iago’s daughter, Rosalind, who’s a monk in training. She also unwillingly enters the party because she blames Joseph for having a deadbeat father.
With a full party, will Joseph be able to find all the summoning rings and fulfill his destiny? Is regicide the answer to all his problems? And above all, are there more sinister forces at work that will rise the stakes?
Summoner is a nice adventure but, unfortunately, I never felt invested in Joseph’s quest, neither on the destiny of the warring kingdoms. Probably because, while the story has some intriguing moments, it never strikes an emotional cord, neither it brings an interesting take on any kind of theme or subject, making it feel shallow.
Main and side characters also have their issues, lacking well-defined traits and not having a unique a personality, so you never feel attached to them. That also extends to your enemies. Besides Murod, who is your standard “king crazy with power”, and a couple of traitors, there is no enemy with a characterization besides being very strong, or hard to kill. That is unfortunate, as some of them had potential to be memorable.
However, there are some good bits of storytelling here and there, like the different reactions of the civilian population to the invasion, the state of Orenian immigrants, the Orenian bureaucrats who must put some order to the invaded regions, and the oni girl from the village of Wolong. There is also an underlying sense of humor in some places that I appreciate.
Although I didn’t care for the plot nor for the characters, I genuinely liked the mythology and the history from the world of Sokhos. Initially it seems inconsequential to the plot, just another flavored dialogue to give the world more substance, but it ends up nicely connecting to the main plot later on. You will visit ruins of a cursed city, enter the tomb of dead gods, fight ancient evils, help a ghost, and find other types of vestiges of a bygone era. It was this interesting lore that made me keep playing the game, as I felt compelled to discover more about its myths and history.
In the end, Summoner builds an intriguing world that never realizes its potential thanks to a story that, although with a good outline, it’s not well told, and characters that don’t inspire any feeling in the player.
Presentation
For the time and as a PlayStation 2 launch title, the game looked fine, maybe even impressive on the console. Unfortunately, like most games of this era, the graphics didn’t age well. But that’s expected. What’s a surprise is the game’s 1024x768 max resolution and 4:3 aspect ratio. This irked me. I felt as if I bought a physical copy of the game from the 2000s and installed it on a computer. A final proof of disregard to this game digital launch is that you can’t rebind the keyboard keys. That’s just terrible. The screenshot below shows what I got after launching the game for the first time:
But not all hope is lost. There is a great guide on the Steam forums on how to get a decent resolution and an incredible mod for upscaled textures. As far as I know, you can also use nGlide to increase the resolution, but I don’t know how it fares with the new textures.
As for the graphics, they have a 2000s feel, when 3D games started to look less like moving polygons. Naturally, thanks to the low resolution and 4:3 ratio, everything looks terrible. But if you take some time to mod the game, it actually looks fine.
The game has a nice art direction, with interesting monsters to kill and areas to visit. The artists did an excellent job depicting how the two empires have distinct cultures, with Medeva being inspired by European Middle Ages, while Orenia leans more on ancient China imagery. A wonderful highlight is the temple of Urath in Lenele. It’s worth a visit only to listen to the priest tell you the theogony of Sokhos with the help of the temple’s stained glasses.
Every area is big, inviting the player to explore and sightsee. It makes you feel inside the sprawl of the kingdom’s capital, or to see the openness of a rural village, or even to marvel at the underground city of the dwarves. Even subterranean caves and tunnels aren’t claustrophobic, since they are wide enough to fit your entire party and some enemies.
Character models are a tad ugly, with a weird appearance. Probably at the time they already had an uncanny aspect, but it only got worse as time passed.
Most dialogues aren’t voiced, as it wasn’t a common practice at the time. That’s not a problem for me, but some people may not be used to that.
The soundtrack is very good, and I can see myself listening to most of its tracks outside the game. The only one I disliked is the combat theme, as I felt it was too modern and couldn’t capture the “epic feel” some fights should have.
The game’s composer, Scott Lee, remastered the soundtrack in 2019. You can look the details to acquire it at the composer’s YouTube channel. As this is the internet, someone made a mod to use the new tracks on the game, and it’s worth checking out, but you need to search for it a bit thanks to its content.
Mechanics
The game plays as a traditional CRPG, so you use the mouse to move your characters, access menus, special attacks and spells, with a few hotkeys to quickly access menus. Initially I didn’t see a problem with this control scheme, but in a 3D environment, unlike on 2D or 2.5D ones, it quickly became tiresome to click everywhere to move, as the game combines big open spaces with a short draw distance. I would be happy if you could also move your party with the keyboard, but it wasn’t meant to be.
Like any RPG, your characters have a few stats that will increase as they level up. Levelling up also grants you skill points, necessary to gain new spells and to use better weapons and armor. Some characters also have non combat skills that can be handy, like Flece’s appraisal and lockpicking abilities.
The game has a world map that may fool you into thinking you can freely explore, but actually it’s very linear. Most locations won’t appear on your map unless you have some business there. It means that sometimes you can’t backtrack, because the last area you visited disappeared from the map. It also means that most times you can’t just leave the main quest to chase an earring until the ends of the world, since the place you need to go didn’t pop up on the world map yet.
While traversing the world map, you will become a victim of random encounters. Most are inconsequential and won’t benefit you in any way, besides levelling up. But some are related to side quests, and as expected, these can be really annoying to trigger.
The game had a multiplayer mode, but I didn’t mess with it.
Battle System
As the game’s manual states, Summoner uses a hybrid of real-time and turn-based combat systems. To clarify, you and your enemies will take turns to attack, but you can actively move your character, select new targets, extend your turns through chain attacks, or use skills, spells (there are lots of spells!), or items. Skills and spells consume AP, or ability points.
Your selected character will automatically use their equipped weapon to attack, while your other characters, will be controlled by the game’s AI, accordingly to a “script” (melee, support, range, healer, caster). It works surprisingly well, as the AI is pretty decent in fights and is efficient in following your lead when moving across the game’s most tortuous paths.
Another nice feature is that you’re not restricted to Joseph, as it’s possible to use swap between your party members at any moment. So if you ever need to give someone specific instructions, or if you just prefer to use someone else to stroll, just swap them.
As mentioned before, melee attacks can be chained into longer sequences, similarly to The Witcher. To do it, as your character attacks you must press a specific key (Alt, Caps, Shift, or Ctrl) or the mouse button at a specific time. They are very useful since the enemy you’re fighting can’t attack while you’re on a chain, and some attacks have special effects, like tripping the opponent, stealing life and AP, or healing. Chains have no limit, but you can’t use the same attack twice in a row.
Unfortunately, none of this translates to a fun experience. Combat is slow if you don’t use skills or spells, as enemies can take a lot of damage. Chaining also felt tedious, as you only wait for a visual cue to press a button. There is no skill nor strategy involved on the processes. Finally, I never felt challenged, as the enemies AI isn’t as bright as that of your companions. Often they resort to attack the nearest party member, without any type of strategy. Even bosses won’t cause problems, as they are just common enemies with more HP and stronger attacks.
Summoning
As a summoner, Joseph can invoke magical creatures to fight at his side. As you acquire your first summoning ring you will have two or three, but this will increase as the story progresses and you acquire more rings. Some are cool, some are disappointing, some are too slow to be a viable ally, and some are more useful than others.
When Joseph summons a creature, there are some nice little touches, like the golem who starts as molten rock and slowly gains the color of normal rock as if cooling down, the minotaur whose scimitar comes from a different portal, the blood pool from the blood elemental, and so on.
After invoking a magical creature, their HP and AP will be deducted from Joseph’s HP, and he can only recover it after the monster either dies or is dismissed. Another interesting fact is that if Joseph is killed while there is an active summon, it will turn against you and attack your remaining characters, even if he’s immediately resurrected.
For a game called Summoner, you would assume that the summoning mechanic would play an important role in the game or be very robust. In reality, a summon works just like another party member, and you can control them like one of your characters. It’s underwhelming to say the least.
By the end game, I stopped caring for this mechanic. Sometimes I forgot to use it to make my party bigger and sturdier, as I felt it was unnecessary.
Final Thoughts
I had some trouble finishing this review because, while I don’t think Summoner is a terrible game, I found a lot to complain about it. I liked the story, but I don’t think it’s well told. I loved the lore, and I would like to see more stories on this setting, but I felt nothing for the characters. I hated combat, but not enough to stop playing, as it was bearable in small doses.
I don’t know why I put up with the game until the end, maybe because I have a pathological need to finish what I started, or maybe because I saw a lot of potential here, unfortunately it never lived up to it. It plants many good seeds for a sequel to reap. Did the sequel do it? We will only discover if I ever review it.
Final opinion: Passable, not a bad game, but you can find better titles from that time frame for your PC and PlayStation 2 .