PEGBRJE: Soma Spirits: Rebalance and Germination
Balance and Plants.
Soma Spirits: Rebalance is an homage to classic RPGs made by torch60, the indie dev featured earlier that made Brave Hero Yuusha EX. Similarly, Soma Spirits began as a freeware title before being updated with additional content in 2017. As for the contents, players witness a world ripped in two following a great cataclysm, causing two realms to appear: the World of Joy and the World of Sorrow. Due to this, two guardians named Heart and Soul were created in order to maintain the balance of this new duality, and ensure that both sides keep the peace. Well, for as long as they can, anyway, but as we’ve seen before; complete duality never lasts forever.
As with their previous title, Soma Spirits: Rebalance plays to the strengths of oldschool JRPGs in a semi-open world environment where exploration and interaction are key. Players adventure as both Heart and Soul (Heart gets to be in front) as they search for what is causing so much calamity and uncertainty between their two realms, which involves the constant back and forth between both through static door portals. The World of Joy, under Heart, is so optimistically joyful that it feels almost plastic, in contrast to Soul’s World of Sorrow with its utterly soul-crushing ‘realism’ and pessimism. Traversal between the two is key to solving many of the exploration-based puzzles, as while the worlds are exact mirrors there are differences in some structures. A bridge in one world may not exist in the other, a wall may be built in on world, an enemy may be lurking in another, but the ‘structure’ of both remains the same. Since they are both linked, any action taken in one will effect the other, such as pulling a lever to create a bridge will create it in both. Even some large chests will only drop loot from one of the two worlds, so understanding the back and forth nature is imperative.
This duality also effects the combat, which allows for a very unique twist on the traditional JRPG turn-based combat system. As a tag team, both Heart and Soul have access to abilities the other doesn’t, but that is further developed by the worlds themselves. Depending on which world the player is in, there are limitations on what each of the two guardians can do. While residing in the world that they guard, they have access to their full arsenal of powers, utilizing their magical attacks at the cost of MP; the guardian from the other, however, does not for they are in the wrong world and cannot generate enough energy. What they can do is utilize the Support category, which augments attacks with different elements and heal. So if one is in the World of Joy, Heart can access their Magical abilities while Soul can use Support, while both cannot access the abilities that the other can (so no Support for Heart while in the World of Joy). This duality is what makes for such interesting combat, since both of them use different elements of magic to attack while being able to give the other said element if they are on support. Since enemies are relatively random, having to constantly be aware of how to approach different enemies while in both realms keeps the brain flowing helps to avoid hyper repetition.
Now of course, with such blatant emotional themes, the plot focuses primarily on how this rigid divide interacts with those that reside within the realms. While Heart and Soul appear to be two different people, they are quite ‘alone’ in this as all of the inhabitants have a foot in each World — they are the same individual in both worlds, but with completely different emotional weights. As stated above, the World of Joy is one of seemingly unending optimism and is where the emotionally optimistic ‘half’ of all reside, with the World of Sorrow taking their pessimism. Each world acts as an extremity, with Joy being so overbearing that it seems almost fake and Sorrow creating a world so ruthless and exploitive that it almost has more emotional turmoil than the other. Yet it’s only through the act of constantly switching between worlds that this is felt while Heart and Soul comment on the other’s side as they do. Heart’s constant happiness only wants to see good in everything and needs everyone to be happy, while Soul would prefer a pragmatic view rooted in ‘logic’ and harsh facts. When it comes to decision making, however, this leads to an impasse that both cannot fully comprehend, because they were not ‘created’ to — as seemingly created to embody that specific world’s viewpoint, when a problem arises that teeters outside of their comfort realm they both cannot come to a conclusion. That’s where the player comes in and does it for them, and not always through dialogue; sometimes it is simply through where the players are at the time. Since the worlds are both built on a specific emotional set, where a player defeats or discusses something with another plays a significant part in the decision making. If players defeat a boss or make a harsh decision in the World of Joy, that is the equivalent of ‘removing’ that aspect of their being and leaving only their World of Sorrow self. After all, the guardians are the only two that can successfully move between realms and are in constant awareness of themselves, so their actions against the citizens has massive consequences depending on their choices.
It’s this constant theme of understanding the back and forth that makes Soma Spirits so interesting to me, this constant desire for one emotion to rule over the other yet understanding that people simply cannot exist in that capacity. What might be best for the guardians to be as single entities does not work for all, even if the two worlds are relatively ‘cut and dry’ in their execution. Of course, how Soma ends up will be up to you, dear player, and with 5 endings there are tons to think about while doing so. The art direction remain on point as they had with Brave Hero Yuusha and the constant flipping of soundtracks depending on which world is super fun. With the upcoming Soma Union I look forward to seeing what torch60 does next, so if you like classic RPGs this might be exactly the experience worth trying out.
Germination is a bizarre puzzle platformer made by duo Sullivan Boyd (Dot Operator) and Caden Peterson (Ciirulean). Players are an astronaut that has fallen from space on to a tiny rock planet, when suddenly asteroids that look suspiciously like large seeds begin to rain down and… well, plant themselves; and they aren’t friendly.
As the astronaut, players need to survive against these terrifying plants, and the only tool in the arsenal is the double jump they come equip with. With this ability, players will be hopping on top of the plants to destroy them as they spawn and run around, with each consecutive bounce making the astronaut gain momentum. The more bounces the higher the score multiplier, but the more difficult it becomes to control the astronaut. The seeds themselves can also be bounced on to reach hilarious heights off the map, but they don’t actually remove them; rather it pushes the seed to the ground faster to make it plant and grow faster. Whether or not this is a good or bad thing is completely subjective, as some may want the plants to grow faster to have more things to consecutively bounce off of while some may see the seeds as pacing. Regardless, the bounces are the most important part, and the farther one goes the more deadly the plants become. There are Piranha-like plants, blooms that shoot projectiles upwards, and countless more that I didn’t get to see because I am bad at the game and couldn’t get far enough to see them.
The interesting part is the feature in which the points matter; the encyclopedia of plant biographies called the Nursery. Upon reaching a threshold of points that increases with every successful completion, a new plant entry is added to the Nursery. The picture above is just one of many, explaining what they are and what they do while also giving a record of the amount of times the astronaut has destroyed them and has died to them. It’s a cute little addition while also helping to flesh out the point system instead of it just being there for personal achievement reasons.
Germination doesn’t look like it, but there’s an actual campaign that involves players reaching the end indicated on the bar above to which a terrifying plant boss will arrive (I have to take the word of the developer, I couldn’t reach the end…). If on Steam there is an Endless Mode to test one’s mettle, which may be unlocked by beating the final boss on itch.io but I’m somewhat uncertain; granted for me, the campaign itself is the endless mode. Regardless, Germination takes an endless style of survival and turns it in to a bizarre platforming puzzle of planning where to bounce and how many bounces to do before the speed becomes too unpredictable. It can entertain for hours without players even getting that far depending on their skills and their ability to pick up the playstyle necessary to win. If you love endless-style arcade games with unique twists, give this one a try and see how it plants itself in your mind.
