Soma Bringer

Soma Bringer is an action role-playing game where players control members of a military unit dubbed Pharzuph Division 7 and explore three-dimensional environments from a top-down perspective, while the overhead camera can be zoomed in and out. Seven characters are available at the start of the game, with an eighth being unlocked later on. The game uses two modes of play. In single-player, the player controls the party leader while two assigned companions are controlled using the game's artificial intelligence. In addition to the single-player mode, the game features cooperative (co-op) multiplayer, which is activated through wireless connection and allows up to three players to freely explore environments and dungeons.

Battles take place in real-time within overworld environments and dungeons. Using a style similar to hack and slash, the three characters attack targeted enemies in the field. Abilities, including standard attacks and special moves related to a character, are mapped to the Nintendo DS's face buttons. Attacks can be chained together into combinations for higher damage.

Soma Bringer is set on the continent of Barnea, which is part of a world where the energy of everyday life is drawn from Soma, a mystical power that fills the atmosphere and forms the so-called "Soma Ring" around the planet. Through a special conversion process, it is used for everything from ordinary appliances to advanced weaponry. At some point prior to the game's opening, mysterious monsters called Visitors began appearing, which took the form of corrupted animal and plant life and began attacking human settlements. To combat the Visitors, the controlling organization in charge of regulating Soma usage - Secundady - created a dedicated military force called the Pharzuph.

The main narrative follows new and veteran members of Pharzuph Division 7, who set out to investigate and combat a recent spate of Visitor attacks. During the mission, the group encounter Idea, an amnesiac girl with latent and highly attuned Soma-related abilities who is assigned to Pharzuph Division 7 by their leader Master Laban. During their continued missions against Visitors, Pharzuph Division 7 are confronted by the Unbras, a group with similar powers to Idea and whose leader Adonis seeks Master Cages, Soma-condensing devices connected to the origins of Soma technology.

Soma Bringer was the brainchild of Tetsuya Takahashi, one of the co-founders of developer Monolith Soft. It was the first time Monolith Soft had full development responsibilities for a game on a portable platform. The game took approximately two years to develop: Takahashi's aim was to create an in-depth introductory role-playing experience for the DS. The DS was chosen as the game's platform so people could both enjoy the game and play it for short bursts on the go.

The story was written by Takahashi's wife Soraya Saga, whose previous work included Final Fantasy VI (1994), Xenogears (1998), and the Xenosaga series. Due to the goal of creating a fun co-op gameplay experience, Saga deliberately kept the story "simple and clear not to interrupt the fun of playing". The narrative was based around the titular energy "Soma", which was a key part of everyday life, with the Soma Ring encircling the planet forming a key part of the story. Also among the staff were director Shingo Kawabata, art director Tonny Waiman Koo, and character designer Tadahiro Usuda.

Soma Bringer entered the Japanese sales charts at #4 with sales of 50,844 units, with an estimated sell-through rate of just over 68%. The limited edition was the best-selling DS title during its opening week on Amazon Japan. By the following week, the game had dropped to #7 with further sales of 17,000 units. By the end of 2008, the game had sold 107,127 units.

Famitsu gave the game a positive review: while one reviewer noted that the story and gameplay offered little originality, all reviewers positively noted the amount of depth and customization next to the ease of play. GamesRadar compared Soma Bringer to Square Enix's Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, except noting that the gameplay systems and customization options were deeper. The reviewer called it "pretty good", but noted that it was not import friendly due to the large amount of text. Mike Moehnke of RPGamer was generally positive about the game, praising the character customization, general gameplay, ease of entry, and Mitsuda's music. Like the GamesRadar reviewer, Moehnke noted the heavy amount of text making understanding Japanese a necessity for understanding the story, despite calling it a "fairly easy import" as the story was not the game's main focus.