A man who has never eaten curry plays a game all about curry. What could go wrong?
There aren’t many Mystery Dungeon games on Steam, a dungeon crawler genre I’m fond of. One game I happened to come across was “Sorcery Saga: Curse of the Great Curry God,” released during June 2018 on Steam, and originally for the PSP Vita in late 2013.
The game was developed by Idea Factory and Compile Heart, mostly known for their work on the Hyperdimension Neptunia games, alongside Zerodiv who have developed an assortment of games.
Curse of the Great Curry God is a spin-off of the Madō Monogatari franchise, which translates to Sorcery Saga in English, only the first game has a fan-translation to English available for any English speakers who wants to try out the series while understanding it.
Story (A-)
The story is about Pupuru who enters a dungeon trial after getting the highest score through blind guessing. Right off the bat, a very relatable protagonist.
At the end of the trial she runs into a creature known as Kuu with a book on curry recipes, who ate the item Pupuru needs to complete the trial. This leads to multiple misunderstandings, which Pupuru’s teacher expels her for.
When the expelled Pupuru goes to town and finds out a new curry restaurant is running her favourite curry shop out of business. The only way to save her favourite restaurant is to make the legendary curry, the recipe being in the book she found before.
The story is light-hearted and focuses more on comedy like Zerodiv’s Neptunia series, and it does the job fairly well. Most of the characters are hilarious that never overstay their welcome.
A few of the characters were annoying since I just didn’t find them funny. Kuu was the worst offender as he was rude while suffering no consequences for his behaviour. After awhile, my mind went kuu-kuu.
Comedy is subjective at the end of the day and it’s important to know that others will enjoy these characters while I don’t. It’s also important to know that this game has “anime humour,” which isn't for everyone.
Despite some comedy problems, the main story is still really enjoyable, mainly for its likable characters and storyline with the curry shop.
The world is also interesting, given there are multiple gods for curry of all things and even funny how curry is so important. It’s nothing spectacular, just adorably silly.
The initial ending of the game is anticlimactic and unsatisfying. Thankfully, there is a post-game with its own ending that gives a satisfying conclusion. I highly recommend doing the post-game.
Presentation (B)
“Sorcery Saga: Curse of the Great Curry God” uses 3D graphics for its dungeons, while it uses 2D art for its cutscenes, menus and hub navigation.
Dungeons are colourful and are memorable. Whether it’s the glacial outdoors or the Mysterious Curry Tower’s design.
It’s not the best-looking game on the PSP Vita though. While the areas are colourful, they're lacking due to minimal shading, lighting, and more. It all just feels... Flat.
The benefit to this is that Sorcery Saga doesn’t demand much, meaning lower end PCs can play it just fine on Steam without worrying about crashes and lag.
However, what it lacks in 3D it makes up for in 2D. The character portraits, cinematic graphics, and backgrounds look well-detailed, beautifully coloured and just pretty to look at. The game excels in the second dimension.
Characters also strike multiple poses and move their mouths to keep motion going on in the cutscenes, which is appreciated to keep cutscenes novel.
There are also chibi portraits for unlockable cutscenes when special items are found in the dungeons, which look both nice and adorable.
The character designs are great, being quite creative and nice looking, from Pupuru’s cute but fancy uniform with hints of her love for the stars to Kuu’s very cute looking but simple design.
Although, a few designs look as though the character’s breasts will break loose at any moment. Puni’s design is especially revealing and even uncomfortable since she’s a child. These designs can make it hard to get through certain parts of the game.
Unethical designs aside, props to the enemy designs. They’re the perfect mix of cute and creative, even in 3D.
The audio aspects work well too, although there are some hiccups.
The soundtrack is good. There are lots of songs that range from relaxing to intense, using a good number of genres from J-Rock to orchestral.
One can tell they’re in for a good ride when the second dungeon theme has what sounds like a final level theme.
There are some annoying tracks though, mainly Kuu’s and the monster house themes, as the vocals/lyrics just get on my nerves. Dungeon themes like Brave Power get reused on the early floors of dungeons and don't fit in certain dungeons.
The music also starts over every time another level is progressed due to the loading screen, which is a shame.
The voice acting is all in Japanese so it’s hard to judge, but all the voices work to make the characters distinct and all fit the characters well.
The sound effects themselves are good. Although, some of the voice clips enemies have when they’re killed are headache-inducing since the same voice clip plays every time the same type of enemy dies. Perhaps one day I’ll forget the noises dying tofu makes.
Finally, there’s the opening and credits, which both have wonderful visuals accompanied by catchy and beautiful sounding songs. The initial ending credits made me emotional, which I wasn’t expecting at all.
Gameplay (B+)
Sorcery Saga is a Mystery Dungeon game, where the player traverses dungeons to reach the top and face the boss, using weapons, shields, healing items, and so on to conquer the dungeons.
If Pupuru’s health reaches zero, all non-equipped items are lost. It’s risk vs. reward, which makes things intense but satisfying when conquering a dungeon.
Each floor is unique and randomly generated, with different floor layouts and pathways. This helps keep the adventure refreshing.
Dungeons are traversed from tile to tile. If an enemy is on a tile in front of Pupuru, they can be attacked, which takes up a turn, vice versa for the enemy.
However, the game is anything but slow as turns go by fast. Like all Mystery Dungeon games, this system works beautifully.
Each time Pupuru levels up in a dungeon, she can do more damage and gains more HP. However, Pupuru starts back at level one when going into each dungeon, so progress lies with her items and equipment. EXP is temporary, but weapons are… Well, sort of eternal.
Each dungeon is designed with this EXP system in mind and it works well without being frustrating as enemies are balanced.
Equipment can be leveled up to make them stronger and give them more effects, like attacking two tiles ahead.
Weapons change name overtime when reaching level thresholds. Each name change means a new slot for a new ability.
There are a total of five slots per weapon.
Leveling up weapons is very rewarding since the difference in power is very noticeable each time and leads to swifter defeats of enemies.
By Pupuru’s side is Kuu who can: attack enemies; level up by being fed items; gain randomized abilities, like detecting enemies on the mini map; and so on.
Kuu needs to be fed items to restore his slowly depleting HP, if he dies he can be revived by feeding him.
If he dies, Pupuru can’t progress. If he’s starving, he’ll attract enemies to Pupuru’s location.
Some items are bad to feed him, although the player can usually tell from their descriptions or how they affect them if they’re good to feed Kuu or not.
Curry can be cooked to give special effects for a limited time. To be fair, it wouldn’t be a game with curry in the title without a curry mechanic.
Whether the curry gives positive or negative effects depends on the quality of the ingredients and how well they mix.
It’s a fitting and neat feature for the game.
Pupuru is also capable of using magic spells in limited quantities to help her in dungeons whether it’s shooting a fireball, healing and more. Magic effectiveness is affected by her magic stat, which depends on her weapon.
Staffs are the best for this, although staves have an immovable attack stat. Even if the staff is upgraded, whacking enemies with the staff of choice will always yield the same damage output unless Pupuru herself levels up.
While staffs are best for magic use, a better strategy is to use a sword due to how sparse magic usage is.
Increasing magic damage is useful, but pales in comparison to increasing physical damage, which is used more frequently.
The late-game swords have high immoveable magic stats, making staffs obsolete. Weapons as a whole are poorly balanced.
The enemies all have their own unique traits, whether it’s moving twice as fast, piercing projectiles, stealing items and more. They’re simple but remind players to stay on their guard in a good way. Underestimating the enemy could mean game over.
However, this game isn’t all about intense dungeons, it can be quite comfy too thanks to the hub world where players equip spells, view missions (ex. Complete x dungeon 15 times), change into unlockable costumes, buy and sell items, view info on characters and more.
The amount of options in the hub world gives a cozy vibe. I have a soft spot for hub worlds/homes that feel satisfying to come back to after a long adventure.
That’s all the important parts and I like most of it. The comfy hub world, the mechanics, and so on are all nice and make the game both fun and rewarding. However, this game has some major downsides.
Kuu suffers both for his comedy and his integration into gameplay. Feeding Kuu can be tedious with throwing food at him over and over again, Kuu even attracts enemies when he is hungry. There is also no player input over Kuu, so he will attack enemies on his own even if he shouldn’t.
Worst of all, if there is a perfect loadout for Kuu, the game forces removal of one of the four abilities when a new ability is given to the player and some abilities give few benefits.
The game also lacks challenge. There are Restore Dungeons to find new supplies and even if a weapon is lost, it’s easy to upgrade another one. Some weapon abilities, like attacking three tiles ahead, are just overpowered.
Bosses are a joke, and not a good one. They only go down in a couple of hits sometimes.
In comparison to other Mystery Dungeons and Roguelikes, the difficulty can make the game boring in places, especially in the final and post-game dungeon where the challenge comes from their duration, not the easy enemies.
This also means mechanics like curry making or magic aren’t used that much because the player always has the edge. Which is a shame because they’re good mechanics.
Also, picking up items when standing over them and the consequences of lingering on a floor for too long aren't explained. Items can be purchased from the merchant, who can be found in dungeons to buy items, but it’s not explained how, which can result in accidentally stealing and dying from him.
Nitpick, the player can end up in the middle of monster houses, where a bunch of enemies are in one room, when entering a new floor with no chance of escape. That’s just poor game design. It’d be a bigger problem if the game wasn't so easy.
Overall (B)
“Sorcery Saga: Curse of the Great Curry God” is a flawed game. The story has hit or miss comedy, with both great and poor characters. The subpar 3D visuals are made for with its 2D visuals. The sound design is good but suffers from annoying lyrical songs. The game can oddly be relaxing due to its lack of difficulty but suffers a lack of challenge as a result.
Despite the game's flaws, I still like it and think it's a good and ironically cozy time. It’s definitely not for everyone, but it has its charm for those who love this sort of thing.
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