Saint Seiya: The Sanctuary - Retrospective Review

Saint Seiya or Knights of the Zodiac is a manga/anime series that easily translates itself into a fighting game, as it revolves around warriors squaring off, infused with Greek mythology. Much like Dragonball, the story is the foundation of the honorable battles these knights have to go through and therefore there is a lot of it. Saint Seiya: The Sanctuary does tribute to the Golden Knights story arc, but that comes at the price of a minimal experience. It’s great to experience, but there is little to experience in itself.

Everything is done to focus players on the story this game has to offer. The main Story mode starts with a prolonged introduction of characters, setting and so on, which gets complemented with lengthy cutscenes each stage. In reality, this is the breadth of the game’s appeal, as it unfolds more as a visual novel with short, minute-long spurts of gameplay spliced in. Luckily, it does a good job at creating a compelling plot to stay connected to, which makes good use of the source material. Fans of the series will truly enjoy how the game tries to recap one of its most powerful arcs and newcomers can get enticed to joining the franchise; it’s win win on both fronts.

Unfortunately, everything else takes a back seat to this. The stages, represented mostly by the houses of constellations that the series borrows its mythos from, are minimalistic and grey. Even if the cel-shading and overall polish of the game makes for a slick presentation, complete with added flash and power move cutscenes, the end result is a rather empty or monotone display.

Mash for supremacy!

Combat takes the same road towards simplicity, having only 2 discernible aspects; one being the basic button mash combo and the other being special attacks fueled by cosmos. The prior uses one button for kick and the other for punch. These can also be strung together in basic combos. The cosmos moves are fueled by charging the bar below and connecting with the opponent. Naturally, these moves take out a lot more off the health bar, but apart from having 3 levels, it’s just a bonus. It is however possible to counter such a move to the player’s advantage, by timing a counterattack and succeeding a mash assault. This mash attack can also be used when downed by an opponent to get back into the battle.

There are some redeeming qualities to the game though, beyond the great story. For one, the precision and timing required with connecting and blocking is fairly balanced and adds tactics to the simple button mash. Secondly, a rank system after each stage can unlock bonus missions, more characters and other incentives for the free modes of the game. It’s only a question how much more longevity or replay value this offers, but the bonus missions are a change of pace, presenting fights with troops of grunts against a timer.

On the other hand, the game also has one noticeable error beyond the lack of interactive content. The last battle in Story mode for all the marbles has an otherworldly spike in difficulty, which the game never prepares for. For anyone looking to complete the story, this will be enraging, as the final boss gets a huge advantage and ends the fight easily with cosmos moves.

Saint Seiya: The Sanctuary is fan food. It’s not a bad title, but its empty and simplistic display make it nothing more than compelling story and that only goes so far. Luckily, the developers made sure to use the franchise’s source material well and present it on screen with skill, but the game portion of it offers little beyond basics.

Screenshots

Daav Valentaten, NoobFeed. (@Daavpuke)