I love ACE Team, and I wish I could recommend this game, but no developer can nail it every time. If you were a fan of ActRaiser on the SNES growing up, this is basically a spiritual sequel, but it doesn't quite have the same oomph. Overall Sol Seraph is just "okay" whereas ActRaiser is a classic. I'd only really recommend this game if you want to support ACE Team for the other great work they've done.

There are moments of good game design here, but it feels incomplete, and it needed some more play testing. It's not buggy, but there are small things that just feel off.

Sol Seraph is a tower defense game where "boss fights" (located in hubs on the strategic map) are fought in a 2D platformer adventure game. These 2D platformer segments feel very undercooked. For example:

• Some enemies can approach from the background or foreground. The distance before you can hit them is poorly telegraphed, leading to some unnecessary damage that adds up.
  
• The attack animations have a sort of wind-down portion, where you can't really cancel out of them easily. This can lead to you sort of standing there and taking damage.
  
• The jump height feels just a smidgen too short. Many of the platforms you need to double jump up to are at nearly exactly the max height.

This is especially disappointing because it feels like they had, just a few years prior to this, made a pretty decent action platformer called Abyss Odyssey which would have been a good foundation for the platformer levels.

The tower defense segments are a bit better, but there are still issues. For example:

• The order that you should complete worlds in is not indicated clearly. This can lead to you trying to tackle a more difficult world too early.
  
• The "seals" where enemies spawn from don't deactivate after cleansing them. I'm not sure if this is a bug, or intended, but it seems like a bug to me.
  
• The screenshots show somewhat extensive looking settlements, but many of the chapters are more of a balancing act where you need to sort of spread yourself thin based on the available wood.
  
• The circles surrounding some of the utility buildings such as forges or watchtowers don't really accurately represent which buildings they will power up. So, you sort of just have to build them to see. When a tower or barracks is enhanced, it will have a sort of "halo" indicating such. But often I found that buildings that were even within the circle would not get enhanced unless they were, say, 60% within the circle. Something in the square directly diagonal to a forge might not be affected even if the corner of the building is touching the forge/watchtower/etc.
  
• The amount of resources you have or need is a bit... unclear? You have Wood, Souls, Food, and Population as resources. Only wood and souls are intuitive as they decrease as you spend them. Population only indicates your current max, and doesn't indicate how many people you need to run your settlement, or how many people are currently idle. Food doesn't really make sense mechanically in my opinion. Unfortunately wood is also not renewable, so completing a level is really just about how efficiently you use wood, and how fast you collect souls.

The art, music and graphics are all fine. It's not as weird as some of ACE Teams' other games, which in my opinion is a weakness. ACE Team has always had a fantastic eye for bizarre-yet-cohesive designs and soundscapes, so it's a bit disappointing this doesn't fit into that. Like I mentioned in the intro, I'd only recommend this game if you want to support ACE Team for the other games they've made, and honestly I'm okay with kicking $20 CAD their way to support them.

I love ACE Team, and I wish I could recommend this game, but no developer can nail it every time. If you were a fan of ActRaiser on the SNES growing up, this is basically a spiritual sequel, but it doesn't quite have the same oomph. Overall Sol Seraph is just "okay" whereas ActRaiser is a classic. I'd only really recommend this game if you want to support ACE Team for the other great work they've done. There are moments of good game design here, but it feels incomplete, and it needed some more play testing. It's not buggy, but there are small things that just feel off. Sol Seraph is a tower defense game where "boss fights" (located in hubs on the strategic map) are fought in a 2D platformer adventure game. These 2D platformer segments feel very undercooked. For example: [list] [*]Some enemies can approach from the background or foreground. The distance before you can hit them is poorly telegraphed, leading to some unnecessary damage that adds up. [*]The attack animations have a sort of wind-down portion, where you can't really cancel out of them easily. This can lead to you sort of standing there and taking damage. [*]The jump height feels just a smidgen too short. Many of the platforms you need to double jump up to are at nearly exactly the max height. [/list] This is especially disappointing because it feels like they had, just a few years prior to this, made a pretty decent action platformer called Abyss Odyssey which would have been a good foundation for the platformer levels. The tower defense segments are a bit better, but there are still issues. For example: [list] [*]The order that you should complete worlds in is not indicated clearly. This can lead to you trying to tackle a more difficult world too early. [*]The "seals" where enemies spawn from don't deactivate after cleansing them. I'm not sure if this is a bug, or intended, but it seems like a bug to me. [*]The screenshots show somewhat extensive looking settlements, but many of the chapters are more of a balancing act where you need to sort of spread yourself thin based on the available wood. [*]The circles surrounding some of the utility buildings such as forges or watchtowers don't really accurately represent which buildings they will power up. So, you sort of just have to build them to see. When a tower or barracks is enhanced, it will have a sort of "halo" indicating such. But often I found that buildings that were even within the circle would not get enhanced unless they were, say, 60% within the circle. Something in the square directly diagonal to a forge might not be affected even if the corner of the building is [i]touching[/i] the forge/watchtower/etc. [*]The amount of resources you have or need is a bit... unclear? You have Wood, Souls, Food, and Population as resources. Only wood and souls are intuitive as they decrease as you spend them. Population only indicates your current max, and doesn't indicate how many people you [i]need[/i] to run your settlement, or how many people are currently idle. Food doesn't really make sense mechanically in my opinion. Unfortunately wood is also not renewable, so completing a level is really just about how efficiently you use wood, and how fast you collect souls. [/list] The art, music and graphics are all fine. It's not as weird as some of ACE Teams' other games, which in my opinion is a weakness. ACE Team has always had a fantastic eye for bizarre-yet-cohesive designs and soundscapes, so it's a bit disappointing this doesn't fit into that. Like I mentioned in the intro, I'd only recommend this game if you want to support ACE Team for the other games they've made, and honestly I'm okay with kicking $20 CAD their way to support them.