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Atlus can't miss with RPGs; the platform is immaterial. The GBA is an RPG machine. Chances are, an Atlus RPG on the GBA is a can't miss title. Summon Night does nothing to disprove that assertion. Great graphics for the handheld and an engaging Tales-like battle system make for an excellent game.

Summon Night lets you begin the game by choosing either a male or female character. After getting the lowdown on the crafting tournament and a little bit about your place in history, you are asked a series of questions that will get net you one of four summoned creatures. My female lead and fairy-like summon got along splendidly, almost too well in fact. The dialog between them is great and the lesbian innuendo is classically fun.

There are two distinct parts to the gameplay, crafting and dungeon crawling. The two events feed each other like a symbiotic relationship. You must wade through the dungeon to find materials for crafting, and you must build better weapons to get deeper into the dungeon. This gives the game a little bit of that MMO addiction, farming for resources to make the best weapons in the game.

Patterns for your weapons can be found, bought, or given to you. After you have a pattern, it's off the dungeon to find the parts. Monsters drop bulk of the items you'll need. You can break down weapons for parts as well, and there will occasionally be a good sale on what you need at the store. Combine the items back in town, and the new weapon is yours. They come in many different categories with the expected, different attribute types, like big/slow and small/fast. Weapons can only be used a certain number of times before they break, and that's a good lead in to the fighting.

Combat takes place from a 2D side view, and play out much like a Tales game. You have full control over your character's movement and attacks. Beyond the dashing, jumping, and slashing, you have the ability to change weapons on the fly and use magic. Changing weapons may be important simply because you brought the wrong tool for the job, or possibly because you nearing a broken weapon and want to use a fresh one. Magic comes in the form of your summon. Your summon has a wide range of abilities that are learned through leveling up. The number of useable abilities before resting will also increase with experience. While I'm not personally a big fan of the active battles, they are very well done and should be a huge hit with Tales fans.

Summon Night is pretty much a dungeon romp, and while the characters are entertaining, the story is a little light. The graphics and presentation are top notch for a GBA game. All together a great package from Atlus, and we'll be looking forward to further installments of this franchise.

1. Graphics, animation, and character portraits
2. Addictive quality of resource farming and weapon crafting

1. Limited exploration
2. With the bulk of the game spent fighting for materials, will you like the combat system?