OK, I have no experience with SOM, so this is simply my experience from playing Guardian War. I've played A LOT of it--probably 40 hours so far.
I really enjoy it or I would be playing WOTW. I have cleared the entire first map, been taken to the Ark, cleared that, and was taken to the Tree which Protects the World. I don't have any idea how much farther the game goes. No one I know has played this far and I've never seen a manual.
I love the variety of character classes and the way you can switch them and combine them. For some reason, characters have a base level and then a class level in their main classes. Unlike D&D, there are now class levels in your sub-classes.
My party is currently:
NAME, BASIC LEVEL # MAIN CLASS, CLASS LEVEL #, SUB-CLASS Pumpkin, level 16 Dark Shaman level 5 Iron, level 30 Ninja Master level 5, sub-class Ninja Material, level 15 Birdman level 3, sub-class Priest Solid, level 25 Neptune level 5 Volt, level 23 Bow Knight level 5 and lastly: Earth, level 25 Messiah level 4(and we are currently at: Inside the Goddess Statue, play 46:26)
OK, you may go "what the h*ll's a 'Neptune', 'Messiah', 'Birdman'?" Yeah, I've never heard of a "Garuda" either. Part of the charm of a Japanese title localized for the US market.
I really enjoyed using the "Bell of Love" to charm monsters into joining my party in the early parts of the game. These days, I am enjoying the all-out melees where your entire party is pitted against a massive dragon or two. <grin>
Bottom line: it feels like playing AD&D on paper. As soon as I finish GW, I will be playing Slayer through.
Just my personal opinions...
Rick Reynolds The 3DO Company *Opinions expressed are not necessarily the opinions of my employer.*
michel.buffa@essi.fr