The game's defining feature is its unusual combat. During battles you control one character at a time, but can instantly swap between them. The melee fighters play like a third-person Action RPG, timing attacks to create combos. The ranged characters, however, play like a first-person shooter, with multiple weapons that vary in damage, range and firing speed.

Outside combat, each hero also has an ability used to solve puzzles: Tal pushes crates, Ailish dispels illusions, Buki climbs certain walls and Elco has a jetpack.

Sadly, the game's world is very small and linear, with no real exploration. Areas are just long corridors filled with loot barrels and maybe one dull NPC, plus many obvious “combat arenas”: you enter them, the doors close and some level-scaled enemies spawn. Kill them all and the door opens. Rinse and repeat.

It feels underwhelming; a feeling that permeates the game as a whole. Sudeki has a nice list of features – two combat systems, magic skills, special summons, equipment upgrades, large boss battles, secrets, etc. – but they all lack in depth and quickly grow stale.

Luckily the game doesn't overstay its welcome, lasting only about 10-12 hours. This keeps things always moving, but also accentuates how paper-thin the plot is and how one-dimensional its heroes are.

If the writing is poor, the visuals are among the best the original Xbox produced. Characters may have an uncanny “Western anime” look, but everything else has a pleasing, colourful art style. The landscapes are especially pretty, and the soundtrack does a great job at giving personality to the world. It's a shame that it's such a small and limited world.

Much like Fable, Sudeki comes from a time when many Xbox owners were just discovering RPGs. It's accessible, simplistic and definitely not made for CRPG veterans, yet can still offer a fun little adventure.