Consistently off and not at that price
This game frustrates me, because I wanted to like it, but can't. It feels like somebody tried to emulate greatness but instead ended up with mediocrity because they lacked the sense of detail on what made the great ones great. At full price, I would give this game two stars. At half off, it be three.
Everything from gameplay to writing feels off. The game play is not too deep, but the spiritual parents were far more refined. I played all of the SNES and PSX classics out there, and this game is consistently off on the details that make up the whole. Those games were tight gameplay and show-don't-tell stories. This game is not.
I will ask for a refund and may re-buy it somewhere below the half-price point eventually. It's OK, just not great. I was lacking ... fun ... and ... motivation ... It felt like going through the motions instead. An unrefined product that lacks focus and consistency.
(Maybe all of this is explained by the fact that the only other language to English is Chinese and the publisher south east Asian.)
Game play:
Not as good as either of the games it is based on. Effectively it's a mix of two+ games. But it forgets that those games have differences in level design, enemy behavior and fluidity of combat an control for the exact reason that all of those aspects have to match.
Easily falling down narrow cliffs and ledges is not fun. Damaging obstacles being placed in narrow winding corridors to run into are not enjoyable level design. The game is build as if you should be walking slowly and sword swinging, but has fast sprinting and a dash attack. The enemies (on hard) are spongy, strong. large, oddly shaped (hit boxes) and usually not stunned or forced back by your slashes enough to hold the line. This is true to it's spiritual father, but that father also had nest spawns, tighter level design and narrower corridors to funnel and back off - so less diagonal movement and chaos. Dash on the other hand is a mechanic that wants fluid chaining and needs good movement and turning as well as proper distance and predictable fluent enemy patterns and sizes - and some invincibility frames. Again, this game doesn't get it right - unlike it's spiritual mother.
The other issue is that the game has a second protagonist that you effectively have to escort quest the whole game - if you play without KOs. This is the worst SNES mechanic for an action adventure game - when you don't play with other people. The issue is compounded by the fact that the AI is not very good. Not configurable. Health is low. And there are no invincible magic frames to use as single player - which the game this multi-player style originates from has. So if you don't like KOs - this game will test your patience. You can do what you did back in the day and two controller it - which is not great. I would have preferred to disable that character - or at least control it with the second stick. Also, the move-set of the characters is absolutely the same. So the only motivation to switch is health and mp balancing. Which makes it feel cheap.
Health is tight. Healing is limited. And accidental damage from bumping into enemies is common due to the spongy nature, limited push-back and stun effects that is not aligned with the level and enemy design. At least on Hard. - I have seen late game play which seem to focus mostly on force-shielding attacks away to cope with enemies.
Tone and Style:
It starts with character naming, writing, world building - it all feels very mashed and contemporary US. The world feels incoherent and not thought through as a result. Is it mythical? Is it modern? Why are there foxes and cats in human villages - talking - while goats are animals. Why is the postal service cat based and themed? If it's old and mystical, why is your small remote village randomly diverse? Small villages usually are exactly the place where you find mono culture - esp. in a sword wielding, foot traveling world. You can do these things, but it has to have a logical flow or be a minor funny quirk. But if you overdo it, you end up with a confused mess. That's how I feel about this game, consistently. You had the ability to paint a holistic picture and instead randomly doodled - seemingly with a love for furries, drum players, Mexican wrestlers etc. I don't think anybody sat down and planned out the world or exercised constraint and dedication to it. Again, unlike the games this is ideologically based on.
Story and world building:
In classics, the story and world building is often done visually and with few words. Many of the classics do this far better than modern games. It requires you to tell a story through the world and what you see, not meandering words. This game borders on the line of "too many empty words of nothing" and not enough "show don't tell". It's not so much the amount of text that is troubling, more what it results in in terms of flow, focus and forced narrative. The game seems understand story as expressed explicit character (backstory) drama and theatrics. Basically, typical modern writing with not enough backstory to actually make it work - and instead based on (forced) emotional words and states. I feel more from my grandpa dying in a castle - giving me his sword - and a dream of a princess looking for "Help". Or "restore live". The rest, my brain can do.
Have not progressed through it enough to make a call on the quality of the story but I suspect it to be meandering nonsense, given what I saw. That can not be said about Quintet games.
Saving:
Absolutely unacceptable - and I have never seen this before: If a game allows you to manually save and has no auto save, I expect the game not to touch my save file unless instructed. Under no circumstances are you allowed to update my save file because I hit "Game over". WTH! That's exactly why I want a manual save. It shows this utter disconnect for what should be trivial to a veteran - that you see from the entire game.
Sound:
Sound is not great. One of the worst examples: When the bad dude talks (every dialog window), it sounds like somebody pulled the speaker cord and you hear the amps droning. It's horribly annoying. How can you not get annoyed by this during play testing? Another example: When you kill enemies, sometimes part of the level opens up further, destroying a bit of terrain. In the game that mechanic originates from, the sound is impactful and matches the animation. Here, both feel weak and off timing. It's this type of "almost" that corrodes the games quality. Don't add mini games until your essentials like sound design are correct.
Music:
Seems fine. Have not played enough to fully judge this.
Character sprites / World Art / Tiles:
Nice overall. Main character looks very nice. Most of the levels / tiles look nice. Bit inconsistent between cities and the rest of the world with cities looking less good and detailed. Some later stuff I saw looks less consistent thou.
Enemy design / art:
*Sigh* Simple enemies look nice. The humanoid and some of the more complex (larger) ones look less good. Later some seem to look fancy. The bad guys that start the game off chasing you - for example - look very bad. The enemy art feels utterly inconsistent with the character and world art - but all of the art does to some degree.
Is this helpful to you?
Yes
(6 )
No
(2 )
Report abuse