Experimental, flawed, but fun
| Platform | OVERALL |
|---|---|
| Wii | 7.50 |
| Overall | 7.50 |
|
Forget Zelda, this game is not it. I don't know what your expectations were for this title, but throw out anything you were thinking of and just take this hotch potch grab bag of concepts and roll with it. I really don't know where to start on this game. Erm, lets start with the graphics, really excellent, lovely art, solid engine, nice lighting. I like playing this game just for the way it looks, really excellent production values here. There are a few muddy textures here and there and conversely some really highly detailed ones too. The music is so up and down its unbelievable. When it needs to be great, cutscenes for instance, it's great. Epic, swashbuckling stuff. Otherwise its like a random jukebox churning out horrendous tunes, we're talking Irish fiddles, country ragtime, bizaare rock and terrible blues. And in some areas the music switches too frequently between relatively small stretches of land. The voice acting is bad, like baaaaaaaaad like Tales of Symphonia on GC and there is no japanese option. Story is actually quite fun, the cutscenes are done with aplomb and the game has a lightheartedness about it. Now to the design, why design a lovely looking city/town, populate it with tons of NPCs and then not let you talk and interact with them? Where are the puzzles? So, imagine this, take an area in Zelda, make it so you can't talk to anyone and have no puzzles to do. So at its heart you are basically running about. Oh and take away any kind of map. So you are map-less too. Imagine it. Very strange design decisions at work here. So the controls are okay, should and could be vastly better and thus make the game much, much better, but they are not horrendous or even bad. The camera has one button centering and d-pad manipulation but it doesn't auto-follow and it doesn't lock on to enemies. The game is practically dying for Silent Hill Shattered Memories controls, using IR in the third person in a similar vein to a FPS. The physics manipulation, its not Elebits, hell its not even psi-ops. Any thought of nuanced physics controls are just out the window. At first I was doing moves slowly and getting a little frustrated with them. Then I realised that you just swing, be rough and brutal with it. When that clicks suddenly you find the game a lot snappier and more instant. You can point at an object, but then in general you then just swish the controller in one of four directions and its pretty lame. You can however use the wii remote like the half life 2 gravity gun, sucking an object towards you and pinpoint aiming to shoot it back out. The game has quite snappy platforming. It's not quite auto platforming, but the game has a sort of auto lock jump which means that it can intelligently know where you want to jump and does it when you just press a button. Battles are generally throw stuff around, I've avoided most of it because you can, no need to fight when you don't need to. It probably sounds horrible so far, but its actually quite pleasent. It's not brilliant and should be a hell of a lot better, but its fun. Once you make your peace with this game. It's quite enjoyable. Sure it has its flaws, no map, a camera that is fine for exploring, inadequate for battling. But they only force you to battle on three occasions and only once has it been anywhere near game breaking. The music is sometimes sublime, sometimes horrendous. But the game has a fun vibe about it, great cutscenes, some grin moments, some funny and touching moments. And it does a great job of empowering you with super power like abilities. Like the way you can bounce about environments jumping and hookshotting about. And being a dick in this game is fun. See a bucket of water? Pick it up with telekinesis and drop it on someones head. See someone sitting on a bench? Remove the bench. Grab a balloon and it acts like grabbing a chicken in zelda for a slow mo descent. There is stupid stuff that is just funny. You're on a tram for instance and a crazy old grandma just starts running up and down the aisle, knocking everyone down like bowling balls. You get pissed and just pick her up and throw her into a window. Sometimes for no reason they throw balls or pumpkins down inclines at you. One time I grabbed one and shot it back up the hill, only to see it realistically roll back down the hill at me. I can agree with reviews that say its a game you have to experiment with. There is a zelda sized world here - sans dungeons - and you can explore to mess about but there is no real motive to do so outside of getting chest after chest of cash and word items to make accessories which boost stats. I really think that SE should not drop the concept and style of the game, as this game is like the original Red Steel, with some control and gameplay tweaks you could really have something good here. The end boss was awesome, like Andross at the end of Starfox. Despite its many flaws and inconsistencies, there is fun to be had here once you get past them. |
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Posted by gamingeek Wed, 24 Mar 2010 12:48:27
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robio (1m)
I did hit a wall like Leo, if you remember when he hated it. You can see that in the thread.
I was like, why did they do this? Why didn't they do this? Why does it control like this? This sequence is pointless, this one is annoying.
Once you can get past the little strange and annoying things and start experimenting, you have a fun experience. Other than its production the actual gameplay and controls aren't polished though.
7.5 isn't generous to me, most games fall between that and 8.5 to me.