Post by Andrew on Feb 9, 2014 9:40:29 GMT -6
Been playing a lot of this game lately on Steam. It's available on XBLA as well, if that's your thing. It's a side-scrolling action/adventure/RPG/platformer. It has a pretty decent story, nothing too amazing, but it definitely can pull on the heart-strings a bit. In quite a few places so far. There is full voice-acting across the board, as well as animated "cinematics" of the characters talking. There's been only one scene so far that is a full-on animated sequence and it's pretty late in the game. There might be more to come.
As you slay monsters and open treasure chests, you come across materials and blueprints to help craft your gear. Every time you sell materials to a merchant, any merchant, they will begin to stock and restock those materials alongside what they already carry so if you're running low on materials for a particular item, you can purchase extra from the merchants if you have the spare cash. They don't carry infinite supplies of equipment or materials, but the restorative items are always available. The crafting is pretty nice. I wish you could sell blueprints instead of having to craft the items to sell them. It can get a little tedious to craft low level items when you're almost finished with the game because you keep getting old blueprints, but I digress.
The artwork and flow of movement in this game are stunning. The developer was originally going to create an animated film named Elysian Tail, but he ended up working on it for two and a half years instead and created this game with all of the assets that he had created. The art detail is smooth, and the flow of action is pretty tight. During the beginning of the game, my only complaint was how flashy the weather could be, making it a little difficult sometimes to keep track of enemies and their attacks on the screen. But later on, when the weather tames out, it's very beautiful to see its interactions with the environment. The game has a semi-open world concept where you can revisit different locations repeatedly. Whether it be to farm for materials or finish the exploration and treasure chest gathering.
The combat is the true masterpiece of this game. It has a very simple chain system, where the more hits you string together, the more experience you get once the chain fades out. Your companion, Fidget, can cast spells that you can utilize alongside your own abilities to quickly build very large chains. Over time, she gains more spells that make chain-stringing even easier and definitely more amusing. I just learned how to cast a Lightning bolt with her in my game and I've been stringing together 400+ combos lately on even a small set of 5 enemies.
The boss fights are a little lackluster, especially once you start getting higher in level. Which, I should mention, you get to choose how you progress your character. At every level, you get a Skill Gem that can be placed in the four available stat options. No stat can be higher than 4 from the least stat, so your stats won't always be even, but they won't be significantly out of whack either. On the Casual and Normal difficulties, building Fidget and Attack first are best. On Tough and Hardcore, if you don't build your Health and Defense, you will be one-shot by simple minions.
All in all, the game is fantastic. The flow of the story is very nice, if not simplistic, the art is magnificent, and the combat system is downright amazing. There are also easter eggs where special characters from other indie games can be unlocked and are placed in your Sanctuary. You can't interact with them, but it's amusing to see other game characters included in this one anyway.