Story of Thor Review (Mega Drive)

Once upon a time a young prince named Ali discovered a sacred golden armlet that allowed him to control four powerful spirits. Ali must now search for another sacred armlet taken by an evil sorcerer intent on doing all sorts of nasty things to people. During this quest he must find the four spirits that the golden armlet controls- the Water Fairy, Shadow Spirit, Carnivorous Plant and Giant of Fire. With these powerful allies at his disposal Ali will be able to end the demonic ambitions of the silver armlets owner once and for all.

Set very much in the same genre as the Legend of Zelda series, the game follows much the same layout. You move around talking to villagers and fighting monsters above ground before entering a dungeon of some sort where you must solve puzzles and discover hidden objects, before facing off against some nasty monster at the end of it all. However, to say the title is simply a Zelda clone could not be further from the truth, in fact few 16 bit releases can match its identity and style.

The Story of Thor (Beyond Oasis outside Europe), is presented with unique comic book graphics from a top down viewpoint. The characters and enemies are big and well animated, whilst everything is beautifully coloured. Backgrounds and Dungeons are varied in both colour and style - thereby helping to maintain interest, as enemies types are somewhat repetitive. A number of nice touches are also present within the game. 

For instance, once found Ali can summon one of four spirits to come to his aid, each one offering something different. The twist is that summoning spirits can only be achieved by finding an item that relates to it. for instance to call the fire giant you need to summon him near a burning torch or flame. Without question this adds a welcome touch of strategy to the proceedings. 

As well as the spirits you can call upon a number of weapons during your quest, ranging from swords to bombs. Each weapon only has a limited amount of uses and therefore must be used only in desperate situations. Unfortunately, the control system lets down what otherwise would be a classic title. The problem is that Ali cannot move diagonally resulting in enemies being hard to hit, as you always have to be facing or side on to them. This increases the danger of you taking damage and it also makes moving around screens extremely frustrating. After a while the action does become repetitive, and you will find yourself constantly hitting the attack button over and over trying to hit some monster that refuses to move into your field of vision. 

Overall, The Story of Thor is a game that could have been an awful lot better. While it arguably looks better than Zelda on the Super Nintendo and contains more charm in certain areas, the controls are just not flexible enough to allow you to pull off the moves you require, which leads to frustration. This is a solid adventure game for fans of the genre or anyone looking for a something a bit different, and worth hunting for, just be prepared to forgive its short comings.

7/10 

Talisman: Digital Edition Review (PC)

A digital version of Games Workshops adventure game has certainly taken a long journey to reach us. An initial version based on the third edition board and rule set was in development for various console digital services and featured a 3D board and a number of other technical tricks. Sadly it never materialised and the idea went quiet. Now Nomad games have delivered us a faithful visual recreation of the fourth edition version of the game.

For the uninitiated Talisman is an adventure style board game for up to four players. Each player must move around the board encountering enemies and gathering followers and items so that they can make their way to the centre of the board and take control of the crown. Once there they can cast the command spell to force the other players out of the game and win.

In terms of presentation the game hasn’t got any spectacular bells and whistles but it does recreate the board and cards excellently. There aren’t any real animations or visual effects though with effectively being a digitised version of the board, cards and rule set. We would have liked the option of a bit more animation but in our experience gimmicks are often turned off quickly as they begin to repeat themselves. Carcassonne and Catan certainly never felt the need to add them in either.

The board is split into three regions. Players start on the most outer region and gradually make their way into the middle by overcoming various obstacles. To make it to the second region you need to cross and river and can do this via a teleport, raft or battling a giant sentinel. To then reach the inner most region to need to get through a magic door and a have a talisman in your possession. As you move through the regions the squares get more dangerous so wise players will spend time building their strength and craft in order to survive.

Stats can be built up in three main ways. You can find objects, recruit followers of trade-in battle trophies. Every time you fight a monster on the board and defeat it you take its card as a trophy. Once you have enough cards based in either strength or craft you can then exchange them for an increase in that stat. Each of the characters has their own strengths and weaknesses and their own unique abilities so you have to change your strategy depending on who you are playing. For instance, the Warrior roles two dice in combat while the Minstrel can gather animals he encounters to boost his strength.

The rule set is fairly easy to understand as well. Every square lays down what must be done on it and how many adventure cards need to be drawn. The cards themselves also explain what needs to be done or what they do. The game engine fills in many of the gaps for you and it seems a pretty solid rule set. One thing we really don’t like is that only some characters can choose to fight others with craft rather than strength, this seems to unbalance things a little as building up a high craft can be somewhat pointless depending on who you are.

We also found at times, especially when playing against AI characters, that the game did begin to drag in its later stages. There were a few times we managed to get all the way through the card deck without that much progress being made and this can lead to frustration. To be fair that’s all in the random nature of the game. Getting the wrong cards or rolling the wrong numbers can be a pain and without human opponents to taunt you it does begin to feel a bit dull after a while. We couldn’t test online play as we couldn’t find any games (which is worrying at this early stage), but you’ll be glad to hear that there most certainly is a four player local option.

A number of expansions are on the way which changes elements of how the game plays and are based on what is already available for the table top version of the game. There isn’t anything which adds more regions yet but we would love to see this in the future to further open up the world and add some more variety.

Overall, there may be a few issues and the game does tend to suffer from problems that other board games have had when they make the leap to a digital format. That said the rule set here is solid and accurate and the game is a much cheaper way of the playing what is an excellent table top game. It’s a faithful recreation and any Games Workshop or Talisman fan shouldn’t be disappointed with what they find. It may be a harder sell for the regular PC gamer but invest the time and get a few friends involved and this is a deep and rewarding adventure that you’ll return to when you want something which requires a bit more thought.

Overall 7/10

Star Ocean - Until the End of Time Review (PS2)

 

The PS2 version of Star Ocean is the third in the series, but like many other Square franchises it is not necessary to have played the other games to know what is going on. The story follows a boy named ‘Fayt’ who is busy minding his own business on a holiday planet when it comes under attack from an unknown military force. Thus you are thrown into an epic tale spanning across the galaxy, with twists etc, you know how it goes- while Star Ocean may not innovate in the tale that is told, the way it unravels is a slight break from the norm.

The title is placed in a highly futuristic setting, it is then somewhat of an irony that the game crash lands you onto a primitive planet filled with knights and dragons where due to intergalactic law you can not use any form of technology more advanced than your surroundings. This means even though you have the technology to level a city at the flick of a button, you have to run round with a sword. At least it appears the developers have a sense of humour.

Combat is dealt with in real time. All of you who have had just about enough of random encounters and turn based fighting rejoice. Enemies can be seen on the map and engaged at the player’s choice. However, it can be all to easy to keep running past creatures while exploring the map meaning you are missing out on much needed experience- you have been warned. 

Combat itself works extremely well. Computer AI is decent enough and characters can be given set instructions to carry out. However they do tend to not heal themselves so boss battles often result in players taking control of the main healing character while the computer deals out punishment for you. During combat there are numerous special moves available at the touch of a button and skilled players will be able to string massive combinations together, indeed it all works so well it makes you wonder why we bothered with turn based fighting for so long.

Graphically the title is not outstanding. Characters and locations are nicely created but there is very little that will cause you to marvel at what is on screen. Cut scenes are well done but are normally only a few seconds long. This may please some people who do not want a constant precession of ten minute long story segments, but when the PS2 takes a few seconds to load up a scene which runs for about three seconds,  then takes a few more seconds to load up the game area again it creates an incredibly disjointed feel and effects the general flow of the game no end.

One of the titles undoubted strengths is the subtle beauty of the musical scores that run through it. While in space you are treated to cold, empty sounding melodies that float around the game area, truly outstanding. The only time the music falls down is when entering one of the many dungeons. After building a mood throughout the game with gentle melodies that perfectly fit your surroundings walking into the first dungeon area on a sixteenth century planet to be greeted by the sounds of Japanese synth pop is a little out of place to say the least. However, like so many things in Star Ocean after a few hours you get used to it and it begins to fit the overall feel of the title.

While many other RPG’s claim to be epic, Star Ocean definitely is. Spanning two discs there is more game in there for you money than almost any other title currently on the market. In order to get through to the end you are looking at putting in somewhere in the region of fifty plus hours. If you want to collect all the battle trophies and complete all the side quests, inventing sections etc, then you could easily see that play time double. When you take into account the multiple endings available it shows that Star Ocean is ready and willing to absorb how ever much of your time you want to put into it.

While far from being perfect Star Ocean is a well put together title that offers a lot of fun for RPG veterans and new comers alike. While there is not really anything that drives you through the game it is more than likely that players will stick with it until the end due to its easy going nature. Star Ocean is a game you have to play through at your own pace, there are so many things you can do that are optional it is a title that personifies the idea that the more you put in the more you will get out. Maybe not quite up to the standard of other square adventures of times gone by, it is never the less a highly enjoyable experience and one well worth checking out.

Overall 7/10

Ys: Memories of Celceta Review (Playstation Vita)

The Ys franchise has been around since the late eighties but the games have rarely made it over to the west. Some of the titles are available via Steam or the Wii virtual console but this is the first time the series has seen a major release upon European shores. We won’t go into a long history lesson on the plot as the game acts as much as a self-contained adventure as a continuation to the timeline. Because of this it is easily accessible for newcomers to the mythology of the world.

The plot follows a young adventure named Adol who is found in a great forest suffering from amnesia. As Adol you are tasked with exploring the forest and recovering your memories. Along the way you will encounter characters who remember you. Some of these will accuse you of things that you may or may not have done and a large part of the game is in investigation these claims, normally by heading to a dungeon, in order to find out what is actually going on.

An action RPG, Memories of Celceta has characters exploring the world away from random battles. All the enemies are on the screen from the start and you will need to use your array of weapons and special powers to defeat them. Combat is similar in some respects to the Tales series (or later Star Ocean games), where you have a small group of heroes fighting in real time. The player controls one character while the AI controls the other two.

Unlike many games the AI is actually pretty good at handling the characters and there weren’t many moments when it did something stupid or put them in harm’s way. They do attack but we found that we needed to dive in to perform at the heart of the battle. This means you can’t just sneakily hide somewhere while the computer does all the work.

You’ll gradually get more characters join your party and each has their own strengths and special abilities to use on the map.  For instance, one can pick locks while another is capable of splitting rocks to open the way. All members of your party gain experience during your adventure whether they are in the on screen party or not which means you are free to experiment and swap characters in and out without them lagging behind in terms of stats.

As you level you will gain new combat skills that you can assign to different buttons. To use these skills you have to strike enemies to build a meter. Finishing off an enemy with one of these skills then fills a different super move meter which when full unleashes a lengthy and powerful combo. It’s a simple system but one that works well.

Collectible items also have a system to follow. As you gather bits of plant, minerals and other objects you can combine them for items of higher value. Collect enough coal and you turn it into iron ore, collect enough iron ore and can turn into silver ore etc. These items can then be sold for much higher values than before as well as being used to craft new weapons and objects.

As you explore the forest you will fill out your map which highlights areas of interest and stone markers. Any marker visited can be used to quick travel around the map and also acts to heal your health and cure status ailments. This means you aren’t constantly backtracking and keeps the pace up. 

Aside from your main quest there are also numerous side quests in each area. These normally appear after solving the areas problem and take the form of messages pinned on the town’s board. Reading the board once adds all the quests to your map so you only have to glance at the quests once. This further streamlines the experience and allows for quick and easy access to what there is to do around you. You can also save just about anywhere, except during boss fights. If you die you get a retry option which normally puts you at the entrance to the last room you entered as well so there is little repetition of events.

In fact the only thing likely to stall your progress through the game is the somewhat strange requirement that some dungeons have to make you find a number of pieces of stone tablet in order to proceed. You need these to make a shape on certain doors (like a picture slide puzzle), before the door will open. We found ourselves stuck a number of times because of missing a piece and then had to trudge around the dungeon looking for it.

Overall, Ys does a very good job of bringing the action RPG genre to the Vita. It looks lovely and there is a strong and pacey quest to undertake. It may lack a little depth but it’s a player friendly and enjoyable game and one that fits the Vita very well. If you are in need of some dungeon exploring action then this is the game for you.

Overall 8/10