I write this review without having finished the game, but since I find no indication that there is a ‘finish’, I think it’s fair.
You play as a party of adventurers completing “quests”(let’s call them that)… for some reason. In fact the quests are scarcely explained so I’m not exactly sure what I’m doing except typing random letters and seeing if LJCQUES is a word that the game will accept. As you travel from scene to scene, occasionally people will request to join your party to which you have only two responses. “Absolutely” and “No”. Quite a jarring contrast of responses.
RPG elements are introduced in the form of character classes and upgrades. Every class gets three types of attacks and each can be upgraded three times (max level of 10 for each character). You can upgrade stats at blacksmiths through purchasing equipment and equipping them to your characters. There’s no equipment screen and there doesn’t seem to be a limit to how many things you can equip to a character so I like to imagine my archer had like a sword (not even a bow, a sword) for every finger and was wearing 4 types of chest armor. Lord knows how he did it, but he did it.
You type words at the screen for like an hour and then you get to the end of your map. Along the way you’ll find treasure or evade traps. Then you will be presented with some text “Book Found” or something like that and you’ll be told to move to next zone or to stay in your current zone. Very immersive.
I don’t really have any complaints about execution. Everything is done quite well. The artwork is nice, and consistent. It has that old 16-bit feel. The fights are… well, typing. If you manage to screw up so much that your heroes drop to 0 HP (maybe you were alt-tabbed) you are offered a chance to keep them alive by typing a 6 or 7-letter word.
Did I phone this one in? I know it’s short but it’s really not a complex game. You type words. Kinda missing where the ‘Evil’ is. I don’t think there’s enough in this game to really extend beyond “type words until done”. I’m going to say no on this one. Thanks for reading.
Artemis Hunt
Home of the Huntress 