Most of us are familiar with how the Zelda series looks on the last few generations of game consoles. However, a smaller percentage of currently active gamers had the opportunity to become familiar with the series when the first installments were released and to experience what it looks like when we encounter this type of game for the first time. German indie studio Wobble Ghost released this month a game of a type very similar to the Zelda games from the original Nintendo, and most like a sequel A Link To The Past from the good old Super Nintendo.
The story goes something like this: Darkness has descended on Earth, no one dies, but every body is taken over by evil spirits, and dark forces pose a danger to the entire living world. This new action adventure casts us in the role of Death, who investigates what evil led to this and helps Charon free the souls and bring them to the other side. In this task, he is helped by a small pink companion - a piglet, whose role we also take on when necessary. Together you will fight to restore balance to a world on the brink of collapse.
The entire map is divided into smaller zones that are in the open, and occasionally we enter smaller dungeons where we solve puzzles, look for ways to get to the other side, and very often we realize that we lack some kind of ability or tool needed to pass further. In the end, each zone rewards us with a continuation of the story, a new one skill or some special coin. When we collect four such coins, we get a refill health at a specific location. Each dark zone through which the story takes us hides the secret of a missing person from a place possessed by evil and clashes with our hero and his faithful pig in the form of a large bossa. When is it boss defeated, the soul is free, Charon thanks us, and the darkness recedes. That place has been liberated and its inhabitants can finally live in peace.
The enemies we encounter during our great adventure are possessed animals and black masses in various shapes and sizes. In order to overcome them, it is not necessary to think a lot, but only to act offensively with some avoidance of blows. For those much bigger and stronger enemies, such as the black masses that appear in the form of bosses, you still need to come up with tactics because otherwise you will fall very quickly and end up at the last checkpoint, which would mean returning to the fight itself. In that case, the combination learned so far will help you skills Deaths and loyal pigs, which won't be a big problem once you've mastered them. With a few bosses, you might have to put in a little effort, while the others don't present a big challenge.
Your character will get several during the game skills which allow access to areas that were previously inaccessible. Whether it was petrifying plants and enemies, riding a piggy bank with running into obstacles, jumping over smaller ones gaps or rock climbing, you will gladly accept each of these upgrades with a smile on your face.
The world in the game is not big, you can easily move from one end to the other in just a few minutes. However, the problem of navigating the space is further exacerbated by a poor map. The biggest drawback of the map is the inability to zoom. Therefore, you will often puzzle over how to get to the required items or tasks marked on the map, because you will encounter a wall on the only available way to get there. There is no need to talk too much about the time you will lose looking for the way. Likewise, the tasks are not clearly defined, because tab for the mission does not exist. Charon mostly gives you a mission and marks it on the map, and given the poor execution of it, it won't help you much. The rest of the time you will wander a lot, enter houses, talk to people, and quite often you will not know in which direction to go. Some menu of objectives or missions or at least notes about place names on the map would definitely help with that. Without it, your own guidance will be a lot of trial and error.
The difficulty in the game is not a concern, especially when it comes to fighting with enemies. You will deal with puzzles already have to a little pobother and invest time. You will remember some inaccessible places to pass, because you will gain access later when you get a satisfactory one skill or a tool. Through solving the story, it is best to try to collect as many hidden coins as possible, because with them you will increase your health, which will help you in dealing with more difficult enemies. If you want perfectionism, i.e. 100% of the game, prepare yourself for many more hours of aimlessly searching for solutions.
Graphics are one of the few characteristics that the game can boast of. Very pixelated the look of the game provides a retro style, however, the game is dominated by black and gray colors, so there is much less detail and many locations or characters will look almost identical to you. I would even dare to say that games with much older platforms had more detail. If you belong to that group of gamers who don't mind that much, then the gameplay, which is one of the strongest characteristics of this game, will prevail. The sound is also adapted to the retro style of the game. The music throughout the game completely follows the situation we are in, whether walking through forests, mountains, villages or fighting with bosses.
In the game, you can see and even experience minor bugs in the sense of getting stuck on some pixels and the inability to move from the place where we are stuck, which leads us to repeat checkpoint. Likewise, an occurrence is possible game-breaking bug, which I experienced myself when fighting with the last one boss. During the fight, after several attempts, it happened that the boss had empty health and I could not cause him any damage, and he used his advantage and sent me back to the checkpoint very quickly. Only after several exits in the main menu and from the game itself, the fight "unblocked" and I managed to complete the task and defeat bossa. Considering the game is fresh out, it's nothing so alarming that it can't be fixed with maybe one of the future patches.
Although the gameplay is quite fun and interesting, very often you get the feeling that the game is trying to be Zelda, which is not necessarily a bad thing, especially if you like that type of game. When such a classic is a role model, a very good foundation has already been laid. Unfortunately, in this case the game can lose its originality and if some things are poorly executed and not improved, it will turn you away from the game itself. Otherwise, at least 10 hours of research and fighting against black monsters await you, and you will not regret the time invested in the slightest.
A copy of the game was provided by publisher Deck 13 for review purposes
