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Walthros |  |
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By: Paul Harrington Creations Homepage: http://members.aol.com/blueguinea Download: 338 KB Reviewed by: Pepsi Ranger |
Walthros is the story of Bob Surlaw, a hover fish type character who discovers a shocking revelation about his ancestory and namesake when he explores the Blue Ruins near his house. This is all I'm going to say since there are too many plot twists to justify ruining the surprise.
This game may only be a demo, but for what it offers, it's incredible. It's not incredible for the trite reasons of graphics, music, and extra moments of brief titillation that many games (especially commercial) will try to achieve, but because amazing is next to the story. Every time I thought I had a clue what was going to happen next, I turned out to be wrong. By the time I finished the demo, which I honestly thought would reveal a finished game because it was so involving, it left me speechless. Actually, I said "Wow, this game rocks," but that serves the same purpose as being speechless. The end of the demo delivers a cliffhanger, which is very appropriate for what's been delivered already, but the player is given an option to end the game much earlier if he or she chooses. This feature of deciding whether the hero continues on with his journey or not is a clever idea that does not get used in games very often, but probably should, even if it's for no other reason than to develop the characterization of the hero further. There are plenty of other plusses to speak of the story and execution, but in doing so may ruin some surprises, so I won't mention them. The other major strength of this game, which I wish other games would try to adopt a lot more often, is the hardcore polishing effort that the author seems to have devoted to it. The dialogue text is near perfect, using proper grammatical skills, avoiding character jams that most games seem to love doing (this meaning the annoying factor of seeing how many lines of dialogue from different characters can be fit into one text box), and allowing the natural interaction of characters to take over the story, rather than the author's narrative interference. All the event tags happen in the right place, which most games do anyway, but is never too obvious to mention as a good point. In fact, the only technical flaw I discovered was in a choice box that does not reset after the player chooses to fight a town defense system. Overall, whatever amount of time was put into this game had certainly paid off.
The truth is, I was so immersed into the story that I really didn't care about its weaknesses. Sure, there were a few, most notably the graphics and sound, but the only one that offered any kind of true annoyance was the battle and level-up system. The enemies offer such a small amount of experience, that the player must fight something like ten to fifteen fights before the first level-up takes place. When I finished the game, after more than six hours of game time, my main character was only up to level ten or so. This slow level-up process makes many of the fights long and tiresome, and to some degree, difficult. I also found the small change in attack power from level-ups and equipment and weapon upgrades to be annoying. But, these factors can be easily tolerated when giving the story enough time to develop. That's about the extent of the downsides.
Scores:
| Graphics: For anyone who looks at screenshots of this game, there's no surprise that the graphics are very simple and unvariable. More attention to detail would be nicer, but a game that uses near-mythological type animals as its characters shouldn't expect to be Michelangelo's greatest hit. | |
| Music: The music variety hardly exists. I think there's approximately three tracks, and the one that's used the most only aids the mood in a few places like villages and fields. The battle music is okay, if not kind of annoying, but would be better if there were a separate track for bosses. | |
| Storyline: If I haven't raved enough about the storyline, maybe it's score should best describe my opinions. Very unique twist to the save-of-the-world plotline. | |
| Gameplay: Although the battles get boring after awhile, the small maps and polished technical matters make the gameplay a plus. | |
| Overall (Not an average score): I wish more games were this involving. Better graphics and music would be nice, but all it really needs is a completion. |
Version History
Version 1.0
Version 1.1
Operation: OHR is owned and maintained by Kevin W. (Aethereal)