Agavaen wakes up one morning after a
night of drunken carousing and larceny, to find her compatriots have
stolen all the loot and she is blamed for the loss. It doesn’t help
matters that her magical amulet was stolen as well, the last link she had
to her mysterious homeland. She knows she isn’t human, and humans fear and
despise her, except for the scoundrels who obviously couldn’t be trusted
either.
So what is the poor gal to do?
Naturally she sets off to find the thieving thieves, and along the way she
will encounter many a roadblock, and maybe find something out about human
motivations and morals along the way. How she chooses to deal with her
misfortune, and how she chooses to interact with her human contacts leads
her down one of two paths to her final journey home.
To be, or not to be, an RPG
There has been a trend for some time
now in Role Playing Games (RPGs) to make them hack and slash fests. Some
new to the genre think this is what an RPG is all about, having entered
the RPG scene long after the vision of Dungeons and Dragons was in vogue.
Not that there is anything wrong with enjoying a hack and slash game of
course. But a slower more thoughtful game, including turn-based combat and
more adventurous quests is every bit as much an RPG – it’s just a
different sort.
Neverend
is a throwback to former times, utilizing turn-based combat and offering a
large number of quests, some necessary for the main story line and others
optional as a way to level up in experience or for monetary gain.
For the same reason that I would be a
failure as a bank robber, I feel compelled to confess that when I began
the game I was underwhelmed. The graphics aren’t state of the art, having
none of the in your face glitz that is Oblivion or Dungeon Siege
II, and the combat requires deliberation, choosing a weapon and battle
tactics turn by turn in an “arena” sort of setting. It reminded me a great
deal of games such as Return to Krondor or even The Fifth
Disciple.
However, the more I played of the
game, the more I came to appreciate the strong story line and the
imaginative quests. I enjoyed this game as a fantastical romp in a
medieval setting.
The Sublime and the Stinky
Graphics:
Where the graphics show the love and
care of the artists is in the various creatures our anti-hero battles.
They are different from the usual fare of orcs, and both their appearance
and their animations are a joy. There is none of the woodenness that many
characters have in games (where the attacks are largely the same), for the
characters make their attacks differently and some quite stylishly. Some
of the locations are attractive, with intensely colored detailed fauna.
And some of the spell effects are really quite well done. Changes in
Agavaen’s attire are noted in the close-up screen, a nice touch. The end
cinematic is gorgeous, and I only wish more games had an ending as
definitive as this one.
If you’re looking for Morrowind
graphics, however, you won’t find it here. As I mentioned previously,
there is an old fashioned look to the game despite its being in 3D, and
depending on one’s preferences this can be of more or lesser import. One
unfortunate quality is that when our main character enlists the assistance
of another character, this is not depicted on the screen until battle
ensues. What is shown instead is a facial portrait in a corner of the
screen.
There are curious changes from time to
time with the camera angle. Some views are top-down, some are three
quarter view (and sometimes the camera sweeps during combat and your view
is blocked by a tree). On occasion, it is difficult to point to one
combatant until the camera angle changes. In one dungeon sequence, you are
twisted and turned around so much that it is difficult to figure out the
layout. Not knowing if you are coming or going is a phrase that comes to
mind for this, and for many other scene changes. You enter a doorway going
one direction, the next scene has you moving in the opposite direction,
and you have to change your direction very quickly to avoid going through
that same door several times if your finger is on the arrow key (which is
how you move the character in this game).
Sound:
The main musical score is orchestral,
reminiscent of medieval times, and quite pleasing. As you wander about the
countryside, the strains of the flute sound particularly appropriate, as
if carried on the wind from some remote town. Upon engaging in battle,
there is more of an up-tempo (and less pleasing) soundtrack. The ambient
sound is limited in scope. The voiceovers range from the relatively
pleasant voice of the main character -- to the adequate -- to the totally
abysmal. If there had been a way to kill the townspeople to put them out
of their misery, I think I would have done it. Fortunately there are
subtitles.
Game play and other mechanics:
This is a single player game, no
multiplayer option.
The game hung twice on me while
installing the one-CD disk.
The default movement keys are the
arrow keys on your keyboard, and either keyboard or mouse can be used
during battle. You have the ability to remap the keys, and to opt to turn
off dynamic shadows along with the usual volume controls. There is also an
option to have tutorial hints on or off. As the same hints keep coming up
every time you are in battle, this is an option you may want to uncheck.
The game is not alt/tab friendly. You can play it without the disk in the
drive. You can use your Esc key to avoid watching a cut scene, and you can
click through dialog to speed along the game if you wish.
There is no fog of war, and you simply
scroll through the screens. A welcome addition to the North American
release of this game is a map which you can view by pressing “M” on your
keyboard. Because there are so many trees and such that you have to go
around, the map was most useful when trying to find necessary locations
that weren’t in town. The map would show a “break” in the tree line, which
would indicate where you could go to find what you were looking for –
without a map this would be an exercise in frustration, as the view of the
game is limited to your immediate surroundings. However, there are a few
items that are into the tree line, and it is hit or miss as far as
locating them is concerned.
“Too swift arrives as tardy as too
slow.”*
Load times for new locations are
short. Between your objectives (towns or particular locations for
furthering the game) you will encounter a huge number of battles, some
random and some fixed. It is possible to run into foes much stronger than
you fairly early in the game, and it is useful that there is a “Run away”
option for a battle tactic. Unfortunately, since your agility statistics
are low, the baddies may be able to strike you down before you have the
option to run. Luckily you can save at any point in the game, and the
number of saves is virtually unlimited.
Being successful in battle depends a
great deal on your character statistics. As you begin a battle, each
participant will have a sliding scale which takes into account their
statistics, such as agility, strength, endurance, and point level.
Depending on which weapon you use and which attack technique you select,
these statistics are added to the previous ones, indicating who makes the
first strike, and so on. For instance, if you wield a long sword, you will
have several choices of which technique to use -- such as a basic hit,
which will enable you to quickly attack, or an attack which takes much
more preparation time but does much greater damage. I found upping my
agility points the most useful attribute I could have in the game. I could
often slash three lesser pointed baddies before they could lay a hand on
me. There are also tactics where you can make the enemy bleed, and they
will lose hit points as the battle progresses. Strategy is necessary to
have a successful outcome for some of these battles, and I found this a
refreshing change from the frenetic clicking on screen that is common in
many a hack and slash game.
“O! For a muse of fire….”*
The system for using magic I found
unnecessarily frustrating. I usually prefer to use magic in an RPG, but
not in this game. To use magic you have to have the recipe for a spell,
and then you have to collect the runes necessary to make the spell, and
then click on them in the correct order. For one thing, as you begin the
game you don’t have many runes available to you, and what is available is
puny in battle. For another, the runes are small and the colors are
similar, so if you click on the incorrect runes to make a spell, they
vanish from your inventory. Even if you correctly assemble the spell and
then use it, it is then gone, and you’re back to collecting runes again. I
really think the developers should have stuck to the tried and true mana
approach to magic and not attempted these innovations. The spell graphics
are very nice, but the system makes it tedious to use them. I played the
first time through the entire game without needing them, for it is only
the ghosts that are impervious to any other weapon and there are ways to
avoid the ghosts for the entire game. You can’t use magic outside of the
battles either. Due to my not using magic, I didn’t need to put points
into the intelligence statistic, and was free to overload the agility
statistic. Hey, I may have been the dumbest character, but I was fast and
strong, and I did finish the game, which is more than I can say for those
spell casters I came across!
The quests are many and varied, and
quite interesting for the most part. I think this is one of the higher
points for this game, as some of the quests are particularly creative. One
quest has you figuring out how to win out over an invisible demon that has
made off with a chain necessary for a castle to operate its machinery.
Another quest involves you in a love triangle, and another one in the
politics of the town. There is often more than one way to get the points
for solving the quest. How you interact with people and how you solve some
of the quests has an effect on your character, and you can be good or
evil. Those attributes will ultimately decide which ending you get in the
game, so it is obviously replayable. At certain points a visual effect
appears on screen to indicate how your choices have affected your good or
evil status. This is also a nice touch.
Inventory space is unlimited (a
welcome factor in the game), with no limit placed on the number of items
the character can haul around according to her strength statistic.
“‘Tis not enough to help the feeble
up. But to support him after.”*
I was happy to not have to feed or
rest my character, as this is a tedious task to me when forced to do so in
a game. You do have the ability to have her rest when she needs to regain
strength, and you can carry a one-use tent with you, or obtain lodging in
town.
One of the biggest flaws I found with
the game was that it is apt to crash. It crashed seven times for no
fathomable reason, and I had to reboot. I was saving like a maniac anyway
due to all the random battles one comes across while ambling through the
countryside. But the crashes are still frustrating, especially after you
have just won something particularly difficult. On one occasion, a
necessary scene did not display my first two times through the section,
making a quest item unobtainable.
So sum it up already
Despite its flaws, I enjoyed playing
Neverend. The quests were creative and the story line was strong.
The opponents were varied and different in appearance and abilities from
any other game I’ve played. I will be looking forward to the next venture
from the development team, Mayhem Studios.
70%
*With apologies to William
Shakespeare.
October 2006
design copyright ©
2006
GameBoomers
Group
