Monday, February 24, 2014

Reaper - A Tale of a Pale Swordsman

Genre: Platformer, RPG, hack and slash

Platform: IOS, PC

Developer: Hexage

Release Date: 9. Sept. 2013

 

 

The good:

- artistic style

- story

The bad:

- choosing a side is not that important

- battles get boring

- the sound

I have to tell, I'm not a fan of IOS games to play on PC, or a version of them for PC, and this is not an exception. They are either too short, or too repetitive, or interesting but not challangeing enough, so I get bored, and there are so many game that are soo similar, it's not even worth it after the third Temple Run copy. I know it's hard for a game to come up with something original, and for mobile games are even less options, but still there are some original games, so it's not impossible. I have to admit, this game has some original mix of elements.


At first I only tried it because it looked cute. I don't know how it plays on a phone, but for a PC game it's a little dull. It's a simple game, with a mix of RPG elements (leveling, choices, inventory and equipment, XP), combined with action, hack and slash (couple of combinations for battles). Although this is not too innovative. The enemies come in waves or attack you by walking near, and they get harder to kill as you level up. At first it's is nicely balanced, but later on it gets boring that too much XP is needed for the next level, and after a couple of levels you can't buy much many new stuff and you loose interesting, since there is not enough reward. 


Every level you get to shoose a new skill, you have to choose from several cards, but it gets annoying that in one level-up you get two cards you want, in the next neither is good for you and you can't go back to choose from the last cards. All in all it's a pretty casual game, and I don't think it needed a PC release.


The best thing in the game is the artistic style, and the story is kind of interesting, that's the only thing that kept me playing. A lone pale little cutie knight (although everybody in the game notices how sickly and ghostly he looks) gets caught in a war between the local tribes of the Wilderness, the magic users, and the soldiers who want to take their land and oily thing (oh the irony). You can take sides, choose who to be friends with, although not always, and if you want to level you have to make quests for each sides, plus there is your friend, Old Grey Beard, who helps you the whole time. 


The graphics are nice, there are a variety of enemies, everything looks in place, the colors as well. The levels are varied, they have diversified backgrounds and matching enemies, so they did a nice job with that. The only thing that bothered me was the music. I don't think that's the music you choose for a game like this. But that's only my opinion.


I don't recommend buying this game for PC, although for phone it's acceptable, and it's better than the other games I have recently played, or unless you like simplier little RPG games, maybe for a little relaxing to turn your brain off.

Final Score:

5/10

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