Zendir: A New World

Opening on a tiny ideologically deficient island called Galdora, Zendir: A new World is the first in an ongoing trilogy outlining the story of Zaphod Zaphilia, a young magic user hounded from her home village for the practice of magic, which is being blamed for the erosion of the island and the failure of crops. Think of it as a fantasy version of greenhouse gas. Zaphilia has a childhood friend, and inevitable love interest, Zane (yes there's a nomenclature theme) who offers her a way out. A trip off this island of Luddites to the mainland of Zendir and the New Magic Academy where she can perfect her gift.


That would be 'squawk'.

Of course it would hardly be an adventure if everything was that simple, and it appears that the issues which have affected the islanders are also being felt on the mainland, and it becomes the quest of Zaphilia and Zane, as well as a bunch of other hero types luckily not all beginning with Z, to try and discover what is going on, heal the land and in the process restore faith in that most magical of arts, magic itself.

The game doesn't give a lot of back-story other than a quite ridiculous tale of vicious abandonment on the part of the main character's parents, who after she uttered her first word and set the curtains on fire, put out the flames and then left her alone in the house and just walked away. I know this is a game and a fantasy one at that and therefore real world comparisons are not always relevant, but I have a lot of problems with this scenario. Firstly most children start speaking around 11 -14 months, so supposedly this year-old baby was left to fend for itself inside its home and somehow miraculously survived to adulthood as no mention is made of foster parents or being looked after by anyone else, and secondly Zaphilia remembers this incident perfectly. Magic user I can accept and embrace, SuperBaby™ with hyperthymesia, not so much. In addition, whilst a lot is made of the fact that some of the residents of the island treat magic use as the equivalent of sleeping with your poodle, not everyone does and indeed there is a Magic Academy on the island itself, it's where Zaphilia goes to learn so it's not as if it is a universal condemnation. The Magic Academy which according to some is the root of all the evils on the island was only founded 15 years previously and whilst Zaphilia's age is not specifically mentioned there is no way she is younger than 15 and is probably closer to the end of her teenage years than the beginning. So there would have been no reason for her parents to have condemned her for her ability before the negative effects on which that condemnation is based had even been made manifest. In other words the tragic back-story simply doesn't hold water.

Still as Mark Twain said, never let the truth get in the way of a good story, or even a mediocre one.

Battles are classic front view turn based without any customisation except for one strange one, the battle music seems to play at about half normal speed, which really doesn't work at all, given the fact that the battles are nothing to write home about, having the theme slow down to a crawl just makes then seem even more uninteresting.

Speaking of music, a lot of the music in the game is taken from Gyrowolf's music pack as well as pieces from Aaron Krogh's pack, Nick Shurtleff (ReactiveOwl ) and Eric Carter. They're used moderately well, either highlighting a moment or fading onto the background as they are supposed to, though there are some that are oddly chosen, high speed and energetic themes for little towns for instance which hardly fit the circumstances, but they are fairly easy to ignore in those cases.

A big problem in the first dungeon and unfortunately repeated later is that the battles are random and the frequency seems to be set at around 10-20 steps which is just ridiculous. It's obvious the developer wished to grind the player so they would be ready to take on the first boss fight after a very short dungeon, but constant attacks by either a single bat or a duo of bats is not the way to go about it. There are also some odd zoning choices when it comes to later enemies, in the same stretch of forest you can encounter some run of the mill spiders and hornets which take at most a round to wipe out, and then a few steps later be faced with a troupe of bandits who can KO two of your characters in a single attack but seem utterly incapable of harming a third, it's completely unbalanced and impossible to predict.

Skills are learnt not via levelling up but through learning, in the case of the first two spells that Zaphilia gains from the headmaster of the Magic Academy or via tomes, which can be found throughout the world. In addition there are scrolls which offer a one shot spell use to anyone, spell-caster or not. It's a good idea to visit the magic shop in each town; there is generally a magic tome to steal somewhere inside, as well as the occasional inklings of humour.


This is funnier after you meet him.

With one exception the graphics all appear to be the default, though some work has gone into making the face-sets, which though stuck on a single expression do match each of the character sprites well. The exception is the hermit's home and 'shed' which uses Celinna's lovely tiles. That particular map has to be my favourite in the entire game, not just for the rich and interesting look but the music chosen for that small area is lovely and perfectly suited.

The mapping otherwise however is fairly bland with a lot of towns and spaces suffering from the over use of symmetry and the irritating road to nowhere where areas that cannot be accessed are not visually represented as such, and maps occasionally suffering from the exit stage left syndrome, which I must admit is a pet peeve of mine.

Zendir is a remarkably sparsely populated world, with quite a number of seeming villages that are not accessible, not that they are blocked off for plot reasons, just they're village and town tiles that the developer has not actually turned into villages or towns. In addition the new Magic Academy, one of the goals of our heroine and her troupe actually has a warning that the map is still in Beta stage and shouldn't be entered. Even though you can enter it and you need to enter it to get some additional information about the main villain, not to mention the most powerful of the water elemental tomes. There are some highlights in the village's stakes, my favourite being one which is situated down a blind valley surrounded on all sides by a lava maze. I imagine it's quite a hazardous trek to reach it fighting untold dangers and probably gaining a few levels and a bucket load of gold, sorry Zaldons, but since I didn't find it until after I obtained the airship, it was pretty much a doddle to reach and contained some of the better weapons and items in the game. Not to mention some company starved inhabitants who let you stay for free and even give you a side quest.

Still after a somewhat directionless trek around this aforementioned sparsely populated world you eventually track down the villain of the piece, whose identity has been known to you for more than half the game in his flying sky castle, yes, that's right, in a world where the King has disdain for magic and the heroine has been run out of her home-town on a rail we have a magical flying castle, just move on and ignore it, it's the only way to continue. So after fighting our way past a bunch of palace guards who die with remarkable ease once the 8-year-old with the bow gets a shot in (pardon the pun) but who do drop a fair amount of moolah Zaldons we come face to face with the villain and his protégé. He spouts some evil villain ending monologue and promptly disappears to allow his offsider to get wiped by you and then you follow him into the, seriously, netherworld. At no point in this game has the concept of an afterlife or indeed any sort of religious or spiritual minded people ever shown their faces, and suddenly we have a netherworld. It's ok though even though the place is full of lakes of fire burning eternal, there are no demons, just element spirits you get to kill for no experience.


Oops, spoke too soon.

So after you take out the mystical mystery man and his demon sidekick, the world is saved from the magical greenhouse gases, the crops healthy and the water clear again, so those seagulls can squark to their heart's content. Personally I'm going to take the final advice of the characters and head for a drink, after this, I deserve it.