Three Sons - Chapter 1

Hello!
"Three Sons - Chapter 1" is the first part of a game released by ralphthefifth, author of the Learson series, that was made of four chapters, but sadly only the pages and the old reviews exists on this site, and the games aren't available. BUT who cares? Because "Three Sons - Chapter 1" is a remake of that series, with different original graphics and maybe also other changes... well, I guess!

The game is set in a low fantasy world (no wizards, elves or other races: it's a world of humans where magic is uncommon, powerful and scary) that in the past was threatened by an evil man, the Dark Knight and his army of demons. But a hero and protector of the people, Deus, arrive to challenge him. Deus fought the Dark Knight and won, so the world was finally living a period of peace. But many years after that time the world is at war as armies of the east attack the armies of the west, and people are wondering if Deus will came back to protect them once again, or if the Dark Knight still lives and is behind this crisis!

The game starts with David, a one-eyed redhead wanderer is following a trail of bodies to the ruins of the Dark Knight's fortress, left by a murderous group of outlaws called The Mad Dogs. But it seems that their leader, Valx, is no more with them, so David keeps searching because has a score to settle with this bandit: apparently Valx killed David's lover Lucy and his daughter in the past, but wait, there is more! David is really the Dark Knight, that is slowly getting his memories and abilities back, and was leaving a peaceful life before the arrival of Valx.


David is determined to find Valx, nothing can stop him, and he will reach his arch enemy at the end of this chapter! Still the story goes on...

We get to see what sort of psychopath is Valx, but we also play as two other characters, such as Ralph, a drunkard that lives in a town of the west that is at was with the violent tribes of the east. Ralph has strange dreams, a love-and-hate relationship with a strong woman named Riley (has a faceset, so she must be important!) and a son, Mark, that lives in a distant big city. He clearly wants to see his son after so many years, despite the state of war.
And the war is a central theme for the third playable character, Thomas, an officer of the army of the west that wears one of those cool blue mantles. His story is the shortest and is about finding a traitor and murderer hidden among the soldiers, but during this task he will enconter a strange woman...

In the meantime we learn also some details about Deus, that now is worshipped as a god: he had a disciple, Raphael, who received the gift of immortality from him, but he was corrupted by the Dark Knight and lost his memories (he will get them back only when he will touch his sword), becoming a violent berserker and attacking his master. After the Dark Knight was defeated, he went to the east where he created a town (remmber the evil tribes of the east?) and then disappeared. Since he was immortal and amnesiac he could be one of the other protagonists... who knows?

The game isn't a real rpg but more like an interactive visual novel adventure: we walk around, talk with people, read the dialogues and perform some little tasks like finding items or characters (like when Ralph has to play hide-and-seek with some children). Some dialogues are interactive and give up to 3-4 different answers, letting us behave seriously or stupidly, mercifully or cruelly. I do not know if this changes the story or not, but technically there are five endings to the full game, so... maybe!


What are these things? I don't know, anway to do anything you just have to press the Spacebar. This will be also sufficient to kill them... I hope!

Beside exploration and moving around you just need to press Spacebar to talk to people, interact with items (like usin stairs, for example) and also battle and defeat enemies. As I mentioned before there are no real battles and everything happens automatically. Still you can use some diaries scattered here and there to save your game.

The visuals are VERY pretty, I liked them! They reminds to me the atmosphere and sense of wonder of some old fantasy games I played like the Faery Tale Adventure or the Exile series by Spiderweb, ok they were different games and here there are no battles, still the stylized characters and environments have a distinct charm. Characters and everything else in the world is composed of pastel colored shapes and it's a cool original and charming style, the only thing I did not like too much where the (few) facesets that were all very similar and also used an odd green color to rapresent the blonde hair... uhm how weird!

Mapping is pretty good, even if sometimes it's a bit difficult to understand where you're supposed to go because of the presence of tunnels and pinnacles (most maps are vertically structured, the game is mainly set on the snowy mountains) that can obscure the position of our character and hide some passages. Besides this there is no indication of the tasks you have to complete, anyway just talk to everyone will be sufficient. Well there are the nly flaws I found except maybe for a couple of typos, but they were just two, really!
Music is also good, but it's used very sparingly, sounds are ok instead.


Did you really name him "BLONDE" man? Uhm ok... but he looks like a highlighting pen!

Final Verdict
"Three Sons - Chapter 1" took me two hours (and 5-10 minutes) to complete, and I did have fun! The gameplay is just about walking around and talking to people, but the story is cool and I like how the stories of the various characters are different but they are interwined even if technically they never meet each other (at least in this chapter). I like that the game starts as a classic "once there was evil, evil was defeated by a good man, but now no one is here to protect the people" and the it makes you doubt of this: was the Dark Knight really evil? Was Deus the good brave hero, or it's just a myth? Aside from Valx, that seems to be totally nuts, no one in this world seems to be "good" or "bad", and these shades of grey contrast with the (classic and boring) good vs evil premise.

I know that the story does not end with this chapter one, but I found it very captivating, the visuals are also evocative and cool, the characters are different and memorable (from the sarcastic Ralph to the serious David, from the tough Riley to the crazy Valx) and interesting, and it really made me curious about what's going on.
Overall a good beginning, it's just a pity that's not possible to see the impact of the choice done in this first part (even if I played it only once, so I'm not sure), anyway it's a promising starting point!