Shadow's Reach

Story and Dialogue:

I’m not going to comment much on the story, the fact that it’s a demo didn’t allow me to get to deep into the story. In fact, just when it started to take shape, the demo ended…

But from what I can gather the story is a bit within the norm, there seems to be an evil plot involving one of the Party members brother and a dark magician, although it’s mostly something you’ve seen before, the way that its handled and the way it comes about is interesting.

For the most part the dialogue is great, each character has its own personality and normally adds something interesting to the conversation whenever they speak. Errol provides the light heartedness and comedy while the others are much more serious and allow the story to progress in a way that Errol does not. Textboxes are not normally wasted on pointless chatter, issues are normally to the point. The game itself is actually quite funny at times, I enjoyed its style of humour right from the start. For example, Errol believes in an crazy imaginary god, the god of shiny things, or when group of Bandits kidnap and try to cook Errol who then befriends a cat, the party fail to even notice that Errol has been taken (this is portrayed better in the game obv)

Game Play:

The Game Play is very traditional for an RPG, I doubt this needs much explanation. There is an EXCELLENT balance of game play here, you’re never bored in a cut-scene and each have enough things going on to keep you interested, until you can control your character again. While playing there’s tons of NPCs to interact with and big towns to explore. The demo even includes side quests, mini-games and hidden boss battles! An aspect of this I did like, is that you’re quite free in this game, its not spoon fed to you, it doesn’t take long before you can have a stroll along the world map and do as you please. However the dungeons can be another story, there are a big lack of puzzles in this game, and you’re never really being challenged…

My biggest problem with this in the game was that the battles are pointlessly easy. You learn a good amount of skills during the demo, but the occasion never really calls for you to use them except in the odd boss fight, which normally also offers little challenge. The enemies fall after two or so attacks and rarely even damage you. It’s not long before you find yourself getting bored with them and either running or selecting the auto-fight function.

There was a really annoying quest which required you to cross over a Mountain Pass to get to the next town, you end up having to escort a magician back over the Mountain Pass and then back another time right afterwards just to advance in the story, that’s three times, that’s a big no no.

Graphics and Sounds:

Enker does a good job with his mapping, while never visually amazing or mind-blowing, it’s always a pleasure and not a chore to walk through his maps. None of the chipsets clash or look completely out of place when going from one map to the other. Everything fits well, and most have a nice amount of detail.

For me personally the music is sometimes a bit of a let down. There’s nothing wrong with Enker’s skill to create an atmosphere or to find music that fits with the type of place you’re exploring. Except almost all the music is from Final Fantasy, while some people don’t consider this a problem, sometimes its nice to have a bit of originality, its all a matter of opinion, the music does fit, but it would be nice to hear something a little less common.

Overview:

I’ll get right to the point, this game is fun. It’s full of extras and little details (Like your characters actually going up to the enemy and attacking). I awarded this a strong 3.5 (I was toying with a 4) but a few issues let it down a bit too much, I hope these issues are solved in a later demo, because this is a real gem of a game. I’m afraid that most people are afraid to try this game because of the huge file size and its in what most consider an old program, which is a real shame.
Great work Enker, I enjoyed playing through the whole demo. I recommend Shadow’s Reach!

SCORE NOT AVAILABLE, AS IT IS ONLY A DEMO.