Elar: Tales of Heroes (Demo)

Intro

"Elar: Tales of Heroes" is a project that will probably never get past the demo stage considering the last update of note was back in December of 2007. While the site does mention an update back in 2017. This update is in reference to a review posted by PentagonBuddy. As for why the developer posted the demo and then went radio silent on this project. I have no idea. Admittedly this project seems to have been released as part of a release something event back in 2007. At least Archfiend, the developer, posted on a thread about this project titled "RELEASE SOMETHING! DAY".

Though that still doesn't explain why this project was simply left to rot over the years. There are some things to like here, but I suppose I have more complaints than compliments to give.

Story

You begin the game playing as Athan and his friends who've managed to corner the demon lord Malfas in a cave. Unfortunately for them this part of the game is meant to serve as a prologue for the main game. So Athan and his friends are destined to fail. Though my problem with this prologue is that actually is possible for Athan to defeat Malfas.



My problem is this doesn't have any apparent impact on the narrative beyond maybe a few lines since you still get cut scene killed right after. And winning this fight deserves a more substantial reward in my opinion considering it takes around 30 minutes to defeat Malfas in a battle that is extremely tedious. This is because you'll spend large portions of the fight on guarding and healing yourself in order to create opportunities to successfully get in a hit or two before guarding and healing again. In a way it reminds me of the fights with Haze Shield, a dragon, in the game "7th Dragon" that can take upwards of 10 minutes to defeat. Albeit those battles are at least partially influenced by your party composition and are still way shorter than the 30 minutes needed to take down Malfas.

At any rate after bearing witness to the prologue we begin the game proper with us getting introduced to Sarda, the grandson of Athan and the world's future hero. Of course, this means we also have to go from having a party filled with people with all kinds of interesting skills and abilities to playing as a level one character who doesn't have a single skill. And if your smart you'll definitely pay a visit to the training center in order to learn moves like defense stance and double attack. Otherwise your going to be in for a hard time trying to deal with the various monsters outside of town.

Of course, after getting in some basic grinding we begin to put together a party when we try to leave the starting town for Silvercrest. A city that can only be reached by traversing a dangerous route filled to the brim with murderous bandits. As a result we decide to try a different route through a goblin infested mine after learning the mine has a secret exit that leads to the base of the mountain were currently on. A journey that will lead us to meet our first teammate.

Afterwards we agree to help her reach Silvercrest even if we have to cut down hundreds of bandits in the process of getting there. Thankfully the bandits are pretty useless if your properly outfitted since our new companion has access to a cheap healing skill that makes the bandits attacks utterly meaningless. They might as well be throwing teddy bears at us. At least the teddy bears falling off the side of the mountain to never be seen again might hurt our morale. Of course, it's during the process of turning bandits into mincemeat that we meet our final teammate and stumble into a fight where she's completely useless if you haven't gone back to town to get her new gear.

Thankfully the fight against the demo's final boss is still winnable even if you only have access to upgraded gear for Sarda and Meredith, but you better have some time on your hands since it will take about fifteen minutes to defeat the demo's final boss if you find yourself in this situation.

Afterwards we get introduced to a person that would have probably served as a major antagonist in this game and his efforts to manipulate things in his favor.



Though why he trusted a bunch of stupid bandits to do his bidding is beyond me. You'd think a guy this worried about how future events plays out would have sent someone a lot more powerful right from the get go.

Outside of the basic plotline which seems pretty standard the game does feature a few instances where text is being slightly cut off by the game's dialogue boxes. And the game includes one notable misspelling where the word hero is spelt "hiro".



Gameplay

The demo features a turn-based combat where the player recovers a single mana point after selecting their action for the turn. And this mana recovery can be taken advantage of in longer fights if you have access to skills that restore your health. In fact, this aspect of the game makes the final fight with the undead bandit captain a joke since both Meredith and Alana can easily stay alive if they keep spamming cure light wounds since they'll get back two to three rounds of health on a skill that only costs one mana point to us. So it can be endlessly spammed. And if they weren't hit they can heal Sarda in order to keep him in the fight as well.

If anything my biggest disappointment with this game is how leveling works. In this game when you gain levels it really doesn't seem to impact your stats beyond health in any way. As a result this game places a heavy emphasis on equipment, but the demo doesn't seem to have any plans to do anything interesting with the player's gear to make this emphasis on purchasing better weapons, armors, and accessories particularly worthwhile beyond the offensive and defense stats they grant the player. You'd think in a system like this one they would grant the player access to various abilities as well. That way the player has to argue about the utility of the abilities on the gear as well as how powerful they are stat wise.

Outside of that major misstep the demo also features fights that simply overstay their welcome. This is because the game's various bosses have more hit points than is healthy in my opinion. I realize a lengthy battle with a boss can definitely add tension, but in turn-based games like this one a lengthy fight where you slowly chip away at the enemy while never needing to really adapt to their tactics is boring in a way that makes your brain go numb from lack of use.

Graphics

The game uses a combination of original assets, freely available assets, and the RTP. Thankfully the various graphics do blend together rather well. Though I suppose this does mean "Elar: Tales of Heroes" looks like a game that relied entirely on the RTP even though that isn't the case.

Sound

Sound wise the game is mostly alright, but the theme played during battle really annoys me at times. A problem only made worse by the developer including battles that take 15 to 30 minutes to clear. So the parts of the combat theme that grate on my ears are going to be heard on an never ending loop for quite a while.

Conclusion

I think if this game didn't feature such boringly long boss fights I would be a lot more positive about it, but that 30 minute battle with Malfas killed a lot of my goodwill towards this project. As such, I probably wouldn't have been particularly looking forward to playing this one. At least if I had been around and played this demo when it originally dropped.